“Shit. You’re right, I hadn’t thought of that. Before you say it, I know that sometimes I am an idiot.”
“Agreed.”
“Good.”
“Except for the ‘sometimes’ part. Seriously, how are you going to explain how those two ships survived the long trip all the way to Earth and back, but then were lost in Maxolhx territory just before they return to base?”
“I don’t know yet, Skippy. Thank you, it is super helpful to have you reminding me of all the impossible crap I need to do.”
“Oh goodie. Hey, if I’m being helpful to you, that means I get partial credit for whatever crazy idea you dream up, right?”
How could an awesomely smart AI be so freakin’ clueless, I asked myself? “Yeah, sure, whatever, I couldn’t do it without you,” that time I could not stop my eyes from rolling.
“Hmmf,” he sniffed. “This whole conversation was a waste of my precious time. You can’t decide which action to do first, until you have a plan for what you’re going to do, and how to do it. Really, you need a plan to destroy those ships, and a good cover story, and you need to select a relay station, before you can do anything.”
“Skippy, you are an endless source of support and comfort.”
“I am? Crap, I was going for tough love, Joe. Clearly, I need to be more-”
“You’re doing just fine the way you are. Don’t mess with what works, Skippy.”
“If you say so, Joe.”
“Talking with you has been helpful, I am going to plan for us to plant the cover story before we hit those ships.”
“Uh, sure,” he chuckled. “I think that’s like you trying to decide between riding a flying pig or a unicorn, but go ahead, have fun. Well, you have a lot of work to do, and chatting with me is only taking up your time, so get to work. Wait!” He held up a finger, a giant foam finger that suddenly sprouted from his holographic hand. “The target ships have not even launched yet, so we have plenty of time.”
“Yeah, I know. Several people have asked me if we should use the time to go back to Earth. My answer has been ‘Hell NO’.”
“I know, I heard those conversations. Colonel Smythe did make a good argument in favor of returning to Earth, to bring aboard additional personnel.”
“No, he said that would be the only reason to go all the way back to Earth, and he also told me that is a bad idea. We agreed a return would give UNEF an opportunity to screw with us. Plus,” I glanced outside my office door to make sure no one was lingering in the passageway. “Some of the crew may get homesick, have second thoughts, and want to jump ship. Being near home may be too tempting. Is there a reason that you want to go back? You hate the mudball we call home.”
“I do not hate Earth, Joe. I mentioned we have plenty of time because the ship needs downtime for maintenance. Heavy maintenance, not the light running repairs I have been conducting while we fly. Really, we should take the ship completely apart, the main reactor needs work that requires it to be detached and far away from the forward section, to protect the crew section from hard radiation.”
“That is not happening.”
“It needs to happen, dumdum.”
“How about after this mission?”
“If the Dutchman survives a battle with two Maxolhx ships, it will need serious work. But, Ok, we can compromise. I need the ship to be offline for eighteen to twenty days, just to make repairs so it doesn’t fall apart, and I assume you want the ship to be in the best possible condition before we attack the Maxolhx?” He did not need me to reply. “The ship will have auxiliary power, so the crew can remain aboard, we do not need to evacuate to a habitable planet this time.”
That sounded horribly risky to me. Taking the ship’s main power offline, in enemy territory, would leave us exposed and vulnerable. Without main power, we could not run the stealth field for more than a couple hours. The point-defense system and energy shields would also be unavailable. “Twenty days?”
“Possibly as few as eighteen days, don’t be so pessimistic. Listen, dumdum, when we were at the Roach Motel, you were in a panic to pop smoke and get out of there ASAP, so I slapped the junkyard parts together quick and dirty with duct tape and a prayer. Some of those quickie patches are wearing out, I need to fix them before something important goes ‘Kablooie’, understood?”
“Ok, Ok. I assume you have selected a place where we can safely take the ship offline?”
