Renegades (Expeditionary Force Book 7)

by Craig Alanson

  I should have reprimanded him for making that threat.

  I didn’t.

  Anyway, Muller met me in the galley, which was pretty empty at that time of day. That explained the empty coffee pot, so I made a fresh pot and had a mug ready for him when he came in.

  “Thank you, Colonel. You wanted to talk with me?”

  “Yeah, thanks for coming. I, I need to learn, about physics and stuff like that. Winging it and getting lucky isn’t good enough anymore, my ignorance is a danger to the ship.”

  “Learn about physics? What kind of physics?”

  “The, uh,” I waved a hand in a vague gesture, “useful kind?” I guessed. “Not, like, egghead string theory stuff. Practical stuff.”

  He sighed. “Skippy tells me that a lot of the ‘practical stuff’,” he made air quotes with his fingers, “we think we know is wrong.”

  “Ok, then how about stuff we are sure of? Like, physics we know because we can see it work? Um, like, if I drop this pen,” I picked up a pen that had been lying unused on my desk forever, “and drop it,” I released the writing instrument. “It falls.” The pen bounced off the deck and rolled to a corner.

  “Colonel, that is a bad example,” he grimaced. “On Earth, a pen would fall because of gravity. Here aboard the Flying Dutchman, there is an artificial field that mimics the effects of gravity, but it is not gravity and the math is subtly different.”

  “Oh crap. Is there anything you can teach me?”

  “Um, let me think. Would you be willing to start with studying some background info? I have a copy of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry by Neal deGrasse Tyson.”

  That made me frown. Was he dissing me? “Is that like Astrophysics for Dummies?”

  “Not quite,” he assured me with a smile.

  “Ok, I’ll try it.” With our mission successfully complete, I wanted to get back to Earth soon. Maybe I would not have time to read a big, complicated book. “If I get through that book, you will teach me more?”

  “I am willing to try.”

  “Good. Uh, one question; Skippy tells me the language of physics is math. Is this going to involve a lot of hard math like algebra and calculus?”

  “Oh,” he threw his head back and laughed. “You consider that to be hard math?”

  “Uh, maybe?”

  “Colonel, there is one thing I am certain of.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, heh heh,” he mimicked Skippy. “You are not going to like this.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

  “Hey, Joe,” Skippy announced in a nervous tone as his avatar shimmered into life a couple hours later. That by itself was odd, usually the hologram was fully formed in the blink of an eye.

  “Hey yourself. Everything Ok with you?” I asked with concern. Partly, it was concern for myself. We had just completed a truly impossible mission, and I did not want anything harshing my inner buzz.

  “No,” he shook his head sadly. “Everything is far from Ok. We have a big problem. By ‘we’ I mean myself and every other intelligent creature in the Milky Way galaxy. For the sake of amusement, I will include monkeys in the list of intelligent beings.”

  “Listen, if you’re going to warn me that trillions of years from now, every proton in the galaxy will decay into quarks or some other entropy thing, that is not fun-”

  “I am not being funny, Joe, and this issue is not something billions or trillions of years in the future. In fact, hmm, this trouble began millions of years in the past.”

  The tone of his voice, more than what he said, made me press the button under my desk to close my office door. “Holy shit. Please don’t tell me we screwed up somehow and the Maxolhx are coming to Earth despite all our efforts.”

  “No, that is not the problem.”

  “Oh,” an involuntary shudder struck me and I didn’t bother trying to hide it. “Thank G-”

  “The problem is much, much worse than a couple of puny Maxolhx ships.”

  “P- puny? Maxolhx ships are- Oh, crap, you’d better tell me right now.” My imagination was running wild. All the ‘attaboys’ we accumulated on our last mission could get wiped away by a single ‘awshit’. Really, I could not complain about that; with the Merry Band of Pirates, any kind of ‘awshit’ was an end-of-the-world thing.

