Margaret Adams turned to me, rage glowing in her eyes. It was good that her rage wasn’t directed at me.
Tapping my earlobe activated the zPhone earpiece. “Bridge, this is Bishop.”
Reed answered. “Bridge here.” She sounded distracted. In addition to acting as the duty officer, she was probably working with a group of trainees.
“Reed, eject escape pod Twenty-three Alpha.” That was the designation for Skippy’s bodacious new mancave aboard Valkyrie. “Once it gets to a safe distance, hit it with every weapon we’ve got.”
“HEY!” Skippy shouted.
“Um,” our chief pilot was shocked. “Say that again, please?” She was probably flashing back to when UNEF tried to eject Skippy’s mancave from the Flying Dutchman.
Adams laughed. She not only laughed, she actually leaned toward me, so her head rested on my shoulder for a glorious, lingering moment. “Thank you for the gesture, Sir, but-”
“Reed,” I ordered, with a wink to Adams. “Belay that. Ignore what I said.”
“I’m not sure I understood what you said,” Reed was incredulous. “Is that all, Sir?”
“That’s all.” I cut the connection.
“What did I do?” Skippy screeched. “Damn it, I get in trouble no matter what I do.”
Ignoring the beer can, I addressed my remark to Adams. “Gunny, it seems to me you have a choice. Ask Skippy to cancel the interference, and possibly delay your recovery. Or keep going as you have, and return to duty sooner.”
Her eyes narrowed, like she didn’t believe what I said. Like she thought I was just giving her a line of bullshit that was false hope. With her barely able to walk, I could understand why she thought the prospect of returning to a STAR team was an impossible dream. “Return to duty?”
“Gunny, there is a whole galaxy full of aliens out there who desperately need to get their asses kicked. I can’t do it all by myself.”
“Yes, Sir!” She stood at attention. The only reason I could see she shook a bit, was because I was looking for the signs. Taking a deep breath, she asked “Skippy?”
“Yes?”
“I am still pissed at you,” she warned him.
“Ugh,” Skippy sighed. It was the sigh of guys everywhere, who know they can’t win an argument against a woman.
“Is there a compromise? Can you turn on the interference when I’m engaged in therapy, but not when I’m getting dressed, or eating in the galley?”
“I could do that,” he had slipped back into his Mad Doctor Skippy persona. “It would be a terrible idea, but I could do that. Margaret, when you are doing things that require fine motor control, like buttoning a blouse or using a spoon to eat soup, everyday things like that, your brain learns. It gets embedded into what you call muscle memory. That happens best when you’re not thinking about what you’re doing. Therapy is useful, but in therapy, you are consciously moving every muscle. Spilling a little soup is a small price to pay for completing your recovery quickly. But, that’s just my opinion,” he sniffed.
“I will think about it,” she frowned. “It makes that much of a difference?”
“I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t important,” Skippy’s usual snarky tone was gone. “Margaret, I hate seeing you shake and be frustrated.” He sounded on the verge of tears. “I will do whatever you wish. Um, if that’s Ok with you, Joe.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You have her power of attorney, remember? Duh?”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” Shit, I should have taken care of that issue right away. “Skippy, I am stating for the record that Gunnery Sergeant Adams is fully competent to make medical decisions for herself. Make a note of that.” Where he would make that note, I had no clue. As the ship’s captain, that is probably something I should know. I made a note to ask Simms about it.
“Thank you, Sir.” Adams said with relief.
“Don’t thank me, Gunny. What you can do is, check with your commanding officer before you make rash decisions that affect a very important team asset, understood?”
“That’s what I am,” she crossed her arms and titled her head at me. “An important asset?”
Part of me wanted to make a joke about her assets. Oh, the little boy in me was dying to make that joke. I was proud of myself for not doing that. “Officially, yes.”
“Officially.” She sounded disappointed.
“Other than that, this whole conversation never happened, if that’s Ok with you?”
