Valkyrie (Expeditionary Force Book 9)

by Craig Alanson

  Besides, he had near-death experiences before. “What about the SAS motto ‘Who dares wins’?” I asked, knowing that would put him on the defensive.

  Except it didn’t. He shook his head. “The SAS got that reputation, by being careful to take on missions that could be completed successfully,” he emphasized, implying the rescue mission on Rikers could not. “There is no point to daring, if you can’t win. That only gets your people killed for nothing.”

  “We have barely-” I began to protest.

  “It is impossible, with the personnel we have available. Colonel,” he added in a softer tone.

  “Oh.” I understood his objection. “Guys, come on. Rikers has a small population, their defenses are minimal. Skippy can take control of their Strategic Defense platforms in orbit, and hack communications all around the planet. The two islands where the prisoners are being kept are isolated, there isn’t any security there. We should be able to fly in, pull the prisoners out and fly away without the lizards even knowing we were there.”

  “That would be true,” Smythe conceded. “If we were not the Merry Band of Pirates.”

  “Colonel,” Kapoor added. “The operation will be easy, as you said, if nothing goes wrong.”

  “Shit,” I groaned. “Ok, yeah, we need a reserve.”

  “There is also the time factor,” Smythe warned. “Skippy believes the Thuranin will arrive to pick up the humans in six or seven weeks, whether they reach an agreement with the Kristang or not. I personally hope to be combat ready at that time,” he frowned. It was rare for him to acknowledge any weakness. “Adams might be recovered enough to back up the team on point. That still leaves us desperately short-handed.”

  “What about the personnel we pulled off Avalon?” I asked hopefully.

  They both shook their heads. Kapoor answered, as he had been directly working with the new people, while Smythe still focused on bringing himself up to the proper level of fitness. “It is my understanding that all of the pilots are making good progress on transitioning, to either dropships, the Flying Dutchman, or Valkyrie.”

  ‘Yes,” I agreed. “Reed is working everyone to exhaustion, including herself. She is confident that she can find a match to everyone’s skill set.”

  “That is good,” Kapoor nodded. “Unfortunately, none of the new people are likely to meet the standards for a STAR team.”

  “Seriously?” I tilted my head at him. Kapoor and Smythe were rightfully proud of their very special operators. They also needed to be flexible.

  “Colonel,” Smythe lifted a single eyebrow, in a ‘what did you expect’ gesture. “The new people are mechanics, communications specialists, logistics officers.”

  “Simms was a logistics officer, and now she’s my XO,” I noted.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Simms is a fine officer,” Smythe wasn’t giving an inch. “She is an excellent executive officer. She has also not qualified for a STAR team.”

  “Ok, I see your point. None of the new people?”

  Kapoor answered my question. “Three or four of them might serve in a support role, if we had more time. Colonel Bishop, this is not only a matter of individual fitness or skill. We need to bring people up to speed,” he used an American expression for my benefit. “Then the team needs to train together. There simply is not time to bring a new person into a cohesive team. Even so, we would be dropping into combat with less than a dozen people. That is not enough to do the job, Sir.”

  “I do not like hearing this,” I sat back in my chair.

  Kapoor was about to respond when Smythe lifted a hand, just enough to indicate the other man should wait.

  “But,” I said. “I have to trust your judgment. If it can’t be done, it can’t be done. Huh.”

  “Sir?” Smythe lifted an eyebrow again.

  “Smythe, I have sometimes accused you of having a love of doing crazy shit. Usually, that scares me. This time, it works to your advantage. If you say it’s impossible, it really must be.”

  “Thank you, Sir. I think.” He was trying to decide if I had praised or insulted him. or both.

  “Ok. A rescue is impossible with the personnel we have.”

  “Yes,” Kapoor agreed, with the pained expression of a person having to listen to some jerk repeating what had already been said.

  “Then, clearly, we need more people.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  “Hey, Joe,” Skippy appeared moments after Smythe and Kapoor left my office. “I have a question for you.”

