Renegades (Expeditionary Force Book 7)

by Craig Alanson

  “That was super helpful, thank you, Skippy. The nuke, you remember that, right? What happened?”

  “What nuke? Oh, yeah. Um, I thought more than one device would be needed, and what I should have done is use a low-yield first, to get a better reading on the composition and density of the regolith covering the tunnel entrance. But, because you would have bitched about me taking too much time, I dialed up the yield on the first device to the max, and um, it was a little more effective than I expected. It was like that nuke was over-eager or something.”

  “Ok, I didn’t mean to make you rush. Honest mistake, you did it to get the job done quickly so we can get out of here before the Bosphuraq fleet spoils the party.”

  “Right, right, and only a little bit because blowing shit up is cool. I never used a nuke before. That I know of. Anywho, we’re good, no harm done, there was no substantial damage to the cavern or the tunnel. However, we can’t use another nuke, not even at minimum yield. I suggest we use a conventional ship-killer missile, followed by one or two standard missiles, then we use the maser cannon for precision work.”

  “Will any of this delay the op?”

  “No, Joe, that is the good news. You can get going now, instead of having to wait for debris from a second nuke to clear away from the area, that will actually accelerate the timetable by three or four minutes.”

  “Great. Every second counts. Simms!” I shouted toward the CIC. “You have the conn, I’m going on a road trip with the beer can.”

  Skippy was, of course, correct. The lack of atmosphere meant the blast debris from Mister Nukey followed a nice predictable ballistic pattern, without turbulent air rushing in to fill the vacuum created by the explosion. The moon’s low gravity, however, meant the debris went high and wide, with chunks flying far enough to impact the moonbase, which is why Smythe’s team had to remain there, protected by the energy shield and the hundred meters of rock and moon dirt over their heads. The low gravity created a problem for us, because what goes up must come down, and the power of the nuke had propelled the ‘up’ really high. The material shot upward took an extra long time to slow down and fall back, unless it reached escape velocity like twenty four percent of the ejected mass did. If we had used a second nuke, Skippy thought we would be forced to wait thirty eight minutes before it would be safe to fly down in a dropship. Because the ship-killer and lower-powered missiles we used for follow-up work had shaped-charge warheads, the force of those explosions was focused downward and threw the debris mostly sideways. By the time the missiles were done and the Dutchman’s main maser cannons began burning through the last layer of dirt covering the tunnel entrance, we were approaching in a Falcon dropship. With Reed and Beazer in a Falcon, safely tucked away in a hangar under the moonbase, and Porter piloting the Dutchman along with Edwards and two relief pilots, the job of flying the Falcon with me had fallen to Lieutenant Daniel Pope. The copilot seat was occupied by some unqualified amateur who name rhymed with ‘Shmoe Dipshit’, which showed how desperately thin our pilot roster was on our unauthorized renegade mission. Pope might have been wondering if he should have followed most of his Delta Force team down to Barbados, but he tactfully kept his mouth shut.

  “Joe, hold here,” Skippy’s can glowed orange from where he was strapped in between the pilot couches. “There are some chunks of the moon that are still falling.”

  “Crap. We can’t dawdle here all day.”

  “Gravity is one law of physics that I have a very limited ability to screw with, Joe,” he sniffed in the unappreciated put-upon tone he used way too often.

  “This is not good, Skippy.” Our Falcon was not just plummeting in free-fall toward the moon’s surface, we were in a power dive. It was unlikely but possible that a Bosphuraq warship might be lurking outside the system, so I was anxious to get the job done, fly back to the ship and jump the hell out of there ASAP. With our Falcon and Smythe’s Condor on or under the moon, we would be in a bad position if an enemy warship arrived. “Can you use your super-duper mathy navigation skills to thread us in between all these falling rocks?”

  “Mathy?”

  “You know what I mean, Professor Nerdnik.”