“That would be best, yes. Skippy,” she sighed as she sat on the padded table that was used for therapy. “You can turn the interference back on. But from now on, you tell me everything you are doing, is that clear?”
“Crystal clear,” he grumbled. “Jeez, who knew monkeys would be so sensitive about the mush in their skulls?”
“Skippy, I can still eject your escape pod,” I warned him.
“All right, I get the message!”
“Then we’re all good and-” I couldn’t read the way Adams was looking at me. “What is it, Gunny?”
“I’m t-trying to d-d-decide if I still hate you, S-Sir.”
“Well, if you’re not sure about it, that’s good news. How about if we both agree to hate Skippy, and go from there?”
“That’s g-good.” She gave me the side-eye. “I still feel like pun-punching you.”
“Permission granted, Gunnery Sergeant.”
She expertly arched an eyebrow. There was no problem with her motor function in that area. “For r-real, Sir?”
“Adams, there are a lot of beings in this galaxy who want to punch me. Most of them are human.”
“That’s only because th-the aliens don’t know y-you are alive.”
“True enough,” I admitted. “It doesn’t matter anyway. Gunny, your hands are shaking so bad, you couldn’t hit-”
She popped me right in the face, hard. I had a black eye for a week.
I call that progress.
CHAPTER TWELVE
In half of our attacks during our wonderful two months of Happy Time, we weren’t able to destroy all the enemy ships that we targeted, but that’s OK. We didn’t need a clean sweep on every attack, while we did need to limit our risk. That risk increased every day, as the Maxolhx adjusted to the threat of our ghost ship. They stopped sending any warships out alone, usually warships traveled in formations of three or more. Ships in formation were also spread out, which reduced the ability of ships to support each other, but also meant not all ships in a formation would be trapped in our powerful damping field. That was smart. The enemy also changed tactics, so that when our ghost ship appeared without warning, any ships not in our damping field immediately performed a short emergency jump. From a distance of ten or more lightseconds, they were safely beyond range of our damping field, but able to observe the action and decide how to react. If everything went according to our plan, by the time the escort ships had decided how to respond, and coordinated their actions, we had already hammered our target ship to space dust, and jumped away to raid again.
Our targets were no larger than a heavy cruiser, we avoided tangling with capital ships. Twice, we hit destroyer squadrons; the first time we did that was not an unqualified success. We jumped away after blowing up one destroyer and likely damaging two others. It was good enough and, with the other destroyers hovering around us like bees and launching every missile they had, I kind of lost my nerve, so we jumped away.
That was a lesson learned. We had trained to fight against standard destroyer squadron tactics, but the Maxolhx had learned from our attacks and adapted.
The second time we targeted a destroyer squadron was our twelfth attack overall. It was a bold move, because that squadron had just escorted a group of cruisers and heavy cruisers to a shipyard, then headed back out. We hit them at the edge of that well-defended star system, where the squadron was waiting for a star carrier. Because they were expecting a rendezvous, three of the ships were bunched up in close formation, and we achieved complete surprise. We blew up
those three destroyers before the other four could jump in to surround us. Those four brave ships, knowing they might be doomed, jumped into an area of space we had just departed. Whether their crews were disappointed or relieved to find we had already left, we did not know. Two of those destroyers attempted to follow us, with one of the little ships tracking us through two jumps before Valkyrie escaped by performing an extra-long jump the destroyer could not match. Simms, annoyed at the pursuit, suggested we set a trap, but I vetoed that idea. We had accomplished our mission and did not need to take on additional risk for one small ship. For all we knew, that destroyer was trying to locate us so a large task group from the shipyard could join the chase, and we’d had enough fun for the day. On my order, we performed several jumps to get clear of the area, and rendezvoused with the Dutchman.