  “Unless your question is which of your fabulous ideas for fixing our problem is the best idea, I really don’t want to hear it.”

  “Um, which problem is this, exactly? Or should I pick one at random? There’s a big list.”

  “The latest problem.” Sometimes he could be annoyingly clueless. “Don’t pretend you weren’t listening. We need to find another STAR team somewhere out there. Or more qualified people to build a bigger team.”

  “That is ridiculous. Unless when you say ‘out there’, you include alternate universes, where we still have access to Earth.”

  “No, I wasn’t- Wait. Could we do that?” Holy shit! My mind was reeling with the possibilities. That could solve all our problems!

  Unless the alternate universes were all shitty compared to this one.

  “Noooo,” he laughed. “Dude, what is wrong with you? Reality doesn’t work that way. Technically, you can go to an alternate universe, but the difference from this one would be so slight, you wouldn’t notice it. Before you ask me a whole lot of stupid questions that won’t lead to anything useful, I have to warn you. If you think other physics stuff I have tried to explain gave you a headache, prepare for your brain to explode if you want to discuss the multiverse.”

  “I’ll pass on that.”

  “A good idea. Smartest thing you’ve said in a month. The second thing won’t work either.”

  “Second thing?”

  “Ugh. You call me absent-minded. The second thing you mentioned, about finding qualified people to build a STAR team. Didn’t you listen to Kapoor? Even if you could snap your fingers and magically bring a group of special operators onboard, we don’t have time to develop them as a team. And, they would need to learn our equipment, tactics, the-”

  “Ok! Yes, I did hear him tell me that. Jeez, Skippy, I was only bitching about my problems. I wasn’t expecting a solution.”

  “Ah. So, since you can’t solve your own problems, you decided to make my life even more miserable by dumping on me?”

  “Sorry.” He didn’t reply. “I said, I am sorry. What was your question?”

  “Maybe now I don’t want to talk with you,” he pouted.

  “Is your question something that is going to make my life even more miserable?”

  “Probably. Hmm, good point. I will totally ask my question. So, here it is. Duuuude, are you crazy? Or high? Or just mind-bogglingly stupid?”

  “What?”

  “Why, for the love of God, did you promise Margaret that you would rescue that girl?”

  “Uh, I didn’t actually promise to do that. What I said was, we would do it, if it is possible.”

  “Dude.”

  “What?”

  “Seriously?”

  “What?” I demanded.

  “You heard yourself say ‘If it is possible’. Is that what you think she heard?”

  “Shit.”

  “Exactly. Daaaaamn, you are a moron. She told you to ‘Make it happen’. Do you think there was an implied’ IF’ in there?”

  “No. Crap.”

  “She expects you. To. Make. It. Happen.”

  “Well- Hey, I didn’t know my STAR team was going to take a giant dump on my head by telling me it is impossible.”

  “Maybe you should have asked first? I’m just sayin’, you know?”

  “I know.”

  “Now, unless you can do what is clearly impossible, you will forever be a failure to her.”

  “Come on, Skippy. Adams
is a Marine. She knows some things just can’t happen.”

  “Sure, some things just can’t happen, unless Joe Bishop is involved. You are the guy who had the idea to move a freakin’ Elder wormhole.”

  “Crap. I did.”

  “You used a jump wormhole as a weapon.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You captured a senior-species battlecruiser, using Legos and a bagel slicer.”

  Burying my face in my hands, I groaned. “I’m doomed.”

  “Ya think?”

  “Thank you for being so supportive.”

  “I am?” He was mystified. And disappointed. “Ugh. What I wanted was to watch you wallow in misery.”

  “How about we schedule that for tomorrow?”

  “Hmm. I am suspicious.”

  “What can I do? How can I fix this with Mar-” Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to use her first name when we were not in private. “With her?”

  “At this point, there is only one thing you can do, Joe.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Duh. Make it happen.”

