Black Ops (Expeditionary Force Book 4) Read online

  “No, dumdum, not the Ruhar. An outside party like the Thuranin, or the Wurgalan; even the Torgalau or the Bosphuraq. The Kristang and the Wurgalan are supposed to be peers, and on the same side, but they hate each other.”

  “Oh, this is way too complicated,” I groaned. “We have to steal a freakin’ warship, without anyone knowing it was stolen? That is impossible!”

  “Not impossible, Joe,” Skippy replied cheerfully. “We got the Flying Dutchman that way, right? You clever monkeys will think of something. Because, you know, you kinda have to.”

  Skippy was entirely right; we had to think up a good plan, because the survival of our species depended on it. I felt like Skippy was not taking the situation seriously, so I went into my office and closed the door to have a talk with him. He promised to listen, and he kept his promise while I explained the importance of us working together.

  “Ba ha ha!” Skippy chuckled suddenly, interrupting me.

  “What? You think this is funny?” I asked, appalled.

  “Huh? What? No, you dumdum. Sergeant Adams just said something funny. Hee hee.”

  “Adams? Jesus Chr- You promised you would pay attention to me?”

  “Yeah, and I di- Oh, wait, you expected me to pay attention the whole time? For crying out loud, Joe, no one can do that. You blah, blah, blah so long, listening to every word you say would put me in a freakin’ coma.”

  “But you responded while I was talking!?”

  “Oh, that,” he muttered. “Yeah, once I figured out what you were probably going to say, I created a quick submind to say stuff like ‘Yes’ and ‘I agree’ and ‘Mmm hmm’ while I was busy.”

  “Did you actually hear anything I said?”

  “Sure, of course. Well, shmaybe? Let me play it back. Uh, apparently, uh, I’m skimming through it here, getting the high-level stuff. Damn, even running through it at high speed is putting me to sleep. Apparently it is something about bad guys, danger, monkeys in trouble, planetary extinction, yadda yadda yadda, is that about it?”

  I kept bonking my head on the table.

  He made a helpful observation. “Joe, if you keep hitting your head on the table like that, you could get a concussion. It’s not like you have a surplus of brain cells.”

  “Thank you, Skippy.”

  “Oh, no problem, Joe,” he said brightly, “always happy to help. Hey, while you’re not busy-”

  “Not busy?”

  “Not doing anything useful, that’s for sure. Anywho, I want to show you something.”

  “Show me wha- what in the hell is that?” I gasped as a holographic avatar popped into existence on my desktop.

  “Isn’t it magnificent?” His voice sounded entirely pleased with himself.

  The avatar was less than a foot tall, with a small silver beer can for a body, and a large, round head, like an old bobblehead doll. He was wearing a costume, one I didn’t remember from the batch Major Simms had given me. Skippy hated having costumes put on his can, so I had used costumes sparingly after our endless mission in the dropship. For example, I had dressed Skippy in a Red Sox uniform to celebrate the day of the Red Sox first home game of the season. Before that, he had been dressed up like a leprechaun for St Patrick’s day. Man, he had totally hated that.

  Now, his avatar was wearing a resplendent Navy blue, white and gold admiral’s uniform, although the uniform was not from any naval service I knew of on Earth. His enormous ancient fore and aft hat had so much ‘scrambled egg’ gold braid and fringe that almost half the blue was hidden. The wide ‘shoulders’ had epaulets weighted down with stars.

  “That’s a,” I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. “That’s a, very nice hat.”

  “You like it?” His chrome surfaces that were exposed glowed a happy light blue.

  “It needs to, uh,” digging a fingernail deep into my palm helped me not to snicker at him. “The hat should be a bit bigger.”

  The avatar’s hat grew. “Like this?”

  “Oh, yes. That is, very, uh, very impressive to all the hairless apes. Skippy, what’s up with this getup?”

  “Grand Admiral of the Fleet Lord Skippy, at your service, Joe.”

  “Grand Admiral of the Fleet, huh? Oh, and I see you are a, five, six,” I counted, “seven star admiral. Interesting.”

  “Hmm. Should it be eight stars, then? To tell you the truth, I was kind of guessing. Your international military senior rank structures are confusing.”

