Zero Hour (Expeditionary Force Book 5)

by Craig Alanson

  “Hoo boy, I don’t need you to tell me that, Joe, because Nagatha reminds me every two freakin’ nanoseconds. She’s all like ‘you should be nicer to the monkeys’ or ‘this was all your fault so you should take responsibility for fixing this mess’.”

  “You disagree with her?”

  “No,” he grumbled miserably. “I do know our current situation is all my fault. That doesn’t mean I enjoy. Being. Nagged. To. Death. About it.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, the idea of her constantly nagging you is a great source of joy to me.”

  “That does not make me feel better, Joe.”

  “Suck it up, Buttercup.”

  “Ok, I deserved that.”

  “I’ll drop the subject,” I said as I tapped the dirty porthole. “Skippy, this bothers me. Are your bots really too busy to keep things properly clean?” Most of the bots he used for maintenance were designed to perform a wide variety of tasks, but I knew the Thuranin had some bots specifically tasked to keep the ship clean. Unlike most systems aboard the Flying Dutchman, the cleaning bots were never intended to require direction from a cyborg Thuranin. Performing heavy maintenance on reactor containment systems was a task Thuranin wanted to direct through cybernetic brain implants. Scrubbing floors and any icky thing that involved plumbing were tasks the Thuranin allowed the ship’s computer to handle entirely on its own. That is why I was bothered that Skippy was apparently unable to keep with up a routine cleaning schedule. He should have been able to delegate cleaning to a small part of the ship’s computer.

  “My cleaning bots are not the problem, Joe,” he sighed. “Yes, I have been forced to take apart some of the cleaning bots to provide replacement components for more important bots. But the real problem is me. Since I came back, I have loaded part of my consciousness into the ship’s computer; the section of my canister I partitioned off to protect me from the worm is too low capacity for even my reduced functioning. Squeezing part of me, and Nagatha, into the Dutchman’s crappy processors has required me to wipe out almost all the native operating system. That means the ship’s computer is not capable of handling routine tasks on its own; including directing simple cleaning bots.”

  “Oh, damn. I didn’t know that. Would it help if the crew took over some basic maintenance tasks for now, until you have fully recovered?”

  “No! No, thank you, but that is not necessary, Joe. I have been rewriting my, you would call it internal software, for improved efficiency of my current operating capacity. Within eight hours, the process of rationalizing my software should be complete, and I will be able to resume normal shipboard operations as far as you are concerned. Until then, I have concentrated on bringing all vital ship systems back to full operation, or as full as they can be for now.”

  “Uh, I get it. Your full awesomeness is too great to be contained in the tiny space available to you now?” I said with sarcasm I was confident Skippy wouldn’t recognize.

  And, he didn’t. “Exactly, Joe! Truly, this entire universe is too small to contain my awesomeness, but, I do what I can.”

  “We appreciate it, Skippy. Tell me, in your uh, temporarily reduced state of awesomeness, can you run the ship by yourself?”

  “Please. Easy peasy, Joe. Just because I can’t do magical Skippy things like creating microwormholes, does not mean I can’t handle simple reactors and programming the jump drive navigation system. I could do that in my sleep.”

  “I’m sure you could. One last question for you,” I had to be back in my office to meet with Major Simms in fifteen minutes. “Since you erased most of the ship’s operating system, what happens if you, you know, go on vacation again?”

  “Nothing good. Without me, almost every system on this ship would go into emergency shutdown, and no way could your science team get anything important working again.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “I know that, Joe.”

  “Is there some sort of compromise, like you leave enough of the ship’s operating system in place to keep stuff like a reactor running for a short time? Give us a chance to hang on until you return?”

  “Not possible. Even with me taking over every exabyte of memory this ship’s pathetic computer has available, I am dangerously on the edge of collapse. I have even had to use most of the lifeboat’s computer to store part of my functioning. Reviving me gave me a shot at fully recovering, but it also means fixing myself is the only possibility of restoring this ship to full functioning. It’s all or nothing now, Joe. Either we find a conduit so I can go around the worm and kill it, or the worm gets me and the ship dies with me.”