  “Joe, sometimes,” now his can was glowing more red than orange, indicating he was annoyed with me, again. “You are so-”

  “Sir,” Simms mercifully interrupted from the ship. “Our main maser batteries are occupied, in sequence to burn a hole down to the tunnel entrance.” Because we needed a continuous burn to cut through to the tunnel, the ship was firing one big maser cannon barrel for a couple seconds, then taking it offline to cool while another barrel fired. The firing sequence Nagatha programmed used all three of the main antiship cannon barrels and even then, there were gaps in the firing sequence.

  “Yes, I know you and the crew and Nagatha are doing all you can up there, I don’t want to risk cracking a maser exciter-”

  “It’s not that,” Simms interrupted me again. In the past, she wouldn’t have done that, I took it as a good sign that she was growing comfortable with command. “The point-defense system masers are not occupied, and we have plenty of spare power from the reactor. Skippy, can we use the PDS masers to vaporize those falling rocks, so they are not a hazard?”

  “Um, uh, yes! Hey, Joe, you should have thought of that,” the beer can gloated, his can glowing blue with happiness. “Good thinking, Colonel Simms. Maybe you should be commander of this mission.”

  “I have enough headaches already, thank you,” she retorted.

  “Simms, weapons free,” I ordered. “Blow up those rocks for us, please.”

  On the big curved displays that functioned as a cockpit windshield, I saw objects above and below us flare briefly as the PDS cannons made quick work of zapping all the dangerous rocks into dust. The Dutchman was far away compared to the normal operating radius of the point-defense system, but that system was designed to defend the ship against missiles moving at high speed, engaged in violent evasive maneuvers, protected by their own energy shields and ablative coatings, wrapped in stealth fields and attempting to fool the PDS with active countermeasures. Blasting slow-moving rocks that were falling in relentlessly predictable ballistic arcs was so easy, the PDS could have done the job while it was sleeping. Nagatha did not even need to assist the PDS targeting computer. “Clear,” Simms reported.

  “Confirmed,” Skippy added. “Joe, you are clear to fly straight down the tunnel, the entrance is now clear.”

  “It doesn’t look clear, Skippy.”

  “Oh for- It will be clear by the time you get there, dumdum. There is dust hovering over the area, from rocks and dirt that got baked by the maser cannons. Those fine particles will not pose any danger to the Falcon and the nav gear can see right through it. As long as you do not scrape the sides of the tunnel on the way in, we will be fine.”

  “Ok, if you say so.” With the unenhanced view through the windshield display, the whole target area looked like it was covered with a thick blanket of fog. Switching to the enhanced navigation view, it was indeed clear. “Let’s go,” I instructed Pope, and he lifted one thumb to acknowledge my order as he advanced the throttles.

  “Joe, there is just one danger I am concerned about,” Skippy added.

  My reply was delayed and distracted because I was monitoring our trajectory for Pope. “Uh, what is that?”

  “You are sitting in the copilot couch. Please promise me you will not touch anything.”

  “Ha, I can’t make any promises there, Skippy. Hey, I wonder what will happen if I press this button?”

  “Nooooo!”

  Flying down the tunnel was tense. Skippy tried teasing me about my poor piloting skills and I bark at him to shut up, because I needed to concentrate on providing guidance to Pope. He had enhanced synthetic vision from the display in front of him, plus we had the Falcon’s sophisticated autopilot system and a super-intelligent Elder AI to warn us of any trouble ahead or behind. Still, it was very tricky flying. Without atmosphere, the Fa
lcon’s stubby wings could not provide lift, so we kept them fully retracted to give us extra clearance on each side. The tunnel was an oval shape, built for dropships larger than our Falcon, and Skippy reported the tunnel originally had a magnetic system sort of like a railgun, that restrained, held and guided dropships down to the cavern. Because that restraint system was offline, we had to rely on the Falcon’s belly jets to keep it above the sloping floor of the tunnel, and thrusters to move us along at a controlled speed and course. The long, slow descent would require the belly jets to use seventy percent of their normal propellant supply, so we had added an extra tank to bring that number down to sixty percent. Propellant was not the only concern, those jets were not designed to be used continuously and without surrounding air to carry away the heat, the jets grew hot quickly. We were forced to use extra propellant just to bleed away part of the heat, eating deeper into our reserves. On the way back up the tunnel, we planned to go much faster, shooting out of there like a bat out of hell. To reduce weight, the Falcon’s interior had been stripped of seats and anything else we did not need that could be removed without major work that would have taken too long.