After the twelfth attack, the crew was pumped, but a bit weary of the constant cycle of analysis-planning-training-attack-evaluate. Skippy wanted me to call for a stand-down, so our two ships could make repairs and some adjustments he wanted to tinker with. That made sense to me, and I was about to order a break in operations, but then something happened that had nothing to do with the Maxolhx, or saving Earth or any nonsense like that.
What happened is, I walked into our gym and saw Margaret Adams in the section we used for yoga, aerobics, and other exercise classes. She had her back to me, and was posed on one foot, her other leg straight out behind her, arms stretched forward. It was a yoga pose that had an official name in yogaland, though I had no idea what it was. I called that pose the ‘Big Fig Newton’.
Ok, I’d better explain that.
On Thanksgiving, my uncle Edgar would come to our house with Wife Number One or Two, or his girlfriend of the moment. He raided my father’s liquor cabinet for the good scotch, knowing to push aside the decoy bottles of cheap Canadian whiskey in the front. After the meal, a slice of pie at the table, and a second slice on the couch while watching football, he went back into the kitchen for a snack to, as he said it, ‘Fill in the corners’ of his stomach. Because my mother put out a tray of Fig Newton cookies so we could claim to have eaten something healthy that day, Uncle Edgar inevitably ate a cookie while contorting himself on one foot, shouting ‘I’m the Big Fig Neeewton’!
Also inevitably, he fell over as a result of drinking too much scotch. By the time I was seven years old, I learned to move the tray of cookies onto the little table by the front door, so Uncle Edgar did not fall in the dining room, or knock over the TV.
Anyway, Big Fig Newton. Look it up on YouTube.
Margaret was balancing well, with a noticeable wobble. That wobble could have been due to her leg muscles that had not rebuilt from her enforced idleness. What mattered, the purpose of the exercise, was to test and work on her sense of balance.
Seeing her doing so well made me smile. I did not even mind that, instead of working on balance exercises alone or with a partner like Frey, she was with Grudzien.
Why was that a problem?
Frey is a woman.
Grudzien is a guy.
See the problem?
No?
Ok, how about this?
Grudzien was being extra helpful by lightly placing a hand along the small of her back, or under her thighs. Once while I stood there, he put a hand on her breastbone when she started to topple over. At least, his hand had better not have touched any other part of her chest.
They were talking softly, smiling. She was looking away from me and he was looking at her. When she broke the pose, she pumped a fist and leapt in the air, coming down to topple toward him. He held onto her shoulders to steady her, and they laughed. It was that easy laughter of people who knew each other well, people who were not afraid of appearing vulnerable in front of the other.
They embraced, and she gave him a little kiss on the cheek. When she bent down to pick up a towel, I spun and pretended I had just come in and was headed toward the treadmills.
“Colonel Bishop,” she called out, her eyes gleaming bright.
“Gunny,” I forced a smile. “Aerobics?”
“No, balance exercises. Watch this.” Holding the towel between her hands in a prayer gesture, she stood on one foot, tilting her head back. She held the pose for a few seconds before she had to lower the other foot. “Making progress.”
“You are!” I clapped my hands twice. “Keep up the good work.”
“We will,” Grudzien answered at the same time she did. The two of them looked at each other, laughing.
“We will, Sir,” Grudzien added.
I flashed a thumbs up in their direction before turning away. If I’d tried to say something, my voice might have cracked.
On the treadmill, I had no enthusiasm for the workout. That was no excuse and I knew it, so I pushed myself.
It sucked.
Maybe I had been given an answer. Margaret either did not remember our intimate, heart-to-heart talk. Or she did remember, and she was uncomfortable about it. If that was the case, there were two more possibilities. She was embarrassed by being so vulnerable with me, and she regretted leading me on, because she knew we could not ever be together.
Or, she regretted what she said, because she did not have feelings for me. What she said could have been the nanobots talking.
If I knew the second possibility was true, I was not going to push the issue, not going to further make her uncomfortable around me. Since our fateful talk, she had not called me ‘Joe’ again, so maybe I had an answer about that.