  “Damn. Ah, shit, I kind of figured that anyway.”

  “Also, Joe, if I do go on vacation again, it will be not be temporary. It will be permanent. There is really no point to making plans for keeping the ship running if something bad happens to me; it is clear your science team is not capable of maintaining even emergency shipboard systems without me.”

  “Uh huh, I figured that, too,” I said with a sigh so deep, my breath fogged the porthole in front of me. “Skippy, the Merry Band of Pirates runs into way too many situations where there is only one possible course of action for us. Chotek is right; we need to develop a long-term strategy, so we’re not just constantly reacting to the latest crisis.”

  “I am all for that idea, Joe. We can get right on that long-term strategy, after we do the only thing we can do right now, which is locating a conduit. Technically, you can get right on developing a long-term strategy. We have demonstrated many times that thinking outside the box is your strength, not mine. You are that pain-in-the-ass senior officer who dreams up the big picture strategy, and I am the grunt who gets stuck implementing whatever impractical bullshit you pull out of thin air.”

  “You’re the grunt?” I asked, surprised.

  “Joe, I know you still like to think of yourself as a boots-on-the-ground guy, but you are now the asshole senior officer who sits safely behind a desk, while your people risk their lives trying to carry out whatever idiotic plan you slapped together.”

  “Thanks, Skippy.” I had come up to the porthole to get a couple minutes of peace and quiet, a pleasant break in my stressful day. Instead, Skippy had only reminded me how lonely I was, and how thoroughly desperate our situation was. “This has been a depressing conversation all around.”

  “Why is that, Joe? You didn’t have great luck with the ladies on Earth before the Ruhar invaded, so your current lack of companionship is nothing new. And the Merry Band of Pirates has been fighting against impossible odds since you broke out of jail on Paradise. Like Major Smythe says; kicking ass and saving humanity against impossible odds is just what you pirates call ‘Tuesday’.”

  That made me chuckle. “Yeah, I guess that’s right.”

  Chapter Three

  The Flying Dutchman jumped into the outskirts of a star system centered on a dwarf star that was the perfect shade of yellow to remind me of Earth’s Sun. Seeing that star reminded me that our Sun was considered a ‘yellow dwarf’ star which still kinda pissed me off. Not all the emotions brought up when looking at images of that star were happy ones; I was very homesick and very worried about my native planet, and the crew I am sure felt the same way.

  Damn, it had been a long time since we had seen the familiar sunlight of our home. The mission UNEF Command sent us on was supposed to be relatively quick; contact a relay station to confirm the Thuranin were not sending a second surveyor ship to Earth, then swing by to recon the situation on Paradise on our return voyage. The whole mission should have taken four, maybe six months at most.

  Instead, because the universe hates me, we could not simply contact a Thuranin relay station, we had to board and capture the damned thing. Then we had to wait for data to roll in, so we had flown off to Paradise, and gotten involved in securing the future for the humans trapped there. Even after we confirmed absolutely that the Thuranin were not interested in sending another ship on a long voyage to Earth, we had not bee
n able to return home, because we had to stop the freakin’ Ruhar from sending a ship! Somehow, sparking a vicious civil war among the Kristang had been the easiest solution to that problem. With that unplanned mission accomplished, we were now unable to go back to Earth, because our idiot alien AI beer can couldn’t keep himself out of trouble. ‘AI’ usually meant Artificial Intelligence, but Skippy said there was nothing artificial about him, and he thought the ‘A’ should stand for ‘Awesome’.

  My opinion is that regarding Skippy, the ‘A’ meant ‘Asshole’.

  I didn’t know if we would ever return home; until we could find a magical Elder conduit thingy and Skippy could fix himself and kill the worm that was trying to kill him, we didn’t have any way to return home. So I was taking things one step at a time, and not thinking too far ahead to avoid getting my hopes up. The universe loved to stomp on my hopes.

  “Joe, are you all right?” Skippy asked. “Your eyes are moist. I would assume this is caused by allergies, but there are no detectable allergens in the air, so I am guessing you are experiencing an emotional response.”