  The next day, after breakfast, after hitting the gym for a workout I just wasn’t into, I was in my office, doing nothing useful. Unless you count sitting with my elbow on the desk, propping up my head as ‘useful’.

  Skippy appeared on my oversized desk, looking cheery. “Hey. Whatcha doin’, huh?”

  “Wallowing in my misery.”

  “Oh?” He asked.

  “We scheduled that for today, remember?”

  “Oh. I thought you were joking.”

  “It’s not like I have anything else to do.”

  “You could finish reading my summary about the Mavericks’ mission on Fresno. They did something impossible, too. They escaped from a Deathtrap, and turned certain defeat into victory.”

  “I suppose.”

  “Unless you’re too busy. I can see you are swamped with work,” he laid on the sarcasm really thick.

  “Ok, Ok,” I pulled my laptop out of a drawer. “I’ll read the damned thing.”

  “Good. Also, in case you are not miserable enough already, Margaret asked me to reinstate some of the nanobots in her neural network.”

  With the laptop in one hand, hovering over the desk, I froze. “Why would she do that?”

  “Because she is not satisfied with her scores on the rifle range.”

  “I didn’t know-”

  “She drew a rifle from the armory yesterday afternoon, and spent three hours on the range. Plus she asked Captain Frey to help her with the new powered armor suit I constructed for Margaret.”

  “Why is she- Oh, Shit.”

  “She wants to be ready to participate in the rescue mission, even if she is restricted to a backup or support role. She is so determined to, as she told me, do everything she can to assure the rescue is successful, that she is willing to have creepy alien robots crawling around in her brain. You know what she is like when she is determined to do something.”

  “I am.”

  “Hey, on a totally unrelated subject, where are you on planning that rescue operation?”

  “Oh, shut up.” I waved the laptop through his avatar.

  Since I had nothing else to do, unless you count hating myself, I continued reading Skippy’s summary of the Alien Legion’s Deathtrap mission. Part of it was an exciting account of the mission, that Skippy had assembled from data he pulled from Ruhar, Kristang and Jeraptha databases. That part I put aside to read later. What I read first were reports written by Emily Perkins. Why? Because I was curious about her. When I was stationed on Paradise, we had only met a dozen or so times, and those were all business. Really, I didn’t know her well at all. After I was promoted to colonel, we only met a few times, and those were brief exchanges of pleasantries before a meeting at UNEF HQ.

  What I did know was that she had accomplished a whole lot, and done it without the help of a magical beer can. When she and her team were stealthily racing around Paradise, reactivating long-forgotten maser cannons, she had known she was being manipulated by an unknown group. And that whatever the objectives of the unknown group were, the health and welfare of the human population were not high on the list.

  She had known she was being used, and before we launched the operation, I had to fend off objections from Chang, Smythe and others, who feared she would balk at taking orders from a Mysterious Benefactor. Worse, she might bring the information to the Ruhar authorities, in the hope that her demonstrated loyalty would be rewarded with better treatment of the humans on that world.

  I had dismissed those concerns, based on what little I knew of Emily Perkins. Like I said, I didn’t know her well, but one thing I knew was that she had an independent streak a mile wide, and a distrust of authority figures. Those were maybe not desirable attributes in a typical military officer, but every organization needs mavericks. My own problem with authority had worked out well for me. Mostly.

  Anyway, back then, I had been sure Perkins was too smart to go running to the Ruhar with info about the maser cannons. At that time, the hamsters were planning, even eager, to trade Paradise to the lizards. Knowing about the hidden maser cannons would not change the fate of humans there, because the Ruhar federal government was not going to risk screwing up the negotiations by firing those cannons. The local planetary government might have been tempted to use the maser cannons, but there was no way such a large bureaucracy could keep the operation secret from the federal government. So, Perkins figured their Mysterious Benefactor was a group of local Ruhar who rightfully did not trust their government to do the right thing, or to do it competently. If she was being used, she could use them right back for the benefit of humans. So, she did.