  “Let me start at the beginning. When I downloaded data from the first relay station to get the flightplans of the target ships, I swept in a lot of irrelevant crap that I analyzed and discarded. One item that was not irrelevant is a report from a Maxolhx geology group on a planet in the Sagittarius Arm of the galaxy, eight thousand lightyears from Earth. That planet originally had a Maxolhx colony, but they abandoned it long ago and allowed the Thuranin to establish a presence there. It is not a hospitable world and is not convenient to any Elder wormholes-”

  “Wait. You got this hugely bad info from a relay station like, weeks ago, and you’re just telling me about it now?”

  “Yes, but-”

  “A lot of shit has happened since then. We hit those ships after the last visit to a relay station. Why the delay?”

  “The delay is part of the problem, you dumdum!”

  Skippy rarely shouted at me, so I stopped haranguing him. “Sorry, Go ahead.”

  “I got that info way back then, and I did read it, and I thought it was nothing. Then, while analyzing my matrix, I noticed a discrepancy in the size of files. That geology report was hidden from me until recently, I thought I had read the entire file, but there was a lot I missed. Joe, something inside me is concealing important information from my higher consciousness, and I don’t know what is happening. I do think I know why, and it scares the shit out of me.”

  “Go on. What is this, uh, geology report?” There was not any way I could imagine why a report about rocks or whatever on an obscure planet could be a threat, certainly not a threat to the entire galaxy. More likely, the threat was that worrying about a geology report was a sign of Skippy’s mind cracking.

  “The Maxolhx team there was confirming evidence that was originally collected around three hundred thousand years ago. That original team was conducting a survey to assess the stability of the tectonic plates, to determine which areas would be suitable for placing long-term settlements. What that team found was very interesting; that planet had a native intelligent species, a type of six-legged mammal who built structures of wood and stone and created crude tools from metal, primarily bronze. I say ‘had’ because that species became extinct.”

  “Oh, shit.” There was only one reason why Skippy would consider the extinction to be a threat to us now. “Like Newark?”

  “Good guess, Joe. It was a bit like Newark, in that the extinction of that species was not a natural phenomenon like an ice age, nor was it a natural disaster like a big meteor. Based on evidence collected by the Maxolhx, the star’s output suddenly increased over a period of two weeks and cooked the planet. The additional heat and radiation was fatal to all large land animals, including all the intelligent beings.”

  “Ok, that is tragic, and if you think an Elder AI was involved, that is very bad news. But, Skippy, we already knew an Elder AI committed genocide on Newark. How is this different?”

  “The different part is not what happened, it is when it happened. The Maxolhx determined, and my analysis confirms, the intelligent species on that world was wiped out approximately two million years before the Elders left their physical form behind.”

  “Oh my- you are sure?”

  “I am certain of the timing. The dates may be off slightly one way or the other, however there is no question that this genocide occurred while the Elders were still here and active.”

  “That blows my mind, Skippy.”

  “Blows my mind too, Joe. There are only two possibilities I can see, and here I could use your help.”

  “Uh, what?”

  “Your help. My mind is relentless logical, while your thought process is completely disorganized and random. Thus, you may think o
f something I missed.”

  “Thank you?” I couldn’t decide whether he had insulted me again, so I fell back on being polite.

  “Like I said, two possibilities. There could be a third party that was around while the Elders were active, which frightens me because in that case, the Elders stood by and did nothing while this unknown third party committed genocide. The other possibility is, I hesitate to mention it because this terrifies me to my core.” His avatar was shaking. “The possibility that the Elders themselves wiped out that primitive species.”

  “Hey, before we go down that road, there is no way that star heating up was just a fluke? Stars can be variable, I remember you telling me that.”

