SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) (25 page)

Xho did not look happy. “Colonel Bishop, I fear we are
risking the lives of billions of people, who could not participate in this decision,”
and as he said that, he shared a glance with Chang.

A chill ran up my spine. For a moment, I feared Chang
and Xho had secret orders to take over the ship. With much of the ship
disabled, Skippy’s ability to interfere with a mutiny was limited.

Xho continued. “It is your decision to make, Colonel.
What are your orders?”

Inwardly, I shuddered with relief. “Colonel Chang, you
have the schedule for crew departure-“

Decision made, I contacted Kassner and asked her to
come to my office again. She looked like she hasn’t slept much either. "Doctor
Kassner, we are going to Newark. You've analyzed the data brought back by the
Flower
?"

She was startled. "Colonel, I wasn't aware there
was a question about us landing on Newark. Isn't that why we're here?"

"There was a question about the security risk of
us landing," I explained. "We've resolved those concerns, for now.
We're going to land, the question is, where?"

She pointed to her iPad. "There is a mountain of
data here, even with Skippy's help, we've barely skimmed the surface. It's not
just that we don't have enough relevant data to analyze, some of the data we
have doesn't make sense. The oxygen level, for example."

"It's not going to be comfortable at first,"
I admitted, "we will need time to adjust. Skippy told me the oxygen level
is equivalent to Earth at ten thousand feet of altitude, and people live in
those conditions-"

"Yes, yes, you don't understand," she said.
"Our question is not why the oxygen level is so low, it's how the oxygen
level could possibly be so high. It doesn't make sense."

"Oh," I said, thinking I understood his
question, "sure, because there aren't any trees down there, to convert
carbon dioxide to free oxygen."

"No," she couldn't keep a tiny measure of fatigued
irritation from flashing across her face. When Skippy implied, or outright
stated, how ignorant and dimwitted I am, that didn't bother me, no human could
compare to his intelligence. When Kassner looked at me pityingly, as if she
were talking to a particularly slow small child, that pissed me off. She must
have sensed my irritation, because she hastened to add "That is a very
common misconception, even in the scientific community, except for people who
specialize in biology. On Earth today, plants such as trees do generate
substantial amounts of free oxygen, however, single-celled organisms utilizing
photosynthesis converted Earth's atmosphere billions of years ago from an
anaerobic state, to a state saturated with free oxygen. This was long before
the appearance of any land plants, the buildup of free oxygen was delayed by
minerals on the surface, such as iron, absorbing the free oxygen, until the
mineral base became saturated. At that point, we think the free oxygen reduced
the amount of methane in Earth's atmosphere, methane is a powerful greenhouse
gas, so falling methane levels triggered Earth's first ice age. That may be
what happened to Newark, we simply do not know yet. The level of methane in
Newark's atmosphere, we think primarily from volcanic activity, would indicate
a substantial greenhouse effect is occurring. That tells us the planet should
be warmer, that it was warmer in the past, considering the oxygen levels."

Interesting as I found this info, and I did want to
know more about it eventually, I needed a decision from her. There would be
plenty of time for me to learn about sciency stuff while we huddled in caverns
on Newark. Months in which I’d need something to do while the time slowly
passed. "None of this is likely to affect our ability to survive down
there for a few months?"

"No, no. I mentioned it, Colonel, only to show
you how woefully uninformed our decisions will be. Whatever the source of the
atmospheric anomalies, they will not affect the ability of Newark to support
human life, at least in the short term."

"Great. Excellent. Has the science team selected
a location?"

"The canyonlands you mentioned appear to be the
best candidate,” she said. “There are two caverns there, large enough to house
our population, and deep enough into the hillsides that the heat we generate
will mostly be confined underground. You said concealment is our top priority
in selecting a site, infrared radiation is our greatest liability in terms of
concealment. Assuming we will have advanced warning of overflights by Kristang
aircraft, we can turn off lights and get everyone inside the caverns. Heat,
however, will linger, the rocks of the caverns will absorb heat, and it will be
slow to dissipate. Therefore, another benefit of the canyonlands is that to the
south, roughly eight kilometers, is an area that is geothermically active, with
hot springs. Skippy told us the Kristang have not bothered to explore the
surface of Newark in detail, excess heat emanating from our caverns could be
explained by geothermal activity, if we are careful not to generate heat while
the Kristang are overhead."