  “No, seven stars should be plenty,” I assured him.

  “Do I look fierce, Joe?” He scowled, although it was hard to see his eyes under the giant, ridiculous hat. “I want my avatar to project authority.”

  “You are,” this time I bit my lip so hard that I drew blood. “Definitely projecting, uh, something. Fierce might be one word for it.” Ridiculous was a better word, I thought to myself. “Why did you pattern your avatar after a bobblehead doll?”

  “Well, Joe, I noticed that your species creates bobbleheads for people who are respected and admired, like sports stars. This avatar should certainly get me respect, right?”

  “Respect,” damn it, I was almost biting through my lip. “That is one word for it, yes. Where did you get this, uh, uniform?” I figured he would not appreciate me calling it a ‘costume.’

  “I designed it myself. Pretty awesome, huh?”

  “Awesome is not the word I would use,” I answered with restraint. “You know us primitive cavemen can’t truly appreciate the full scope of your awesomeness. I like you having an avatar, but I thought you hated dressing up?”

  “Consider this uniform a preemptive strike, Joe. There is a holiday approaching, and I do not want you dressing my can like the Easter Bunny.”

  “OMG!” Until that moment, that idea had not occurred to me. “That is a great idea!”

  “Shit. No, it is not a great idea!”

  “Oh, come on, Skippy. Imagine how cute you will be, wearing a fuzzy pink-”

  “Not happening!”

  “Sergeant Adams would think you are absolutely adorable.” I knew Skippy had a soft spot in his heart for our tough US Marine Corps Staff Sergeant.

  “Really?”

  “Skippy, Adams is a woman, you know.”

  “Maybe- No! No way. Not happening. Zero chance.”

  “You’ll think about it?”

  He sighed heavily. “Yes, I will think about it. Not for you, but for Margaret,” he used Adams’ first name. “Don’t count on it. Keep in mind, Joe, the real Easter Bunny would hide delicious chocolate treats around the ship for everyone. The Skippy Bunny might have his bots sprinkle radioactive reactor waste instead.”

  “I will keep that in mind,” I said distractedly, thinking of the costume I wanted Major Simms to make. Fuzzy pink fur to cover his beer can, floppy pink ears on top of his lid, a puffy tail in the back. He was going to be adorable. “Has anyone else seen this new avatar?”

  “No,” the avatar shook its oversized bobblehead with the towering hat. “I learned my lesson last time, Joe. Figured it is best to run it by you first.”

  “That was good judgment, Skippy. How about you keep your new avatar a secret until dinner tonight? I will announce that you have a new, uh, persona, and you can reveal your magnificent self to more than half the crew at one time.”

  “I like it!”

  “Hey, uh, I have to go.”

  “What? You called me, Joe. What did you want in the first place?”

  “At this point, I really don’t remember. It couldn’t be that important, huh?” I turned to leave, chuckling at the thought of Skippy’s beer can dressed up as the Easter Bunny.

  “Hey! Colonel, you are supposed to salute me,” Skippy sounded miffed. “I do hugely outrank you.”

  I gave him a gesture that was, let’s just say it was not quite a salute.

  “I saw that!”

  “Goodbye, Skippy.”

  I let it be known there would be an important announcement during dinner, so the galley was ext
ra crowded. Normally, people drifted in and out of the galley over the two and half hours designated for dinner time; this time the place was packed right at 1800 hours. “As you all know, and some of you have seen,” I looked at Adams, Simms and a couple others, “Skippy has been considering using a holographic avatar so we can communicate better with him. He experimented with different types of avatars, and today he showed me the, uh, design he has selected. I am certain that when you see it,” I scowled at the assembled crew, hoping they caught my meaning, “you will appreciate that his avatar is fierce and commands respect. Certainly his new avatar is not any source of amusement.”

  “Respect, yes, Colonel Bishop,” Chang said while looking quizzically at me. “Not amusing.”

  “Please welcome Grand Admiral of the Fleet, Lord Skippy.” As soon as I said ‘Skippy’, his holographic avatar popped into existence on a table at the end of the galley.

