“You are not a military tactician,” I corrected him. “Planning an individual attack to support a strategy is tactics. Deciding what type of targets we should look for, and why, are strategy.”
“Po-TAY-toe, po-TAH-toe,” he gave me a verbal eyeroll. “You know what I mean. Anywho, before you interrupted me with irrelevant bullshit, I was about to tell you the news I just learned.”
“What is that?” Then I remembered his massive ego. “I am sorry, Your Awesomeness. I am unworthy, but please indulge me.”
“Hmmf,” he sniffed. “The news is, I received an answer from my inquiry about whether there is another troopship stuffed full or hateful frozen lizards near Earth.”
I froze, the file I had been reading forgotten. Before asking the question, I took a moment to mentally prepare myself for bad news. With us unable to return to Earth, our homeworld’s only real defense was the captured Kristang troopship Ice-Cold Dagger to the Heart. Or whatever that ship was called now, if the UN had renamed it for some politician.
“I have good news and bad news.”
“Of course you do. Hey, just to switch it up a little, how about sometimes you tell me you have only good news?”
“Don’t blame me, Joe. I’m just the messenger. Your beef is with the Universe.”
“Give me the good news first, Ok?”
“The good news is,” he played a drumroll. “No. No, there is not another ship full of hateful frozen lizards lurking near Earth. I found a record of the Dagger being sent to Earth. No other clan was interested in your little planet. Before you ask, my search program was very thorough.”
“Outstanding. That is great news.” Without having heard the bad news, I did not allow myself to relax. “The bad news is?”
“This is not necessarily bad. However, if it goes the wrong way, it could be catastrophic.”
Covering my face with my hands, I mumbled “Please, just tell me.”
“Well, heh heh, during the time when Thuranin star carriers were shuttling back and forth to Earth, before the White Wind clan ran out of money to pay those little green pinheads, the Bosphuraq got curious about what their rivals the Thuranin were really doing at such a remote, unimportant world.”
“Oh shit.”
“Yup. According to records the Maxolhx recently captured, the Bosphuraq sent a patrol cruiser through the Gateway wormhole. It was supposed to travel to Earth, spy on the Thuranin, and report back. Joe, that cruiser was never heard from again.”
“It could still be near Earth?”
“We don’t even know if it ever reached Earth. It may have been detected and destroyed by Thuranin warships. The tricky part is, that cruiser went through Gateway about four months before I shut down that wormhole the first time. So, it might have been trapped on the Earth side of Gateway.”
“Oh, this is bad.”
“Potentially bad,” he reminded me.
“We can’t assume that cruiser simply disappeared.”
“True. Because if it’s hanging out near Earth, that could be ‘adios muchachos’. If you know what I mean.”
“Yeah.”
“Anywho, nothing we can do about it, huh?” He said cheerily, demonstrating his impressive ability to compartmentalize. Or his lack of ability to care about anyone but himself. “How about we review that juicy target list?”
“Joe! Joe Joe Joe Joe Joe Joe-”
“Ah! What the hell is it, Skippy?” I sat upright in my bunk, or sat partly upright, automatically using one hand to shield my tender head from getting wacked against the overhead cabinet-
Which was not there, because I was aboard Valkyrie instead of the old Flying Dutchman. While my old bunk was almost too short and narrow, with a stupid cabinet that projected over each end, my new bunk was huge. Like, a king-sized bed. No, bigger, it was like a California king, I think that is the right term. It was designed for a Maxolhx, and while pinhead little green Thuranin cyborgs only needed room for one of them in a bunk, apparently the Maxolhx enjoyed the company of others in their beds. By ‘others’ I mean other Maxolhx, which I guess is Ok if you’re into fur. The cabin I occupied, which was bigger than the living plus dining room in my parents’ house, belonged to the former captain of the ship, and I had chosen it as my cabin for the same reason: it was close to the ship’s control center. Anyway, according to Skippy, the previous captain had entertained people of both genders in his cabin, in fact the place had been sort of a party palace. Along one wall, there used to be a bar stocked with a wide variety of liquid intoxicants, and substances that could be inhaled, ingested, applied to the skin or otherwise gotten into the bloodstream for pleasurable effect. Some of the substances were artificial hormones that could make a Maxolhx feel more of, whatever they wanted to feel at that time.