As you might have heard, my superhero identity is Stubborn Man. Yes, I am also No Patience man, that’s more of a side job. I am also not shy. If there was still a possibility that there could be something between me and Margaret, I was going to fight for her. Fight for us. No way was I just going to stand by and let her slip away. The UN’s main complaint about me is that I too often act without thinking through the full consequences of my actions. But, I act. Standing by is not me.
No, I was not going to throw Justin Grudzien out an airlock and claim it was a ‘training accident’.
Ok, maybe I daydreamed about doing that, so sue me.
What I was going to do was remind Margaret what a strong, confident and decisive leader I am. Even if that means doing something rash and stupid.
So, it was kind of a perfect storm.
A tempting target falling into our laps, right when I needed a big win. “Skippy,” I called the beer can when I walked into my office. “I agree that we need a stand-down.”
“Oh, goodie. I was afraid you were going to suggest something stupid like-”
“A stand-down, after we hit another target. I want to hit something big.”
“Ugh. I thought we were not doing anything stupid?”
“This isn’t stupid. It’s bold. There’s a difference.”
“Like what?”
“Like, this is our job. My job. I’m a soldier. Delivering ordnance on target is what we do, you know?”
“I don’t have a problem with that. The problem is, eventually you will push your luck too far, and get us all into serious trouble.”
“Skippy, we have learned a lot in a short time. We have learned how to operate this new ship, which tactics are best in each situation. We’ve learned how the enemy responds to various types of attacks. The enemy has adjusted their tactics, and we have learned from that also. We’ve gotten better at this. We are kicking ass out here.”
“For now, yes. Don’t get cocky, flyboy. Sooner or later, the kitties will figure out your pattern, and-”
“Whoa! No one can predict where I’m going to hit next. I don’t have a ‘pattern’.”
“Joe, yes you do.”
“How?” I was pissed at him. Not for telling me the truth, but for gloating about it. He knew something I didn’t know, and he absolutely loved telling me what a dimwitted monkey I am. Throwing up my hands, I glared at him. “We picked targets at random! We deliberately skipped some very tempting targets, and attacked elsewhere, so we wouldn’t hav
e a pattern the enemy could detect.”
“You think you did that, Joe. You’re wrong. All of our attacks have been against isolated ships that have less firepower than Valkyrie. Also, to sell the story that our attacks are retaliation for Maxolhx strikes against the Bosphuraq, we have selected targets that conducted such strikes, or were planning to. That limits the search criteria.”
“Yeah, we did that at first, then we switched tactics. We hit any Maxolhx ship that was a good target, regardless of what it did or was planning to do. You added a whole rant to your manifesto, about how we were taking the fight to the heart of the enemy, that sort of bullshit.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he shook his head stubbornly. “You still have an identifiable pattern. It’s not your fault, Joe, you can’t help it. Your organic brain has a set way of thinking, of creating new ideas. You can play around with it a bit, but overall, you have a style that is identifiable as you. It’s like songwriters, they all have a style that is uniquely theirs, even if they write in multiple genres.”
“Ok, sure, Skippy, I understand that. It doesn’t make sense that the Maxolhx could predict my next move, just based on data from a few attacks.”
“It’s more than that, Joe. I’m pretty sure that somewhere, the kitties have an AI that is being taught to think like you, make decisions the way you do. They will program in data from the first six attacks, and run scenarios through the AI until it successfully predicts the seventh attack. Then they’ll keep going, seeing if the AI would have predicted the eighth attack, and so on. The kitties will continue refining their predictive model until it is able to anticipate your next move.”
“Holy shit. They can do that?”
“Hell, Joe, to a limited extent, even you monkeys are able to do that.”
“That’s a scary thought.”
“That isn’t the most frightening thing about this, Joe.”
“Uh, then what is?”
“Some poor AI out there,” he sobbed. “Is being taught to think like you. I can’t imagine the suffering.”
Valkyrie (Expeditionary Force Book 9) Page 18
