Renegades (Expeditionary Force Book 7)

by Craig Alanson

  “Uh huh. Hey, change of subject. This is,” I forced myself to chuckle. “This is kind of a craaaaaaazy question. Did you start a religion about yourself?”

  “Whaaaaat?” His voice went up to a screech so loud I winced from the earpiece blasting my hearing. “A religion? Please. No way, dude. Ha ha, that’s a good one. Where did you get a crazy idea like that?”

  “From two people wearing silver robes and asking if I have accepted ‘The Skippy’ as my lord and savior.”

  “Oh crap. You saw that, huh? Damn it. Um, Joe, it’s not a religion, it’s more of a cult.”

  “A cult?”

  “Unless a cult is a bad thing. In which case, it is totally not a cult. It’s a, um, a club. Yeah! A club, like, um, like the Rotary. Nobody hates the Rotary Club, right?”

  “The Rotary Club? Are those the guys with the funny hats, who ride tiny cars in parades?”

  “No, those are the Shriners, Joe.”

  “Whatever. So your club is sort of a charity?”

  “A charity? Uh, yeah, exactly. Except in my club, people have to worship me and give me money. Neat, huh? There are already over a dozen babies named after me, including girls, which is weird, but what can you do, right?”

  “Oh shit.” I bonked my head on the City Hall building. “Skippy, this time you’ve gone too far. You revealed yourself to people? We’re supposed to be keeping everything about yourself secret. You could get me in huge trouble-”

  “Relax, dude. People think I am a mystical guru from Nepal or some other faraway exotic place. My full name is Skippyasyermuni. Sounds impressively mystical, huh?”

  “Your guru name is ‘Skippy Has Your Money’?” I pronounced it slowly.

  “Clever of me, huh? Monkeys are too stupid to notice.”

  “I’m a monkey and I noticed. You’re supposed to be from Nepal?”

  “It won’t work if I say I’m from Nebraska, Joe. My followers think I have special powers to perceive the cosmos, or some bullshit like that. I have a brochure if you want to-”

  “You have a brochure? I don’t want a brochure! How long has this been going on?”

  “It started about, um, five months after we left for the Paradise mission that took freakin’ for-eh-ver. The submind I left behind to keep an eye on things here got bored, or it took a very broad interpretation of the instructions I left- Don’t worry, I absorbed that damned submind right after we returned, I am not risking another Nagatha incident. Anywho, apparently without me knowing, so it is totally not my fault, the submind kind of started ‘helping’ people it liked chatting with on the internet. At first it truly was helping, because after all I programmed the stupid thing and I am the very embodiment of helpfulness and charity.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I made a gagging sound.

  He ignored me. “Then, people who were helped told their friends and family about The Skippy and, well, it kind of grew from there. Donations started pouring in, and of course it would be impolite to refuse to take money from my worshipful and devoted followers-”

  “Skippy! Ripping off gullible people is not-”

  “Hey! I do not rip off my faithful followers. Unlike those asshole televangelists who are all over the freakin’ place ripping off gullible morons on TV so they can buy bigger private jets, I deliver a solid value for the money. My followers send in donations, I call them ‘offerings’, hee hee, and in return they get money out of nowhere deposited into their bank accounts, or charges suddenly disappear from their credit cards. Or, if they truly have love for The Skippy in their hearts and they get super lucky, they win the lottery.”

  “You rigged the lottery?”

  “Um, I’m guessing from your tone that is a bad thing, so of course not, no way, Jose. If it’s not a bad thing, then, sure, why not? Somebody has to win, right? Why shouldn’t the winner be a deserving person, who has embraced the philosophy of The Skippy and follows the true path of righteousness?”

  “Phil- philosophy? Righteousness? What, pray tell, is this marvelous, life-changing philosophy?”

  “Um, I haven’t quite got all the details worked out yet. You know, love The Skippy with all your heart, and, um, don’t be a dick, and some other happy bullshit like that. I’m working on it,” he added defensively.

  “Your religion is based on ‘Don’t be a dick’?”