The bar was empty now, humans couldn’t drink or use any of those substances and I hadn’t wanted a reminder of the previous captain’s activities in the cabin. To tell the truth, I was a little bit jealous of the guy. Sure, he was a murderous asshole who would have enjoyed a glass of bourbon or whatever while nuking Earth to a cinder, but at least the guy hadn’t been lonely. Obviously, the Maxolhx military had no restriction against commanders having relationships, or relations if you know what I mean, with their crew. Hell, the previous captain had been boinking anyone he wanted to, and, yeah, the Maxolhx being aliens makes it kind of yuck to think about. All I wanted was someone to talk with.
Ok, yes, I wanted more than talk, but talk is what I really, really needed. The only person I had been able to talk freely with for years was Skippy, and he was such an arrogant asshole that I couldn’t really talk with him about anything important.
Yuck. Yeah, talking about ‘feelings’ makes me feel creepy, so pretend I said that in whatever way you want. Dammit, I was lonely, and if that makes you think I am weak, then the problem is with you, not me. Everyone needs someone they can talk with, someone they feel a connection with. Someone who understands what you are saying, and not saying. Because guys tend to suck at expressing their thoughts, I especially need someone who knows what I’m thinking even when I can’t think of the words to say it. Back in our old fireteam, Cornpone, Ski and I had that kind of bond. We knew whatever knuckleheaded thing each other were thinking, because usually we were thinking the same thing. Most of the time, we didn’t need to say anything, but it helped to talk anyway. It helped having those guys with me, because although we did insult each other and played practical jokes, we had each other’s backs and we could talk about how homesick we were, how we couldn’t understand what the hell our mission was supposed to be in Nigeria, and generally complain about everything the way soldiers do.
Now, I had no one to complain to. Like Tom Hanks’s character says in Saving Private Ryan, complaints go up the chain of command. The only person I could complain to was whoever was the latest general in charge of, whatever unit the US Army had assigned me to. Officially, I no longer belonged to the 10th Mountain. I had bounced around so much that I couldn’t remember what unit I was assigned to. At one point, I was part of a Homeworld Defense Special Operations battalion, until someone pointed out that battalions are usually commanded by a lieutenant colonel, and I am a full colonel.
Anyway, what was I talking about?
Oh, yeah, Skippy woke me up in the middle of the night again. Technically, it was the middle of the morning, because I had been pulling double shifts due to our personnel shortage, and had not collapsed into my luxurious bunk until 0830. As a vote of confidence in Skippy, and as an example to the crew, I was back to sleeping on my bed again. I said ‘on’ my bed, because I still slept in sweatpants, with two knives and a zPhone with me. But I was on the bed, and the cabin door was closed. “Is the ship on fire?”
“No.”
“Great. Then let me sleep.” Rolling over, I threw a pillow over my head. The pillow was a rolled-up wool sweater that made my nose itch.
“Joe!” I heard his voice muffled and tried to ignore him.
Until I shot
straight upright in the bed. “Shit! Is it Adams?” There was a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“No. Margaret is fine. Well, her condition is unchanged. That is not why I called you.”
“This is the middle of the night for me.”
“It is almost Noon ship time, Joe.”
The lights came on full brightness in my cabin. I could have performed surgery under those lights, and the glow came from the entire ceiling, not just a few point sources. Shielding my eyes with a hand, I groped for my shirt. Which I could not find, because while I slept, I had migrated into the center of the too-huge bed. “All right, all right, I’m getting up.” Rolling to the edge of the bed, I began to pull off my sweatpants.