  When I first met Perkins, in the tiny hamster village of Teskor while I was there with my fireteam, I decided right away that she was good people. Intel types typically could not be trusted and I didn’t say that I trusted her back then. I just knew that, if I somehow got screwed by UNEF, it wouldn’t be her idea. Yes, she got me yanked out of Teskor and sent to the cargo launcher complex, which felt like a reprimand at the time. Later, I realized she was looking out for me, when she moved me away from the center of attention.

  Anyway, it worked out Ok for both of us.

  You know how, when you’re surfing social media, you keep scrolling down, even when you know there are much better things you should or could be doing? That’s what I was doing with the reports from Perkins. Other than giving me a feel for who she was and how she thought, the reports weren’t really useful to me. They were about people and aliens I did not know, places I had not been to and never would see. Issues that I didn’t care about, or were already irrelevant due to the passage of time. Most of it was trivia. Yet, I kept scrolling down.

  In my defense, it wasn’t all trivia. One report was about lessons learned from working with aliens. The basic lesson learned was that the UNEF contingent of the Alien Legion had a lot to learn about working under the direction of the Ruhar, and even more about fighting alongside the Verd-kris. Perkins had a Verd surgun, that is a rank roughly equivalent to sergeant, training her headquarters security team in Verd-kris tactics. The guy she picked for the job, named ‘Jates’ sounded like a hardass. I approved.

  More revealing, about both the status of UNEF-Paradise and the character of Emily Perkins, was a confidential report she submitted to UNEF-HQ. It was supposed to be secret, but she must have known the hamsters would crack the encryption and read her words. That knowledge did not appear to have changed the ways she addressed the harsh truth; that UNEF soldiers were poorly trained, poorly led, poorly prepared and were in general no longer a potent military force. Her conclusion was that after years of farming on Paradise, the force’s level of fitness was inadequate for the tasks likely to be assigned to the Legion. Units thrown together hastily for the mission on Fresno had no cohesion, no common set of standards and tactics, no-

  Well, you get the idea. Her assessment of the Verds was only slightly less harsh. Those
friendly lizards had no real combat experience, either individually or as a society. The soldiers of UNEF-Paradise needed refresher training and to update their tactics to the new reality, but they served an organization that had a strong culture of knowing how to fight. Since the Ruhar had not allowed the Verd-kris to engage in combat or even participate in realistic training before forming the Legion, the Verds were having to make up everything as they went along. Overall, Perkins stated that UNEF was lucky to have escaped the deathtrap on Fresno. If the Legion had gotten into a real, sustained fight on that world, the situation could have gone sideways in a hurry. She was telling the unvarnished truth as she saw it. I admired her for that. She would probably have been as unpopular on Earth as I was.

  She didn’t need to worry about that.

  So, I was scrolling down aimlessly, scanning bits of reports here and there. Really, after the first couple reports, I had a better feel for the thought processes of Lieutenant Colonel Emily Perkins, and all I was doing was wasting time. In my defense, my brain works best when I let it wander, so time spent on useless activities is actually worthwhile.

  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

  Ok, Ok, I told myself. One more minute of scrolling through reports and I would do something more-

  Holy shit.

  “Skippy. Skippy!” I shouted.

  “What is it this time? I told you, if you see a word you don’t know, just hover your cursor over it, and-”

  “I can read fine by myself, thank you. You see what I’m reading now?”

  “Um, it’s a series of recommendations by Perkins, most of which are likely going to be argued about endlessly by UNEF HQ until they are no longer-”

  “Yeah, great. What about this one?” I jabbed a finger at the screen hard enough that my laptop nearly tipped over. “Did this recommendation get implemented?”

  “Oh. Yes, actually. For two reasons. First, it is at the forehead-slapping DUH level of obviousness. Second, UNEF-HQ and the hamsters were already considering it. Why?”