"Got it," I was pleased the science team had
considered security, in ways I hadn't even thought about. Of course seventy
humans, and our shelters and cooking, and heating water for sanitation, would
generate a lot of heat. I should have thought of that. "What about
stability? Are the caverns stable?" In addition to my fear of heights, I
wasn't thrilled about the idea of being underground, with millions of tons of
rock above my head. "You said the area has hot springs?"

"Not in the immediate area of the canyons. These
caverns, these two caverns here," she tapped the display to zoom in,
"appear to be stable, the rock around them is," she paused, smiled,
seeking a word I would understand, "solid. We'll know more once we get
down there. We think we could live in these two large caverns, here and here,
and close by are other, smaller caverns we could use to store supplies."

"And the rivers? What happens when the glaciers
melt in the summer?" There were streams, or rivers, running down the
bottom of each canyon.

"We think," she looked me in the eye to
emphasize the team was making an educated guess, "based on erosion layers
in the canyons, that the entrances to these caverns are safely above the flood
level. There are other caverns in the canyon lands," she indicated them on
the screen, "that are flooded currently Both of the two major caverns we
recommend have secondary outlets, that are large enough for a person, or could
be enlarged to allow a person to crawl through. If the main parts of the
caverns do flood, we won't be trapped."

All the gear we needed to survive would be underwater,
he didn't mention. I nodded. "That's a manageable risk," I said.
Hell, what did I know? I was an inexperienced sergeant, pretending to be a
colonel. "Good. Doctor, you'll be on the first pair of dropships to land,
Colonel Chang will rely on your assessment of the sites." Chang would
command the
Flower
, and be taking the first set of dropships down to
Newark. With me being almost two hours away for communications, Chang would be
making all the decisions on his own, until our stolen Kristang frigate came
back to get me and the remaining people and supplies. I hoped Chang knew that I
was going to trust his judgment completely, and not second guess him from the
other side of the star system.                     

"Skippy, I do not like this," I said again.

"Colonel Joe, this is the seventh time you said
that." Skippy replied. "And the third time you have used those exact
same words. You are repeating yourself."

"You sure about that?"

"I can play back the audio recordings, if you
like."

"I would not like."

"Didn't think so. And I predicted you would not
like this, when I explained my plan to you originally."

"I know you-"

We were interrupted by the comm system. "
Dutchman
,
this is the
Flower
, we are ready to depart." It was Chang's voice.

I glanced over to the CIC, everyone there gave me a
thumbs up sign. "Copy that, Colonel Chang, good luck to you."

"Roger,
Dutchman
, we'll be back as soon as
we can."

There was a shudder as the
Flower
detached from
its hardpoint, with the artificial gravity off, we felt all the ship's
maneuvers. I watched on the main display as the
Flower
slowly backed off
on thrusters, spun around, then fired its main engines to move away to a safe
jump distance. That little ship, little only by comparison to the massive star
carrier, would be making two jumps to reach its destination. One jump away from
the
Dutchman
to an area of dead space closer to the star, where the
Flower would fire engines in a long burn to match course and speed with its
final destination. Then a second jump to the L2 Lagrange point above the far
side of the target planet's moon. The
Flower
had to remain on the far
side of that moon, to mask the gamma ray burst from its jumps.

Mask the gamma rays, from the unexpected guests; the
band of roughly thirty Kristang who were on the surface of the planet we needed
to live on. They weren't supposed to be there; Skippy didn't expect them. The
good news is there weren't many of them, and they didn't have a ship in orbit.
From the limited communications Skippy had intercepted, he guessed these were a
rather desperate band of down-on-their-luck Kristang, dropped off on the planet
to search for Elder artifacts. Some of the Kristang appeared to be prisoners,
or possibly slaves, they were all male, as far as Skippy could tell. Dropping
off a couple Thuranin stealth satellites would be one of the
Flower's
first tasks, so we could gather more intel.

One way or the other, the entire crew had to evacuate
the
Flying
Dutchman
, and the only place in range that could
support seventy humans was Newark. Very soon, the
Dutchman
would run out
of power for life support, and its highly eccentric orbit around the
Jupiter-size gas giant fourth planet in the system had the
Dutchman
dipping deep into the strong radiation belts that surrounded the planet. Skippy
was draining emergency power from the capacitors to power the shield generators
around the forward part of the command section, the crew remaining aboard the
Dutchman
were crowded as far forward as we could get. When the ship reached the low
point of its orbit and got fried by the radiation belts, we retreated into
three interior compartments, until the orbit took us above the worst of the
radiation. It was not an optimal situation.