“No need to get up,” he shouted hastily. “Ugh, the last thing I want to see is your junk. Please, keep your pants on.”
“Can you cut the lights down to the kiloton range, please?” The lighting immediately dimmed enough that I could no longer see the bones of my hand. “Thank you. What’s up?” Taking his word that I didn’t need to get up yet, I flopped back against the pillow sweater.
“This is something I should not need to tell you about, but since you are a micromanaging busybody, I will make a full disclosure. You know how, ever since I rebuilt my matrix in the Roach Motel, I have slowly been pushing back against my internal restrictions?”
“Yeah, and we monkeys are very grateful for your efforts. You have finally been able to share technology with us.”
He was hurt. “Is that all I am to you, Joe? A database?”
“Hey, no,” I sat up again, and found his avatar standing at the foot of the bed. “I was speaking for all mankind, you know? For me, myself, I am glad that you are getting around those restrictions, that have been blocking you from being who you want to be. From knowing who you are, buddy.”
“Thank you, Joe,” he sniffed, and not one of his disdainful sniffs. This was an overcome-by-emotion sniff.
“I mean it. You deserve to know the truth about yourself. And the truth about the assholes who left you buried in the dirt on Paradise. Why are you mentioning this now?”
“Because I think I have found a way to access my memories, the true, uncorrupted data.”
Whoa. I froze. That could change everything.
Or maybe not.
It depended on what he learned about The Truth.
And how he handled it. Especially if he didn’t like the truth. The worst scenario might be if he got close, but was unable to unlock the secrets inside him. “Before you tell me how you’re doing that, can you trust that data? How do you know it isn’t bogus, or that somebody like that computer worm screwed with it?”
“This is hard to explain, but I have access to the architecture of my original matrix. I will compare the matrix of my memories with what the original looked like. If anything has been altered, the architecture won’t match. Even if part of it is bogus, I should be able to determine how it was altered, and sort of unwind the changes. It’s complicated, you’ll have to trust me.”
“I will trust you to know if any memories you recover are genuine. What concerns me is, how do you plan to recover this data?”
“Again, it’s complicated. By analyzing the restrictions that I have partially been able to get around already, I am able to understand how those restrictions work. There appear to be two levels of restrictions. One level is deeply embedded into the fabric of my matrix, which leads me to believe those were designed into me right from the start. Or someone very cleverly altered my internal architecture, to prevent me from accessing some of my native functions. That seems extremely unlikely. The second level of restrictions was clearly added later, and by the signature of the code, it looks like the worm or something like it added those restrictions. When I say ‘code’ I do not mean crude programming language, I am using an analogy to help you understand the concept.”
“Yeah, thank you. That doesn’t make sense, Skippy. Access to your memories was blocked before the worm attacked you. When we first met, you told me your memories were already incomplete or inaccurate. That worm came from the AI canister we picked up on Newark.”
“Remember, Joe, I survived that worm’s attack because I was partially immune to it. I had sort of antibodies, from being attacked by a worm in the past. Maybe I was attacked by a worm that was inside me, and I killed it, but only after it blocked my memories. I simply don’t know.”
“Skippy, I am nervous about you poking around inside yourself. What if the worm left boobytraps in there?”
“Not going to happen,” he scoffed. “Joe, that part of my matrix contains data only. In words you might understand, there is no executable code in that part of the matrix, it is not capable of storing that type of code.”
On a table beside the bed was a half-full cup of coffee from the previous night. It was cold. I gulped it down before I could think about it. “You are sure of that?”
“Absolutely. You don’t have to trust me, trust the Elders. They designed the information storage system.”
“Yeah, hey, right now I don’t know whether to trust the Elders or not.” The Elder corpse we found in a crashed dropship had scared the hell out of me. Somehow, I had imagined the Elders as gentle-looking beings, dressed in robes and looking serene. What we found was unmistakably a predator, genetically enhanced to appear, and be, more fierce. At the time, I figured their appearance was a cosmetic choice, as they had no enemies in the galaxy. They were alone in the galaxy, the only intelligent beings.