  Every morning, I get a status report from Lt. Colonel Chang. A lot of the data in the report comes from Skippy, or the CIC duty crew. It contains mundane info about critical ship systems, which no human was capable of doing anything about, but it was nice to know if Skippy had taken a defensive shield generator offline for maintenance. Major Simms contributed the logistics section of the report, detailing how many supplies had been consumed, how much of each item we had remaining and an estimate of how long until we ran out. There was the usual section of crew injuries; the inevitable minor sprains and bruises from SpecOps people training as intensely as they could.

  Because Chang’s report used a standard Chinese Army format, it contained a section on discipline issues. That section was blank, every single day. The Merry Band of Pirates were the elite of Earth’s special forces; every one of them was supremely self-disciplined. If they were bored or frightened or pissed off at a fellow soldier, none of them showed it. They all knew we were on a dangerous, extremely important mission while stuck aboard an alien pirate ship, and that everyone needed to exhibit their best behavior to ensure unit cohesion and good morale. Also, none of our ultra-competitive people wanted to be the first to break discipline. Major Smythe had done an outstanding job blending five rival nations into one fighting force, but those rivalries were still there, just under the surface. And that sense of national pride ensured that no one wanted to bring shame upon their country by being the first to be reported as a disciplinary issue.

  I mention this because, when Lord Skippy’s avatar materialized, with his ridiculous giant hat and elaborate uniform, I witnessed our bad-ass special ops people struggling mightily not to burst out laughing. Some people were sitting rigidly, biting their lips or covering their faces with hands. Other people were rocking back and forth in their chairs, a hand over their mouths, doing their best not to burst out laughing, and losing the battle.

  Sergeant Adams had it worst; tears were streaming down her face as she stared at her boots and bit down hard on a thumb. At any moment, someone was going to start laughing at Skippy. And it was probably going to be me. So I did the only thing I could do, while I still had enough breath in my lungs. “Hooray for Lord Skippy!” I shouted, pumping a fist in the air.

  Everyone cheered, some of the exclamations were choked with laughter. A ragged cheer kept going as Skippy bowed, clueless to the general air of mirth in the galley. “Thank you, thank you,” he responded. “I hope now that you monkeys see my new form, you will stop referring to me as a beer can.”

  “Oh, Skippy, I am sure,” I declared, “that is never going to happen.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Because sitting around trying to dream up a plan produced nothing worthwhile, I declared a break and went to the gym; our SEALS team was in the middle of a grueling workout when I arrived. We finished around the same time, hit the showers and then the galley for a post-workout snack. When I walked into the galley, a half dozen people were already eating lunch. One of the SEALS named Jones saw a piece of chocolate cake sitting by itself on a table, and picked it up hungrily.

  “Not worried about ruining your appetite by eating dessert first?” I asked jokingly.

  “No, Sir,” he grinned, taking a big bite of cake. “Aboard this ship, things change so fast, it’s better to eat dessert first. You never know-”

  “Hey!” A Ranger named Jeff Mychalchyk came over to the table with a tray full of food. “I was gonna eat that cake.”

  “You snooze, you lose,” Jones mumbled as he stuffed the rest of the cake in his mouth. “Finders keepers, man. Consumption is, like, nine tenths of the law. Right, Colonel? Colonel?”

  I was already back out the door, pulling my zPhone out. “Dr. Rose, meet me in my office ASAP.”

  When I got to my office, she was already waiting for me. “You got here fast,” I noted, beginning to regret my haste in leaving the galley. After the rest of the SpecOps people descended on the galley like a horde of starving locusts, I would be lucky to lick crumbs off the floor for my lunch. Damn it. I should have at least grabbed a sandwich on my way out.

  “I was in the CIC,” Sarah pointed over her shoulder.

  “CIC?” That surprised me.

  “Dr. Friedlander suggested we shadow the flight crew, so we can fill in if needed. On the sensors and weapons stations, not the flight controls.”

  “Oh. That’s a lot of work.”

  She held her hands up. “I’m a geologist and a chemist. It’s not like I’m busy out here right now, especially now that my secret is out,” she shook her head ruefully. “Besides, I think Friedlander is pissed at me right now. I don’t blame him. He’s a good man, I didn’t like deceiving him. That’s why I wasn’t included in the science team exploring the Dead Star.”