  “Portside jet Number Three is overheating, Joe,” Skippy warned, “better throttle back on that one.”

  “Doing it now,” I shared a glance with Pope. The other jets would need to take up the slack, unless they overheated also. “Skippy, are you able to see what is down there yet?”

  “I am adjusting the sensors now, the Maxolhx installed a sort of scrambler device in the tunnel and it is still partially active. Hmmmm. There is a big heavy door at the bottom of the tunnel. Well, that is no surprise, I guess.”

  “Are you opening the door?”

  “No. I would have told you that, dumdum.”

  “Then how the f-” Remembering I had a pilot I did not know well, I bit off my salty language. “Pope, take us down close to the door and hover us there. Skippy, how are we supposed to get in there?”

  “Working on it. Got it. Ok, here is the problem. We can get the door open, but it won’t stay open. The motor hasn’t been maintained in a long time, and it can’t take full power or it will burn out. That door is designed to slide closed when power is out, so if the motor fails, which I expect it will, the door will slam shut on us. Crap. This is a problem I did not anticipate.”

  That is the type of situation when, earlier in my career, I would have despaired, or maybe exploded with useless anger and curse words. Or both. Experience had given me a better perspective, it might even have given me a bit of maturity although Skippy would argue about that. Experience allowed me to focus on what, if anything, we could do to fix the problem. “That door slides on tracks? Can we zap the tracks with the Falcon’s maser cannon, jam the door open?”

  “Good idea, Joe, except that will not work. The door was designed to function in case the tunnel suffered a partial collapse, its mechanism is quite rugged. There are no tracks to jam. That door is also thick and heavy, so do not suggest anything stupid like using a person in a powered suit to hold it open. A Kristang powered suit, even a Thuranin combot, lacks the power to hold that door open.”

  “Crap.”

  “I am sorry, Joe. This is kind of ironic. With all the advanced technology available to us, the one thing we need is a simple doorstop. I know up in your hometown, usually a dead car battery or maybe an old toilet or washing machine is used to hold a door open, but-”

  “Old toilets are for planting flowers in, Skippy.” That was not a joke, on the other side of my hometown there was a toilet in the side yard, and the lady who owned that house planted flowers in it every Spring. A contractor who remodeled the house was supposed to haul it away but he didn’t, so it sat there. That same lady also stuck an old headboard at one end of her flower garden, perhaps taking the term ‘flower bed’ a bit too literally. “And a washing machine should be in the front yard under a tree, next to the old car you plan to fix up someday. A dead battery-”

  When I didn’t finish my thought, Skippy got annoyed. “What about the dead battery?”

  “It’s, it is- We don’t need a real doorstop, Skippy. We just need something really heavy, right? Would that work?”

  “Um, if it was really heavy, yes, then it could stop the door from sliding closed. Forget about landing this Falcon in front of the door, Joe. It is not nearly heavy enough to do the job, and besides, if the Falcon is blocking the doorway, we can’t fly out a Maxolhx dropship.”

  “I don’t plan to use the Falcon, Skippy.”

  “Well, if you plan to fly something heavy down from the ship, that will take way too long, and we will be sitting here with-”

  “We don’t need anything from the ship. We have you.”

  “Me?”

  “Ayuh. You can temporarily increase your mass footprint in local spacetime, or some sciency bullshit like that, right?”

  “Oh for- I am the most powerful and intelligent being in this galaxy, and you plan to use me as a DOORSTOP?” He screeched in outrage.

  “Can you do it, or not?”

  “That is not the only-”

  “Yes or no, Skippy. Or, Option Three is you give me a better idea, like, quick.”

  “Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit. UGH. This is SO unfair.”