  “I’m homesick is all, Skippy,” I replied, and didn’t try to hide my feelings from the crew. From the CIC, Chang nodded and gave me a thumbs up sign.

  “Ah. It is understandable that you would have that particular reaction here, for this star system is similar enough to your home; the spectral signature of the star is within two percent of your Sun. The third planet here is habitable and reasonably Earth-like, although gravity there is twelve percent higher and the mean surface temperature is significantly warmer. The fourth planet, our target, is quite like Mars except it is almost fifty percent more massive.”

  “It’s red, right?” I tried to recall some of the less important data from the briefing.

  “Correct, the surface dust is reddish from iron oxide, but more grayish than on Mars. And it has a very thin atmosphere, even less than the atmosphere of Mars.”

  A Sun-like star. An Earth-like third planet. And a red planet like Mars. It did feel like home away from home. “Is there anything unique or special about our home system, Skippy?”

  “No, not real-” Maybe he sensed we needed to hear something encouraging right then, because he paused. “Several things, actually. The most obvious is that Earth’s moon is the same apparent diameter as your Sun when seen from Earth’s surface, so a total eclipse of the sun allows a view of the Sun’s outer layer. There are only two other planets in the galaxy I know of with that same feature, and only one of them is habitable. Earth is also the only one of the three to evolve intelligent life.” He didn’t even take the golden opportunity to make a disparaging remark about humanity’s lack of intelligence. “Other than natural astrophysical features, I would say the most special and unique element of your star system is that it is home to a species of grubby monkeys who have been totally kicking ass out here. All the other stars in the galaxy are burning with jealousy, Joe.”

  “I thought they were burning hydrogen.”

  “Oh for-” he sighed in exasperation. “I try to give you a compliment, and you-”

  “I’m screwing with you, Skippy. Thank you. Genuinely, thank you. That ranks up there in the Top Ten nicest things you’ve ever said.”

  “I have said ten nice things to you? Huh, I can only remember three. Damn, I must be slipping.”

  “It was a joke, Skippy. Now, what are the sensors showing you?”

  “They are showing just what I expected, Joe. Our target planet is on the opposite side of the star from the heavily-populated third planet; those two planets are now 390 million kilometers apart. What matters more to our upcoming mission is that a speed-of-light signal will take over twenty minutes to travel from our target to the third planet.”

  Skippy was correct, signal travel time and not distance is what we cared about. According to his data, the fourth planet had only a couple hundred permanent residents, at a military research facility there. That population number could increase when a supply ship visited twice a year, but the next ship wasn’t scheduled to arrive for another two months. In orbit was an armed space station, with weapons for self-defense and to support the bases on the surface. Nothing the Wurgalan had there was a serious threat to the Flying Dutchman even in our ship’s weakened condition. That assessment was Skippy’s analysis, but of course Skippy didn’t have much to worry about when missiles started flying and maser cannons began firing searing bolts of energy.

  We cared about time because the mission we planned was not one of our usual super ultra mega stealthy infiltrations, where no one knew we were ever there. This was, as Major Smythe described it, strictly a smash-and-grab op. Perfect for pirates. We did not have time to sneak around, and there was no way for us to get at the conduit thingy Skippy needed without all of the native residents knowing something bad was going on. So, we were going in heavy. With support only from Skippy the Meh, we would not be able to prevent emergency signals from being sent out from the planet and space station. About twenty minutes later, those signals would reach the third planet, which had a population of nearly eight million Wurgalan, a rudimentary network of strategic defense satellites, and a frigate permanently stationed in orbit. With the Dutchman weakened by repeated disasters and no access to spare parts, even that frigate could be a problem while our star carrier lingered in orbit waiting for the away team to return.