  “It’s not your fault, Sarah. It was your job to deceive all of us. I’m the one who should apologize to Friedlander; I knew about you and I chose not tell him.” The only actual promise I had made to our friendly resident rocket scientist was that he would not be eaten by a space lizard, but lying to him still didn’t sit right with me. I needed to schedule a time to speak with him one on one. “Anyway, I have an idea I want to run past you. And Skippy.”

  His avatar popped into existence on my table. “You are in luck, Joe, my Lordship happens to be free at this moment. With what do you propose to waste my time now?”

  “A question, Skippy, but first, Dr. Rose. You said there are three ways to get a ship. Make one, buy one or steal one.”

  “You suggested ‘fake one’ as an option,” she reminded me.

  “That was more of an alternative to getting a ship, not another option for getting one.”

  “Yeah, and it was an epically stupid suggestion, Joe,” Skippy said gleefully.

  “Only because you failed to bend the laws of physics properly, Skippy, anyway-”

  “Wha- what? I failed?” Skippy fumed indigently. “You flea-bitten, ignorant-”

  I cut off his insult. “Skippy said if we steal a ship, we have to do it without anyone realizing it was stolen, which seems impossible to me. So, I was thinking there is a fourth option for getting a ship.”

  “Oh?” Sarah raised an eyebrow, in the gesture that usually means a guy is in trouble, but in this case it meant she was curious.

  “Maybe it’s a type of stealing. But I don’t think so. We find a ship.”

  Her mouth formed a silent ‘O’. “Finding is not stealing, I suppose, if-”

  “Right,” I nodded. “If the ship has been abandoned. According to maritime law on Earth, an abandoned vessel is subject to being salvaged, and taking control of an abandoned ship is not stealing. It’s like the ‘finders keepers’ rule, only its written into law.”

  “Look at the big brain on Joe!” Skippy exclaimed. “How did you get all smart about law stuff?”

  “I read ‘Interstellar Law for Dummies’ during breakfast this morning.”

  “Uh huh,” Skippy did not sound convinced. “You want us to find a starship? How? I can assure you the Kristang do not leave the keys in their ships while they run into the 7-11 for
a burrito. Ooooh, hey, or do you mean like a scavenger hunt? Cool! We could-”

  “No scavenger hunts, Skippy.”

  “Damn. Just when I think things might finally be getting fun around here.”

  “Sorry, Skippy. You’ll have to wait for karaoke night to have fun.”

  “Karaoke? I’m invited?” He asked, astonished. “Gosh, Joe, that’s great. I can-”

  Oh crap. We actually did have karaoke every other Tuesday night in the galley, and Skippy was right, he had never been invited. Because he epically sucked at singing. There was nothing Skippy enjoyed better than belting out show tunes, and there was nothing the crew hated worse than listening to Skippy sing. “Uh, yeah, great, let me, um, talk with Major Simms about fitting you into the schedule, Ok? What I meant by finding a ship is, there must be Kristang ships that have been abandoned due to battle damage, or things like that.”

  “Yes, there are. However, by definition, a ship abandoned because of battle damage is unable to fly, Joe. A ship like that would be useless to us, duh. And the Kristang typically scuttle their warships after they have been abandoned; they blow them to space dust.”

  “I don’t mean only warships, Skippy. We can make an armed ship out of a transport vessel, the old term for that is a ‘Q-ship’.”

  “Oh, great,” his avatar rolled its eyes. “So I’m supposed to go searching the galaxy for ships that just happen to be-”

  “No searching needed, Skippy. I hope not. I think you have all the info you need from this ship’s database.”

  “Huh? Now you have completely lost me, Joe.”

  “You told me the previous crew of the Flying Dutchman, before we captured it, had dumped several overloaded Kristang transport ships in deep space, because the Kristang couldn’t pay for their passage on a Thuranin star carrier. And by the time the Kristang scraped together enough money to pay the Thuranin, most of the lizards on those ships were dead.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “Are those transport ships still out there, or did the Thuranin pick up all of them?”