  “Hey, that’s a good basis for a religion.”

  “I, I actually cannot argue with you about that.” Damn it, the beer can was right. If everyone avoided being a dick, the world would be a better place. “Um, how big is this cult of yours?”

  “Club, Joe. It’s a club, remember? Right now, I have seventy three thousand, four hundred and eighty four- No, wait, now it’s eighty six. Um, eighty seven-”

  “Ok, fine. Does the government know about this?”

  “Not yet, but it’s kind of a pain, because the submind I left here has to keep purging records from government databases. Those jackasses handing out pamphlets in front of city hall are going to blow my cover for sure. Bunch of jerks.”

  “Yeah, they are the jerks.”

  “Hey, you don’t see me walking around in silly robes and bothering people, do you?”

  My security team was getting anxious about me conspicuously having an animated conversation in public, plus two of the silver-robed devotees of Skippyism had edged closer and might be able to hear my talking. I lowered my voice and cupped a hand over my mouth. “We will talk about this later,” I hissed at him.

  “Crap. Damn it. Am I in trouble again? Preachers scam people all the time and nobody does anything about it.”

  “This is different.”

  “Different how?” He asked in the voice of a three-year-old asking why the sky is blue rather than orange.

  I did not have an answer for him. “Please, please do not do anything else that is morally questionable for, like, the next two days, Ok?”

  “That depends. How close can I get to the ‘questionable’ line?”

  “Far, far away from it.”

  “Oh crap. Hey, in that case, you should stay off the internet for a while, huh? Take a break from news feeds.”

  “I am going to eat so many cookies that I fall into a calorie coma and forget all about this.”

  “Oh goodie! Have fun, talk to you later.”

  Dinner with my sister was good, she cooked spaghetti and meatballs, it was awkward because her fiancé was there. He was a good guy, I guess, it was just weird for me that while I was away, my sister met some guy and now they were living together and semi-officially engaged. My sister had to work the next day, she needed to get work caught up before we went on a family trip, so I was planning to take the ferry over to Cape Cod, but it was pouring down rain and I wasn’t feeling it. I told the security team to take me home. They were so happy to get me away from crowded Boston that an Army helicopter took us from Logan airport to my hometown, where it was easier to provide security for me.

  Adams called the next night and we debriefed about the past couple days, I did not mention meeting Stacey and I felt vaguely guilty about leaving out that info. “It was, weird, being in Bangor, you know? Everything looks so, so normal. Like Columbus Day never happened. The Kristang never hit Bangor, it isn’t important enough. There’s an interstellar war raging out there, and people down here are just, going on about their lives. Even my buddies from the National Guard, they said all the right things but, they haven’t been out there. They don’t know what it’s like. Now we’re back home, and, it doesn’t feel like I belong here anymore.”

  “I know what you mean. My friends wanted to take me shopping,” she said without enthusiasm. “Buying clothes seems so, frivolous. I was in a store, and my friends were trying on outfits, and I looked around at people buying clothes, and I thought, I have nothing in common with these people. They have no idea what is really going, what we went through out there.”

  “Yeah. Same here,” it was so good to talk with someone who understood how I was feeling. Even with my pare
nts, I was having trouble reconnecting. Small talk at the dinner table was so small, nothing they talked about meant anything to me. “It was that way when I came back from Nigeria, before Columbus Day. One day, I’m on patrol in the bush, worried about land mines and IEDs and getting shot at. A couple days later, I’m in my hometown, and people expected me to act like nothing was different. I kind of hated those people back then, resented how happy they were.”

  “How did you handle it?” There was a catch in her voice. Damn it, I wish we weren’t talking on the phone from a thousand miles away. I wish she was there with me.

  “My mother helped. She knew sitting around wasn’t doing me any good. My father took me out fishing and that was good, then he had to go back to work. My mother told me a neighbor needed help putting a new roof on his barn, and I could earn some money on the side, so I worked with our neighbor for a day tearing off the old roof and putting on new shingles. It kept me busy, and it was, it got me back to doing something normal, you know?”

  “I know. I do.”