  “Stars can’t be variable like that, Joe. Not as a one-time event. Plus, what I didn’t tell you is another piece of evidence collected by the Maxolhx. They found a radiation signature in rocks that is characteristic, like a fingerprint, of an Elder technology for manipulating stars. The Elders often used that technology to regulate stars that are variable, so their output is more even and conducive for life on planets orbiting in the Goldilocks zone. That technology, if abused, can make a star’s output increase or decrease significantly. There is no question that the incident that wiped out that species was not natural, that it was deliberate, and that it utilized Elder technology. A type of technology that no other species has come close to developing. Joe, remember, the reason we recovered a dropship from that moonbase was because the Maxolhx were using that star system for experiments on manipulating stars. Other species want that technology, only the Elders have it. Had it.”

  “Ok, Ok,” I sat back in my chair despite my shaking hands, which I placed firmly on the desk, pressing down so they stopped trembling. “I uh, I may have been wrong about something, Skippy.”

  “What is that?”

  “Whether I should trust you not to go on a crazy killing spree. No, that’s not what I meant. I trust you, maybe you can’t trust yourself. Maybe there is something bad inside you, something you were created with, something you can’t control.”

  “That is what scares me too, Joe. I haven’t told you the worst part yet.”

  “There is something worse?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. When I read the Maxolhx geology report, I noticed gaps in the data. That triggered something inside me to release memories I did not know I had, that filled in the gaps. Joe, I already knew about that genocide. I have always known about it. I must have been programmed with that data, to know it, to understand it. Whoever I am, at one point I was Ok with knowing an intelligent species was erased from existence. Before you say something blandly comforting like maybe I was provided that data to warn me against genocide,” he said before I could open my mouth to say exactly that. “It makes no sense. Why hide data from me? A warning is only useful if I was aware of it. No,” he shook his head sadly, the admiral’s hat bobbing side to side. “I have to consider that I am not who I thought I was, that everything I thought I knew about the Elders is wrong or all lies. Joe, I don’t know if I can live with knowing the Elders committed genocide.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “Huh? Did you not hear anything I said? Damn it, you-”

  “You don’t know anything, Skippy. You do not know the Elders baked that planet and wiped out those six-legged cavemen.”

  “Joe, do not try telling me an Elder AI could have gone crazy back then and-”

  “That is still a valid guess, Skippy. There could also have been another intelligent, star-faring species in this galaxy at the same time as the Elders.”

  “Oh,” he scoffed. “Puh-lease, Joe. There is no evidence of that.”

  “Until recently, you did think there might have been an unknown third party roaming the galaxy and causing havoc. Maybe there is no evidence of this third party, because the Elders destroyed them for being murderous assholes. A hostile third party would explain why Elder starships were equipped with weapons, right?”

  “Hmmm,” he pondered the question. “Possibly, maybe. The problem is, there’s no evidence an unknown third party ever existed.”

  “Other than the wormhole network and a few trinkets scattered around, there is little evidence the Elders ever existed, Skippy. Seriously, most species only know about the Elders because the Rindhalu spent thousands of years scouring the galaxy for information about who was here before them. What we think we know about the Elders is based on guesses made by the Rindhalu, right?”

  “I suppose you are right about that, Joe. Damn it! I know even less now than when we started this stupid conversation.”

  “That is my point, Skippy. Do not go getting all depressed because of bad assumptions you make without actually knowing anything, Ok?”

  “Ok,” he grumbled, still unhappy. “Sorry to spoil your good mood, Joe.”

  “Hey, don’t worry about it,” I offered his avatar a fist bump. “My good mood is going to last a long time, hopefully. Come on, we did the impossible!”

  “I guess so,” he sounded like Eeyore the donkey from Winnie the Pooh. “Are you planning a party for the crew to celebrate?”

  “I’m not, but I hope Simms is planning something.”

  “Don’t tell her I said this, but she may be planning a party. Joe, you do not seem as happy as you should be.”

  “Ah,” I stared at the ceiling. “I’m worried about Adams, about what’s been happening to her while we’ve been flying around the galaxy. It’s great that we’re returning home from a successful mission, maybe that gives us some leverage, you know? But we did steal a starship that technically belonged to UNEF. Some of that fallout may hit Adams.”