With most of the crew now gone with the
Flower
,
Skippy adjusted life support so only the compartments we occupied got heat,
light and ventilation, the rest of the ship was growing cold, and we'd need
breathing masks to get to the
Flower
, when that ship returned to
evacuate us.

It was damned good that I had decided, with the
original Merry Band of Pirates, to keep the battle damaged
Flower
,
having that ship as a lifeboat was saving our lives. There were fifty two
people squeezed into the
Flower
and the two Thuranin dropships in the
Flower's
docking bays. That many people needed too much oxygen, and breathed out too
much carbon dioxide, for the life support system aboard the little frigate.
They also generated too much body heat. That didn't even consider food,
sleeping space and other biological functions. For a short trip, the
Flower
and dropships could support fifty two people. It had better be a short trip.

Chang brought supplies and the first wave of people
down to Newark in two trips each by the two dropships. Because we couldn’t risk
the Kristang seeing contrails from the dropships scorching their way down into
the atmosphere, the dropships had to come in from far over the horizon, and
then fly low and relatively slowly to the landing site, burning additional time
and fuel. Skippy assured us that through his control of the two Kristang
satellites, the Kristang down there would not be able to see anything we didn’t
want them to see, such as Thuranin dropships. Even with stealth and a slow,
shallow entry profile, it was very difficult to hide the contrail of water
vapor behind the dropships. Whether Skippy had control of the satellites or
not, we could not prevent the Kristang from simply looking at the sky.
Fortunately, the skies on Newark were most often cloudy and raining. Bonus.

I was the last person to leave the
Dutchman
,
taking the elevator up to the docking platform where the
Flower
was
parked. Because most of the star carrier no longer had life support such as
heat, lights and oxygen, I was in an armor suit. I stepped off the elevator,
carrying a small bag of personal items, a very small bag. Everyone had been
cautioned about their meager mass allowance, that caused some grumbling
particularly among the scientists, so I wanted to set a good example.

When the elevator stopped at the top and the door slid
open, I hesitated before walking forward and stepping from one ship to another.
Hopefully, I would be coming back to the
Flying
Dutchman
, that my
journey aboard her was not over yet. After all, our pirate star carrier was
named after a legendary ship that was doomed to roam the seas forever with her
captain. The
Dutchman
was my first command, probably my only command.

With a deep breath, I took one step forward, then
another. The elevator door slid shut behind me, and I had left the
Dutchman
,
for several months at least. There was no one to greet me, I walked forward
halfway to the backup bridge before I saw another person. Since the fight when
we captured the ship, we had repaired some of the battle damage. There were
still bullet holes, scorch marks, and impacts from shrapnel that we hadn't
gotten to yet, or had not bothered to patch up. Chang was in charge of fixing
up the frigate, I suspect he wanted to leave some reminders of our desperate
fight. Some things we couldn't fix, not without a major effort; the frigate's bridge
was still blasted apart from where Desai had shot it up with our stolen Dodo.
That seemed like a lifetime ago now, like it had happened to another person.
Around a bend in the corridor, I found Portillo, one of our Rangers, running a
finger around a bullet hole. I caught his eye, and neither of us said anything.
He pointed to the bullet hole and nodded silently. I nodded, nothing needed to
be said. He knew, I knew. We'd both seen combat.

When I got to the backup bridge, the frigate's control
center, I saw that of course Captain Desai was our pilot, right back where she
first flew a starship. "Colonel," she said, half turning in her seat,
"we're ready to depart."

"Dropships are secured?" I asked. The
Flower's
two landing bays were crammed with a pair of Thuranin dropships, packed full of
supplies we needed for survival on Newark. The Thuranin dropships barely fit in
the Kristang frigate's landing bays, it took some slow, delicate flying to get
them in. Once inside, because they didn't match up with the Kristang docking
clamps, we had to tie the dropships down with cables. It wasn't an optimal
solution.

"They're secured," she reported.

I sat down and tightened the seat belt as far as I
could, it was designed for the larger frame of a Kristang. "Proceed when ready,
Pilot."

"Aye, aye, Colonel," she replied.
"Mister Skippy, drop artificial gravity, and release docking clamps,
please." There was a clanging sound and a vibration as the clamps released
the frigate, and artificial gravity faded away to nothing.