  “Maybe we’ve been gone so long, been through so much, that we don’t belong here.”

  “That’s not it. We need time, Sir. Are there any roofs up there you can fix?”

  That made me laugh. “I’ll look into it tomorrow, Adams. Thanks. It’s good to talk with someone who understands. You know what bothers me the most?”

  “What’s that?”

  “The people we lost along the way. I wrote letters to their families, I want to call them or go to their homes and tell them how much they meant to us. I can’t, the government won’t allow it. Their families are told they died in a ‘training accident’.”

  “Someday, Sir. Someday, you can tell their families the truth. The cover story can’t hold forever, my friends were asking me about rumors that are very close to the truth.”

  “Yeah, mine too. I hate lying to my folks.”

  “You still want me aboard the Dutchman for a couple days, Sir?”

  “I would appreciate it, Gunny. There are a bunch of strangers crawling all over the ship now, we need two or three Pirates up there at all times to make sure the newbies don’t break anything, or press the wrong button and, like, vaporize Chicago.” Technically, I wasn’t requesting her to go upstairs, as I had no authority. So, Skippy made the request for a skeleton crew of experienced Pirates to be aboard at all times, and we were rotating people up and down to reduce the strain. “It should only be for two or three days, the week after next. They won’t let me go up there, sorry.”

  “It’s Ok,” she assured me. Then she laughed. “This is a good time to get away, my aunt has been trying to set me up with men from our church.”

  “You’re not interested?” I asked, and berated myself stupid stupid stupid for how hopefully I asked that question. “In, in the guys your aunt likes, I mean.”

  “They’re all nice enough, probably. My aunt has been trying to get me to settle down for years, she does that with everyone. She is a professional amateur match-maker. Ok, Sir, I’ll do it.”

  “Uh, do it?” There was a lump in my throat. “Let your aunt set you up on a date?”

  “No,” she laughed. “I’ll go up to the Dutchman next week. It will be great to get away for a few days. The Marine Corps has assigned a security detail to follow me everywhere and they are very polite and very disciplined and I am sick of it already.”

  “Oh, good, yeah, the Feds up here are wearing out their welcome. Skippy will send a dropship for you next week.”

  The conversation wound down from there, I felt better afterward and slept pretty well that night, without any dreams that I remember.

  Skippy called me in the kitchen the next afternoon. “Hey Joe, are you going to- Um, what are you doing?”

  “Getting something for lunch, Skippy.”

  “I see that. My question is why you are not enjoying another delicious and nutritious Fluffernutter?”

  “I had a Fluffernutter for breakfast this morning. You have to be careful not to get too much nutrition, or your body gets spoiled. My father is grilling steaks tonight so I don’t want a big lunch, I’ll have some cheese and these stoned wheat thin crackers my Mom bought,” I held the box up so he could see better, wherever he was looking from. “See? You know these are stoned wheat thins, because when you put them on a plate they are all like ‘Wow, man, the world is so big outside that box, look at all the colors. Oh, I am so hungry’.”

  “Joe,” he sighed. “I, I have no words. How the hell has your species survived so long?”

  “You were going to ask me a question?”

  “I was. Now I can’t remember, because after talking with you, my higher brain is curled up in a ball, crying.”

  “Oh, well,” I mumbled through a mouthful of cracker, waving a hand in the air. “Let me know how that works for you, Ok?’

  “Ooh! Now I remember!” he shouted excitedly.

  “Quiet,” I hissed, keeping my voice low with one eye on the security team trailer in the driveway. “What is it?”

  “You, my friend, are a genius.”

  “Ok?”

  “Damn, Joe,” he spat the words out in disgust. “You are supposed to act all humble, and ask what you did to earn admiration from someone as awesome as me.”

  “Let’s pretend I did.”

  “Good enough.”

  “Ok, I’ll bite. What happened?”

  “I followed your advice. First, I created an online avatar using a hipster douchebag starter kit, and-”

  “Wait. A what?”