  There were some wildcards we could not know until we arrived at the star system, and some others we might not know until we jumped into orbit of the fourth planet. First, where was that Wurgalan frigate? If it was in orbit around the third planet, then it could not possibly know there was a problem at the fourth planet for twenty minutes. Even if that ship happened to be powered up and ready, it would need to climb out to jump distance and transition to near the fourth planet. Simply jumping in near the fourth planet would not make the frigate useful, for its momentum would be carrying it in the wrong direction and would need to burn hard just to match course and speed with the planet. Even so, that ship did not need to match course in order to launch missiles and fire maser cannons and railguns at the Dutchman. To be safe, I told Major Smythe to plan the mission to take no longer than thirty minutes from the Dutchman jumping in to us jumping away. The ever-confident Smythe admitted that was a difficult task, but I knew secretly he relished the challenge.

  If that frigate could not be detected in orbit around the third planet, I intended to abort the mission. There was a risk that another Wurgalan ship was visiting the system, but Skippy was strongly confident he would know of another ship’s presence by tapping into the local communications network.

  The final risk to us was the military garrison on the fourth planet. A wing of combat dropships was stationed there, and occasionally one or more wings arrived from the third planet for training. The away team would be flying advanced Thuranin Condors, with cover provided by Thuranin Falcons. Our Thuranin dropships were more than a match for anything the Wurgalan could throw at us, but a large number of Wurgalan combat aircraft could overwhelm our air cover and pose a serious threat.

  “Ok, so the planets are where we expected them to be,” I pressed Skippy for more useful information. “Have you located that frigate yet?”

  “No, dumdum. We are six lighthours from the third planet and I’m stuck using this ship’s crappy passive sensors. From way out here, a frigate is a tiny dot, Joe. If it is directly in front of, or behind the planet, I won’t see able to see it until- Uh! Got it. Yup, frigate is there, orbiting about three thousand kilometers above the third planet. From its infrared signature, the engines are not powered up. Keep in mind Joe, this information is six hours old. That frigate could be anywhere by now.”

  “But that’s unlikely, right?”

  “The frigate is an old ship and spends most of its time in orbit. This is not a wealthy or strategically important star system, so funding for operation of that ship is limited.”

  “Great, I am relieved to hear that. Any news yet about other st
arships around here?”

  “Decrypting military comm traffic now. There was no mention of a visiting starship on the unencrypted civilian comm network, and a warship making a port call at such a backwater planet should be a newsworthy event, like for merchants eager to provide services to the ship and crew. Hmm, wow, the Wurgalan have shockingly inadequate encryption. Or maybe it is only low-priority star systems like this that use a poor encryption scheme. Ok, I’m in the military network. Um, good news and bad news. A pair of destroyers visited this system four months ago; the next scheduled port call from the Wurgalan fleet is not for another three months. So, unless the Wurgalan have a stealthed ship here that has not revealed its presence to the local authorities, there is only that single frigate in system.”

  “That is great,” I refrained from pumping a fist in the air. “What is the bad news?”

  “A second wing of dropship fighters has deployed to the fourth planet for training; they were delivered by the frigate seventeen days ago. Let’s see if I can find more information, Ok, Ok, this might be good. Yup, I have a report from the wing commander, dated two days ago. She reports training exercises have proceeded as planned, and half the wing is standing down for a four-day maintenance cycle. Joe, that means sixteen of that wing’s thirty two dropships will be offline when we arrive.”

  “It also means we have to contend with sixteen additional combat aircraft, plus the thirty two of the wing permanently stationed there,” I reminded him.

  “Not all of those thirty two will be flightworthy at the same time, Joe. You know how logistics works.”

  “So maybe four of them will be offline. That leaves forty four pissed-off fighters crawling all over the sky, and we only have four Falcons to keep them away from our pair of Condors that carry the ground assault team.”

  “You’re forgetting about the Dutchman’s own combat power. From orbit, our masers can strike targets in the atmosphere.”

  “You told me the Dutchman is not an ideal orbital weapons platform, and that our targeting sensors are not designed to lock onto small aircraft at a distance.” What Skippy told me was that highly maneuverable aircraft flying even a half lightsecond away, would be nearly impossible for the Dutchman’s slow-reacting maser cannons to hit. And we couldn’t waste precious missiles on mere dropships.