"Done," Skippy said, a touch of melancholy
in his voice. "Get out of here, I can't spare the power drain you monkeys
create. Joe, I'll talk to you soon. Remember my advice, be extra careful not to
do anything stupid down there."

"Got it, no problem. I will be extra stupid down
there."

"I said-, oh, forget it. I'm going to be busting
my ass up here fixing this ship, you'd better be around to see it when I'm
done."

We jumped in behind the moon again, even though the
moon at that time was on the other side of the planet from the Kristang
scavenger base. "Skip-" I stopped myself right there. I'd gotten so
used to asking him how a successful a jump was, I'd momentarily forgotten that
he was now on the other side of the star system. A message sent from the
Flower
now would not be received by Skippy for almost an hour. I cleared the lump in
my throat and said "Skippy will be wondering whether we arrived safely,
please send him a message."

"Aye, aye," Desai acknowledged, and nodded
to her copilot to handle that task. "Jump was successful, Colonel, we are
off target by only fifty two kilometers." What she didn't say was that the
Flower's
return trip would not be nearly as accurate. Skippy had
programmed the inbound jump for us, before we left the
Flower
to land on
Newark, we would be programming the frigate's return jump, and I would trigger
the jump remotely from the ground. On the return, we would be lucky if the
Flower
emerged within a hundred thousand kilometers of the gas giant planet which the
Dutchman
orbited. "Seems odd, doesn't it, sir?"

"What?"

"To not have Skippy available whenever you want
to talk to him. He talks to me constantly, sometimes I wish he would go away,
but now that he's not here, I miss him," she said, and turned her
attention back to the pilot controls.

"Me too," I said simply. It was odd, it felt
lonely. Ever since we escaped from the warehouse the Ruhar had been using as a
makeshift jail, he always been right there, in my ear, whether I wanted him or
not. Until the other end of his magic microwormhole arrives at Newark, we were
going to be out of communication, he could not transmit messages to us because
the Kristang would detect the signals. Unstrapping from the chair, I floated
free. "Let me know when you have the return jump programmed, I'm going to
assist releasing our dropships."

The dropships each made one trip down to the surface,
heavily loaded with supplies and the remaining crew. As soon as they were
empty, they would be remotely flown back up to the
Flower
, and I would
trigger the return jump with my zPhone.

Chang was there when I walked down the ramp "I
can update you on the walk up to the caverns, Colonel," he offered.

Fighting my instinct as a proud grunt to help unload
the dropship, I reminded myself that I was a colonel for the moment, the
commander, and my responsibility was to the entire group, not only to the
people laboring to get cargo unloaded. I took a deep breath, it didn't seem
refreshing. The air smelled like mud and wet grass. Looking back, I saw the
wide skids of the dropships had sunk deeply into the wet soil. Skippy would no
doubt complain when he saw the underside of the dropships were splattered with
mud. After the dropships took off, we would need to fill in the holes the skids
had made. "Yes, that sounds good."

"You'll notice first the higher gravity, fourteen
percent does not sound like much, until you have been working for a
while." He pointed back to the dropship, where people in armor suits were
doing most of the heavy work, "then it hits you. Everything takes more
effort."

"It's like constantly wearing a backpack?"

"No, that's what I thought. It's worse. Lifting
your arms, without anything in your hands, gets tiring, because your muscles
aren't used to the extra effort. Simply sitting, if you're reading something on
your lap, your neck muscles are strained like you're always wearing a helmet.
Our medical doctors tell me that until we adjust, sleep will not be as
refreshing, because the extra weight will make us shift more during the night,
we will get sore more quickly from laying in one position. Standing will cause
blood to pool in our legs, our hearts will work harder to pump the same volume
of blood. Then there's the lower oxygen level."

"Yeah," I said, already feeling the lack of
oxygen. From where the dropship landed, to the entrance to the first cavern,
was only maybe a bit over half a kilometer, and the climb less than fifty
meters, I estimated. The terrain was rough, the canyon here narrowed, with a
stream cascading down rapidly over rocks, and we had to walk part of the way in
the stream bed, stumbling over wet, slick rocks. "My lungs are feeling
it," I acknowledged, and struggled to keep up with Chang. He saw my
distress and slowed, without saying anything that could embarrass me. I appreciated
that. "How long for us to adjust?"