  The indicator for portside belly jet five began blinking an overheat warning. “Pope, let’s set this thing down. Skippy, can the skids hold us on this surface if we land on the tunnel floor? We won’t slide to crash against that door?”

  “The grips on the bottom of the skids will be more than sufficient to hold the Falcon safely in place.”

  “Great. Pope, take us down, park us, um, fifty meters from the door.”

  “Sir,” Pope warned. “We need to go through that doorway to turn the ship around. I can’t fly back up the tunnel backwards.”

  “Understood, I’ve got a plan for that. Skippy, what will it be; Option one, two or three?”

  “Yes,” he mumbled.

  “I couldn’t hear you real good. Was that a ‘yes’ you can be our doorstop for a while?”

  “YES! Yes I can do it. I swear, if you tell anyone about-”

  “Simms and the entire CIC crew are monitoring our flight recorder data, Skippy, so they already know.”

  “Simms. Colonel Simms,” he raised his voice. “I have not forgotten that you were the one who brought those humiliating little costumes the crew dressed my can in.”

  “You were adorable, Skippy,” Simms was clearly amused.

  “Oh, I hate my life.”

  Pope set the Falcon down and I got out, carrying the beer can. “You ready?”

  “Ready? I am not going to do anything, you big ape. You need to carry me over there and set me down in front of that door.”

  “I know that, buddy. I meant, if there is anything you have to do to prepare your awesome trick of increasing your mass, then, do it now please.”

  “My overall mass will not change, I will only shift more of it into this spacetime, and compared to my other capabilities, this trick is rather lame.”

  “Can the Rindhalu do that?”

  “Dude, please. Those lazy spiders have never even imagined this technology.”

  “Then this trick may be lame to you, but it is awesome to every other being in the galaxy.”

  “I suppose so. Joe, you called me ‘buddy’. You’ve never done that before.”

  “You never offered to embarrass yourself like this before. I know you hate acting as a simple doorstop, and I appreciate it.”

  “Oh. That was nice. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about-”

  “I also will appreciate watching the flight recorder data of this incident over and over and over and someday showing it to everyone on Earth.”

  “Joe, I hate you so much-”

  “I love you too, Skippy. Open that big door now, please?”

  “UGH.”

  There was a puff of dust from where the door seal separated, and what little air lay beyond the door vented outward.
“The cavern is in vacuum, Skippy?”

  “No. I am getting details now. Beyond this door is a chamber, basically a big airlock, then there is an inner door. Don’t worry! The inner door is much lighter and its mechanism is fully functional, I have cracked the inner door open to slowly bleed off the air in the cavern,” dust began jetting through the gap as he said that. “The Maxolhx kept the cavern in partial air pressure, about half of sea level pressure on Earth. It was dry and cold to preserve the equipment. We better wait right here while the air vents.”

  “Agreed.” What little moisture was in the cavern’s air was freezing as it hit vacuum, creating a dusty fog in the tunnel. Without the enhanced synthetic vision of my flightsuit’s helmet, I would not have been able to see our dropship. “Pope, is the Falcon holding steady?”

  “Affirmative, Sir,” he reported. “I was pushing propellant through the belly jets for cooling, that is cut off now. This breeze is cooling the jets nicely.”

  “It’s nice to hear good news for a change.”

  When the air venting had slackened off to a zephyr, Skippy began fully retracting both doors. “This heavy damned outer door is resisting me, Joe. The airlock does not like having both doors open at the same time. Um, the outer door mechanism is in worse condition than I thought, it probably will not open all the way.”

  “Crap, that’s no good. Will the Falcon fit through?”

  “Maybe not, but the Maxolhx dropships in the cavern are smaller and will fit through easily, so it will not be a problem.”

  “It will be a problem, beer can. The Falcon is blocking the tunnel and it can’t fly backwards. I am Ok with leaving the Falcon here if we have to, but nothing is getting out of there unless we get the Falcon through that door and out of the way.”

  “Oh, shit. Damn it, I should have thought of that. It is humiliating that I need a meatsack to remind me of something so simple.”