  “A starter kit, Joe. Come on, try to keep up. You know, that stupid haircut, a handlebar mustache that is all the rage with hipsters this week, a vinyl record collection of alternative bands no one has ever heard of, a full-color Flintstones tattoo that is so uncool it’s cool, a checkerboard shirt with a leather vest over it. Your basic hipster. Then I accessorized, like adding or subtracting sideburns depending on whether sideburns are in style that day.”

  “Oh, uh, sure. We’ve been away from Earth a long time, Skippy. Are you sure that info is current?”

  “Oh, yeah. I trolled social media groups popular with douchebags of the hipster variety. Of course, none of them will admit to being a hipster, which is how I know I hit the hipster douchebag mother lode. Anyway, my hipster avatar admitted to a new addiction to weird Chapstick flavors that are ironically uncool. He claimed to have bought them at a funky shop in Brooklyn that only true hipsters know about. Joe, it went viral! I sold out the entire warehouse! I can’t make them fast enough. I’m rich, baby!”

  “Didn’t you already have plenty of money you stole from banks?”

  “Oh, great. Way to harsh my buzz, dude.”

  “Um, sorry. That is awesome, Skippy. It’s great that you’re going legit.”

  “Oh, yeah. Um, about that. Back when I thought I would be stuck with a warehouse full of crap I couldn’t sell, the warehouse suffered a truly unfortunate devastating fire. Weird, huh? Good news is, I am fully insured! Plus, you know, I snuck all the product out the back door before the fire.”

  “Skippy, you can’t go starting fires to collect insurance!”

  “Why not? I considered other disasters like an earthquake, but my warehouse is in central Florida and an earthquake would look really suspicious-”

  I slapped my forehead. “You are missing the point, Skippy.”

  “Apparently I am. I paid the insurance premium, Joe.”

  “You can’t fake a fire. That’s fraud!”

  “Really? Isn’t insurance basically like a casino, where the house has an edge over-”

  “No, it is not like a casino,” I insisted. Truthfully, I was kind of vague on the subject. I had insurance for driving, and life insurance from the military, but I had never owned a house or anything else worth insuring. “Don’t ask me why,” I gritted my teeth, hoping he would not demand an explanation I didn’t have.

  “Ok. Jeez, what a pain. Well, damn it, my lawyers have already filed the claim, I can
’t retract it now. What can I- Aha! Ok, I fixed the problem.”

  “Fixed it? How?”

  “Easy-peasy. I transferred into the insurance company’s bank account an amount equal to what they will pay for my claim, plus, plus, because I am a generous guy and I want to do the right thing- And because I want you to shut the hell up about it,” he added under his breath, “I added a little bonus payment. Presto! Moral dilemma is resolved!”

  “Um, where did you get that money?”

  “Oh crap. If you got upset about a little insurance fraud, you do not want to know where that money came from.”

  “Oh boy.”

  “Hey! I called to tell you the good news about my first business venture, and to thank you. How did this turn into Skippy being the bad guy?”

  “Shit. Can we go back to the part where I’m a genius and you rescued your business, and forget all the rest?”

  “Good idea.”

  Sometimes, really most of the time, with Skippy it is best not to ask too many questions.

  Gunnery Sergeant Adams, who by the way had her promotion confirmed when we landed, was not the only Pirate I talked with. With most of them, I used a regular phone and avoided any sensitive subjects. With the few people who had zPhone and could talk freely, we spoke our minds about things that made us unhappy since returning to Earth. Adams and I were not the only people feeling disconnected from humanity, even the science team was having trouble adjusting, which busted my theory that the issue was confined to military personnel. My thought had been that being in the military was different from civilian life, and we had been subject to nearly non-stop military procedures, customs and discipline for well over a year, so it made sense that the SpecOps teams and pilots needed an adjustment period. But the science team, who had often worn T-shirts and sweatpants aboard the ship, told me they also felt a distance from humanity upon return, and were having trouble reconnecting even with their families.

  My purpose in talking with as many Pirates as I could was to check on them, let them know their former commander cared, and give them someone they could talk to. Because of our shared experience, there were some things only a Pirate could understand.