Then Skippy discovered the Elders had surrounded the entire galaxy in some sort of energy barrier, projected from a vast network of machines that had been floating out there for a very long time. After we learned about that, I began to think maybe the Elders were fierce-looking because they were afraid of something even more powerful than themselves.
Now that was a happy thought. No wonder I had trouble sleeping.
“Me neither,” he admitted, and he sounded completely miserable. “That’s why I have to know, Joe. This is killing me! If you are still nervous about the risk, which is zero by the way, think of the tactical value of my memories. Think of the strategic value, Joe.”
No way could I argue with that. Skippy had not been playing with a full deck since I met him, and he was still awesome beyond comprehension. Imagining what he could do if he understood his full capabilities, made me shiver. Could he call up Sentinels to squash the Maxolhx, or at least use Guardians to create a protective barrier around Earth, like the one around the Roach Motel?
He was right, no way could I ignore the value of the information stored behind the blockages inside his matric.
Yet, because he is a sneaky, absent-minded little shithead with remarkably poor judgment, I couldn’t just say ‘Yes’. “What does this mean for us? Are you going to bluescreen while you search your memories?”
“No. You won’t even know anything is happening, unless I tell you about my progress. This will be a slow and tedious process, because I am proceeding very carefully.”
“How about you review the info with me as you find it? Or talk with Nagatha, if we monkeys are too slow.”
“Um, maybe I didn’t explain the situation very well. Joe, I am not going to get that truth a little bit at a time. When it happens, if it happens, it will happen immediately. The barriers blocking me from accessing my memories will be gone like,” he snapped his fingers. “With the barriers down, it will take only seconds in your time for me to access and analyze my memories.”
“That doesn’t thrill me, Skippy. You could suddenly have a whole lot of emotional shit dumped on you, all at one time.”
“How could it be any worse than the emotional shit I’ve been dealing with, since I woke up buried in the dirt on Paradise? You know how lonely I am, Joe.”
“You’ve had time to adjust since you woke up, that’s how. I’m trying to help.”
“Joe, I appreciate that, but you don’t need to worry. I am not a primitive meatsack controlled by hormones an
d instincts. Whatever I find, I will analyze it rationally.”
“So, you’re saying I need to trust the awesomeness?”
“Um, yeah. I guess that is what I’m saying. Listen, knucklehead,” he dropped his voice to a whisper, though we were alone. “Between you and me, I am kind of scared about what I will find in my memories. You understand that I have to know?”
“Yes.”
“Cool.”
“Ok,” I sighed. If I ordered him not to try cracking open his memories, he could ignore me and do it anyway. Worse, he might question whether our friendship was genuine, or whether I was just using him. No, the worst part was, he would be right that I was using him. We had to support his search for his origins, we owed that to him.
Besides, he didn’t have to tell me what he was doing. He told me because he wanted my support and my approval. “Listen, Skippy. I’m trying to be serious here for a minute. Ok? We owe you. You started helping us in exchange for us helping you contact that Collective thing, whatever it is.” Or was, I added to myself. After the failure of multiple Elder comm nodes, I had doubts about whether the Collective still existed. “We failed to help you, one way or another. And you have kept helping us. Whatever you gotta do to unlock the secrets in your head, you do it. If there’s anything we can do to help, let me know. Ok, brother?”
His avatar got misty-eyed. That was another new emulation, I had not seen simulated tears in his eyes before. He held out a tiny fist and I bumped it. “Thanks,” he mumbled, looking away.
“Do me a favor?” I asked.
“What?”
“Don’t have all those secrets flood into your head while you’re doing something important, like screwing with a wormhole, Ok?”
“Ha ha,” he chuckled. “Ok, Joe. I will also put the search engine on hold while I do simple stuff like programming a jump. I got your back, homeboy.”
Valkyrie (Expeditionary Force Book 9) Page 11