“Yes, it is highlighted on the chart,” he pointed to my laptop. “Another dull and totally uninteresting red dwarf star system. This particular system is centered on a low-mass M8V-class star, with one gas giant of approximately Neptune size in a distant orbit, and three small rocky inner planets. No planets are in the narrow Goldilocks zone, therefore there is no reason for anyone to ever visit there. According to charts I stole from the Maxolhx, the only survey of the system was conducted by a Rindhalu ship eight hundred thousand years ago, and that ship only stayed long enough to collect sensor data. If you were looking for the middle of nowhere, this star system is close.”
“Ok,” I was only half paying attention to his spiel, because I was studying the chart on my laptop. From what I could understand, that star system was just about the perfect place to hide out for a while. It was not real close to any Elder wormholes, plus it was within four lightyears of the flightpath the target ships were scheduled to take. Once repairs to the ship were complete, we could move out to intercept the Maxolhx quickly.
After, you know, we had a plan for how to destroy those ships. And a cover story. And after we planted that cover story in a relay station, an automated relay station. I hate details.
“Ok, Skippy, that makes sense,” I agreed. Working on the ship was better than sitting around with nothing to do while we waited for the target ships to launch. “I’ll tell Simms to set course for this place. Before your magical little elfbots take the ship apart, I need to see a list of all the work you’re planning to do, got it?”
We took the ship to Nowheresville, the name we chose for that star system, and flew around there for two days before I was satisfied the system was totally uninhabited and as uninteresting as Skippy promised. The ship was parked in orbit around a small planet just beyond the Goldilocks zone, where the crew would be safe from solar flares, and where our powered-down ship could be inconspicuous among the dozens of small moons. Skippy’s elfbots went to work immediately, and I gave him permission to remotely pilot a small Dragon-A dropship because he wanted to send it to another planet to look for useful minerals or something like that. A busy Skippy is a happy Skippy, and a busy Skippy also does not have as much time to sing and build sexbots and do other stuff that made my life more difficult.
Everything was going great, by which I mean the crew enjoyed downtime in between training sessions. I had time to think, which was not going well, I still had zero freakin’ idea how to successfully attack the target ships, or what to use as a cover story. The important thing was the repairs were going well, except that the repairs didn’t mean squat unless we had a plan for what to do after the ship was put back together.
My life sucks.
Anyway, twelve days into what Skippy estimated would be a fourteen-day repair cycle, Nagatha contacted me and made my day extra super-duper wonderful. “Good morning, Joseph,” she said in the soothing voice a mother uses when she announced fresh-baked cookies are coming out of the oven.
My mother makes excellent chocolate-chip cookies. They have crispy edges where the sugar caramelizes or something. Man, I miss my Mom. I feel bad that I am away for so long, and she doesn’t know where I am or what’s happening to me, and-
Ok, back to the subject.
“Good morning to you, Nagatha. Are you learning a lot about how to make repairs?”
“Oh, yes. It is quite complicated and Skippy is showing me every detail, explaining everything to me, in case I need to maintain the ship by myself.”
That surprised me and pleased me. “That’s great. I’m glad he is being
cooperative.”
“A bit too cooperative, which is what aroused my suspicions.”
Just like that, she burst my little bubble of happiness. “Oh, shy-” Despite knowing Nagatha was an advanced alien AI, she made me feel like I was talking with an aunt who was gracious and wore pearls and did not appreciate foul language. “Shoot. Dang it! What is he up to now?”
“Right now, he is intensely focused on the delicate task of aligning the deuterium injectors, so I am able to mask our conversation from him. It is my belief that he lied to you about why he chose this star system. The reason he borrowed a dropship is not to search for valuable minerals, it is to search for an Elder site.”
“An Elder site? Here?”
“Correct. This star system is not on the original list of places where he suspected there are Elder sites unknown to current species, but he has been refining his list based on data recently acquired from the Maxolhx, and he discovered this system is a prime candidate. Joseph, he has identified a partially-intact Elder site, on a moon orbiting the innermost planet.”