  He made a sad sniffling sound. “I am worried about Margaret too, Joe,” he spoke in a whisper. “Dude, can I ask you a question, man to man?”

  With Skippy, it was more like man to can, but I didn’t tell him that. “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Are you worried that Margaret might have found someone while we were away, that she will be in a relationship when we get back to Earth?”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Damn it, if I knew your question was about that, I would have told you to-”

  “She is not going to wait forever, Joe,” the unusual sincere tone of his voice was more important than his words. Skippy was not being his typical snarky asshole self.

  “Listen, Skippy, drop the subject. You know what regulations say about-”

  “Reg- regulations?” He sputtered. “Dude, you committed mutiny and stole a starship. I think you are waaaaaay past caring about regs. Jeez Louise, that’s like being rescued from the Titanic, and complaining about their wine selection. Get some perspective.”

  “It’s not that easy, Skippy. The Army is a team, and the Army is my family away from home. I threw that all away, I’m not part of the team anymore. I’m a soldier. It doesn’t feel right. Do me a favor, please? Let’s not talk about this.”

  Simms did have a party planned, and we did party hearty until well after midnight. Although the official supplies provided to the Flying Dutchman had not included any alcohol, Skippy had sneakily gotten plenty of booze aboard by mislabeling containers and hacking into logistics databases. When he had promised free beer in his failed campaign for my job, he actually had not been lying about that. There was plenty of beer aboard for our small crew, and wine and hard liquor. His selections were unusual and interesting, like we had several bottles of a German ginger-flavored liquor called ‘Ratzeputz’ that I never heard of. Also tequila, which I avoided, but I did try ouzo which was a big mistake. From India was stuff called ‘arrack’ and there was Chinese liquor called ‘baijiu’ that was like vodka.

  Overall, I was a good boy, I did not get hammered. Although, damn it, after accomplishing the truly impossible, I deserved to get a little crazy. The reason I stayed mostly sober was my concern about Skippy, if he started blubbering about how confused and depressed he was, I wanted to be lucid to talk him down off the ledge. Also, because I was hoping to be reinstated after we returned home, I needed the Un
ited States Army to know my behavior had been exemplary.

  And also, I was worried that if I drank too much, the universe would use that as an opportunity to bite me in the ass.

  So, the next morning, I was relatively awake and alert for my duty shift on the bridge starting at 0800. Because Nagatha and Skippy were still repairing battle damage, there was not much for the duty officer to do, so I used the time to work on the after-action report. Everything was quiet until a beer can decided to complicate my day.

  “Hey, Joe,” Skippy’s avatar blinked on in front of the main bridge display.

  “Gaaah!” I shrieked. “What the hell is that?” Instead of his usual Grand Admiral outfit, the hologram was over five feet tall, with a weather-beaten face, long white hair and a thin white beard. He was dressed in brown robes and at first I thought he was a Jedi knight, but the robes were too simple and plain and he didn’t have a lightsaber.

  “Huh? Oh, sorry, Joe,” he looked down at himself. “I forgot which avatar I was using. This is my holy man Skippyasyermuni. I’ve been practicing for a promotional video.”

  “Pro-promotion? I thought you gave up that cult!”

  “Club, Joe. It’s a club, remember? Abandoning my followers now would be cruel, they need me and love me.”

  “Love you? They don’t even know you. They don’t know you’re just a scam,” I insisted without any proof that statement was true. While at my sister’s apartment in Boston, I had researched his cult on the internet and all the postings from followers of Skippyism, or whatever it is called, were super enthusiastic. No one had anything but positive things to say about how The Skippy had changed their lives, although it could be that Skippy edited out all the negative comments.

  “That is insulting, Joe, and you know it. Skippyasyermuni delivers a solid value to his followers. Really, it’s more like an organized crime gang than a cult, where- Um, unless being a gang is a bad thing.”