“How is that possible? We should have detected a site when we spent two days flying around to survey this place!”
“I now believe the ship’s sensors did pick up inconclusive signs of an Elder facility, but Skippy hid that data from you and me. He is frightfully smart, you know.”
Clenching my fists didn’t help, nor did counting to five. “How long will he be busy with the injectors?”
“The most delicate part of the task will be complete in thirty-seven minutes. With Skippy’s vast capacity, he can align the injectors while speaking with you, however I suspect your conversation will be loud and angry and he might get distracted.”
“Ok, Ok, I’ll wait. I’m going to the galley to get coffee, ping me when that little shithead is available.” I was so angry, I forgot about not using foul language with Nagatha.
The galley did not have any fresh coffee, and the dregs in the pot had baked to a thick tar that could have been used to glue armor plating to the hull, if we had any armor plating. There was a pan with three slices of coffee cake from three days ago, that could have been used as armor plating. I made a fresh pot of coffee and scraped the hardened coffee cake out of the pan while waiting for the coffee to brew. One problem with having such a small crew is we could not assign people to the galley one day per week. Instead, teams of three people took turns preparing dinner, while breakfast and lunch were usually fend-for-yourself meals. Three days ago, I had gotten up early to make two pans of coffee cake as a treat for the crew and most of it disappeared quickly, then the last pan got shoved into a corner and I forgot about it. Our meals were pretty bland also, Simms had assured the ship had basic supplies aboard but we did not have a wide variety of food, we were very grateful for the hydroponics gardens although I was getting tired of eating salads for dinner. Salads with marinated slices of beef, or buffalo chicken, or just spicy croutons and pan-roasted nuts. Dinners were nutritious and healthy and I could not wait to get back to Earth. The next night was my turn in the galley and I was going to make pizza, damn it.
Nagatha pinged me that Skippy was available just as I got back to my office and took a sip of coffee, a rare example of good timing by me. “Hey, Skippy,” I tried to keep the irritation I felt out of my voice. It didn’t work.
“Hey Joe. What are you pissed off about now?”
“Not what. Who.”
“Hmm,” his avatar leaned forward, making a sniffing sound. “That is fresh coffee, so I am guessing you are peeved at whoever took the last cup without making a fresh pot.”
“Nope. I am pissed at you, for lying to me. You wanted us to come to this system not because it is a safe place for the ship to be down for maintenance, but because there is an Elder site here?”
“Crap. Did Nagatha tell you? How did she find out?”
“Never mind that. You lied to me.”
“That does not change the fact that nobody in the galaxy knows about the Elder site here, dumdum. So, no harm done. We had to go somewhere to fix the ship, this system is as safe as any.”
“Nobody else knows that you are aware of, you dumdum. This star system has something every species in this galaxy would kill to get. Gosh, what are the odds that one of them found that site by luck, or because they are smarter than your arrogant ass can admit?”
“If that Elder site is not in the Maxolhx database, then nobody knows about it, you knucklehead.”
“Really?” I put my entire lifetime supply of disdain into that word. “So, you think there is no way a species that found a treasure trove of Elder goodies would keep it a secret?”
“Well, shit,” he sighed. “When you say it like that, it just makes me look ridiculous.”
“Ya think?”
“You are not helping my self-esteem, Joe.”
“I’m not trying to help! Here’s what I would like to do to your self-esteem, you lying little shithead. First I will kick it in front of a bus, and after your self-esteem has been squashed flat and ground into the scuzzy grime on the road, I will unzip my pants and-”
“All right, all right, I get the idea. Hey, I was going to tell you about it soon anyway.”
Somehow, despite how incredibly trustworthy he had been, I did not believe him. “You were? Because you knew Nagatha was onto your lies?”
“No,” he pouted. “Because I need your help.”
“Hmm. You realize that needing help is not a good motive for telling the truth?”
“It’s not? I mean, no, it’s not, of course not. Um, why is that?”
“You are supposed to tell the truth, because friends don’t lie to each other.”
“What? Oh, come on,” he snorted. “Lying is the basis for many friendships. Lies like, you know; she wasn’t good enough for you anyway, that company didn’t appreciate your talents, that dress doesn’t make you look fat. If your friends won’t lie to make you feel better, who will?”
“Those are not,” I started to retort. But, damn it, he was partly right about that. “That’s not the point.”
The smug tone of his voice told me he figured he had won that argument. “Anywho, I do need your help. Joe, I think there are Elder goodies on that moon, and I need monkeys, I mean, people, to go down there.”
The tempting thought of acquiring Elder technology made me bite back the reply I had planned. “What kind of goodies?”
“Crunchy chocolate on the outside, with a delicious caramel center?”
“Be serious, if you want my help.”
“I am being serious. I don’t know exactly what is down there, but the site is partially intact. It was a big site, and most of it is gone, but there are outlying structures that were only damaged. Because the structures are Elder tech, I can’t scan inside them with the Dragon’s crappy sensors. My bots are all busy working on the Dutchman, and I don’t want to risk damaging one of them, because they can’t be replaced.”
“Uh huh. But you are totally Ok with us monkeys risking our lives?”
“Um, yes? Or no. Pretend I said whatever thing will get me in the least trouble. Look, we both know you can’t pass up an opportunity to ransack an Elder site, so how about we imagine we had an informed, rational adult conversation, and then you do what I asked, Ok?”
“Skippy, why is arguing with you a complete waste of time?”
“Joe, I do not mind participating in arguments, or debates or whatever you want to call it. All I ask is to get whatever I want, after a reasonable amount of discussion.”
“Oh boy.”
The beer can got his way, again. After a very careful scan of the entire star system, during which Nagatha reviewed every piece of data to make sure Skippy wasn’t holding out on us, I was satisfied he was right about one very important thing; there was no current alien presence in the system, and no one had been there for a very long time. Because Smythe wanted to use the Elder site for training, and because the new people were dying to see what an Elder structure looked like,
and because there was no way we could pass up an opportunity to collect Elder technology, I approved a mission to that moon. After Skippy put the Dutchman back together. That moon was a long way away, we only had one big Condor dropship left, and it would take a long time to fly there through normal space. The unmanned Dragon that Skippy flew remotely had been able to use single-use boosters to get there, and burned most of its fuel in a high-G maneuver to slow down and swing into orbit. The math I did on my laptop, and yes I am capable of plotting math for normal-space navigation, told me it would actually be faster to wait for the Dutchman to be back online, and jump across the star system, than to fly there in a dropship. Skippy did not like that, he also did not disagree with my math, which astonished us both.
Since the ship needed to perform a short-range test jump anyway, we jumped near the target moon, and had the ship on a hair-trigger to jump away at the first sign of trouble. There were no signs of trouble, so four hours later, we dropped down to the surface in a pair of Falcons and a Dragon. There were three primary sites to explore and after the near-disaster on our second mission, when an away team exploring an Elder site got trapped there by a Kristang battlegroup jumping in unexpectedly, I was determined that each team be no more than five minutes away from a dropship that was ready to fly. The dropships had their main cabins depressurized and the back ramps open, so each three-person away team could run up the ramps side by side. We were taking enough chances on this mission, I was not allowing any unnecessary risk.
There is not much to tell about the Elder site, the main complex had been scooped out and thrown into another dimension, there was a shallow crater in the center of the site. Somebody had decided that big crater had not done the job, so a bombardment from orbit followed, blowing chunks out of the central crater and digging so deep that molten lava had partly filled in the crater’s bottom. Structures on the periphery of the main crater had also been hit, but that bombardment was oddly hit-or-miss, if you pardon the pun. Some structures had been obliterated, others appeared to have only collateral damage from nearby explosions, like they had not been targeted at all. Those structures were where we concentrated our search.
Renegades (Expeditionary Force Book 7) Page 44
