SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) (53 page)

"Oh, yes, sir, uh, there, done. It's a cloud of
vapor now."

"Great." Man, I was tired.  My hair was
plastered to my head with dried sweat, Giraud handed me a bottle of water and I
drank it eagerly.

Desai wrinkled her nose. "What's that
smell?"

"The suit got cooked a bit by the maser," I
explained.

"No," she shook her head, "it smells
like-"

"As a problem solver," Skippy laughed,
"Joe is
Number
One
."

"Skippy-"

"When a problem needs to be solved, Joe doesn't
waste time trying to
piss
up
a
rope
."

"All right, Skippy."

"Joe knows you can't put out a forest fire by
peeing
on it, but you can-"

"Enough!" I shouted. "The maser busted
the, you know, bag," I explained, and pointed to the suit's left leg. It
sounded lame to me. Screw it.

"Yeah," Skippy snorted, "uh huh, that's
our story and we're sticking to it."

 "Desai," I said wearily, "I'm getting
out of this suit, then I'm going to towel off and change my clothes. Our signal
won't reach the
Dutchman
for another hour, anyway."

While we waited for the
Dutchman
to arrive and
retrieve us, Skippy downloaded the data from the two drones the tanker had
unwittingly dropped off before it jumped. To our great relief, we'd been
successful, both drones indicated the tankers had jumped to a point consistent
with Skippy’s hacked data, about the location and time where the two tankers
planned to rendezvous with the surveyor ship, and a destroyer that would be
acting as escort. I was worried that the rendezvous 'location' would be only a
vague area of empty interstellar space, that the four ships of the surveyor
task force might jump into an area half the size of a solar system, and then
we'd have to try chasing them down one by one. Skippy assured us the Thuranin
were much too competitive for that kind of behavior, their navigators prided
themselves on accuracy in hitting targeted jump points, so we would be able to
count on them jumping into their designated points within eight thousand
kilometers, even the big clumsy tankers could be counted on to be accurate.
That was good news.

In the bad news department, Skippy explained that
Thuranin practice for a task force rendezvous, even deep inside Thuranin
territory, was for a warship to jump in to the rendezvous point first, so we
could count on having to deal with the destroyer before the softer targets.
That ruined my hope of us blasting the vulnerable tankers, then the surveyor,
and then firing at the destroyer a few times to make it look good, before we
jumped safely away. However it was we dealt with the surveyor task force, we
needed to kill or disable a Thuranin destroyer first. How the hell we were
going to do that, in our rebuilt star carrier, was a damned good question.

I had an idea, the unformed kernel of an idea, I
needed to think more on it before mentioning it to anyone, especially Skippy.
The last thing I wanted was to give that arrogant little beer can even more
reason to be smug, by shooting down a plan I hadn't thought all the way
through. I needed time to think.

And I needed to get out of my sweat and other fluid soaked
clothes, and I needed a shower. Seriously.

When the
Dutchman
jumped into orbit, it still
took the dropship forty minutes to match speed and course rendezvous with her.
I gave Simms, as the duty officer on the bridge, an order to jump the star
carrier as soon as our dropship was secured in the landing bay. With the jump
successful, I let Simms know I'd be on the bridge soon, and brought Skippy with
me to my cabin, sitting him on a shelf while I got in the shower. As the hot
water of the shower cascaded over me, washing away the grime from my spacedive,
I relaxed and was able to think clearly. Out of the shower, I toweled off and
sat on the bed a minute before putting on a fresh uniform. "Skippy, that
didn't go exactly as planned, but we did accomplish the mission. Your maser
idea was a stroke of genius, thank you for that."

"No problem, Joe. If you're not here, who will
amuse me with monkey-brained ideas?"

"Yeah, speaking of monkey-brained ideas, you know
where each of those four ships are going to jump into, right, pretty precisely?
And you know when, also?"

"Yup. I told you that. You said 'mission
accomplished', I do not think that is entirely accurate. We only accomplished
the first, less important part of the mission. We know where those ships will be
meeting, and when. We still have to attack those ships, and we do not have a
realistic plan, hell, any plan, for doing that."

"Not a problem. I got that covered."

"Not a problem, he says?" Skippy sounded
skeptical.

"Skippy, while I was space diving by myself, I
did some thinking."

"You? Thinking? I find that hard to believe, but,
sure, what the hell, surprise me."

"I came up with a plan for us to destroy all four
of those ships. Or at least three of them, one of the tankers may get away.
That shouldn't be a problem. Letting one tanker get away, if it thinks we're a
Jeraptha cruiser, might actually be useful to us."

"Hmm, a monkey plan. Does this involve, let me
guess, magic bananas?"

"Nope. No bananas at all."

"Damn, Joe, what fun is that?"

"More fun than no plan at all, which is what we
have right now. Unless you have some super genius idea of your own, with your
ginormous brain?"

"No, I told you, I don't see any way the
Flying
Dutchman
can be successful in combat with a destroyer. Or the surveyor.
I don't even see how we could survive combat."

"Easy, Skippy, we will survive, and be
successful, because we're not going to risk the
Dutchman
in
combat."

Silence, then, "Can I assume you do not plan to
simply ask the Thuranin to surrender? Because no way would the Thuranin be
intimidated by this bucket, we would need a much meaner looking ship. This is
why gangsters never drive a minivan, Joe. I mean, come on, how intimidated
would you be by a guy driving a minivan with one of those stupid 'Baby on
board' signs, and sticky Cheerios all over the back seat?"

I had to laugh, imagining in my head a group of tough
gang bangers rolling through the 'hood in a beige minivan. "Nope, we are
not asking the Thuranin to surrender. I plan to hit those ships with missiles,
right as they come out of jump at the rendezvous. We will park missiles around
the enemy jump target points, with the missiles programmed to hit a ship as it
emerges from the wormhole. We'll hit the destroyer first, you told me ships
have to drop their stealth and defensive shields to go through a jump wormhole,
so that destroyer will be vulnerable as it emerges, right?"

"About that part of your plan, yeah, sure, you're
correct. Ships are at their most vulnerable coming out of a jump; they don't
have shields up and their sensor fields are scrambled by quantum fluctuations
of the wormhole, they're almost blind. So, yes, if you could predict exactly
where a ship will emerge from a jump, you can hit it precisely. Even a single
missile would destroy, or severely cripple a warship. Now, with those obvious
facts established, may I point out the annoying little detail of the fatal flaw
in your genius plan?" Skippy's voice had a mocking tone.

"You're going to anyway, right?"

"That's affirmative. We're supposed to target the
missiles toward the precise point where the Thuranin ships will emerge from
their jump, huh? The problem with that plan is we do not know exactly where the
Thuranin will jump in. The rendezvous coordinates for each ship are only
accurate to within a radius of eight thousand kilometers, because that is the
limit of accuracy of Thuranin jump navigation technology. Even if we used all
of our missiles to saturate the spherical area where a single ship is likely to
jump in, it will take any missile too long to detect the ship and close for
impact, the target area is too large. Assuming the Thuranin are accurate to
within eight thousand kilometers of the target, that is an enormous volume of
space to cover. The formula for the volume of a sphere is the radius cubed,
times, oh, wait, why am I trying to explain even simple math to you? Joe, a
radius of eight thousand kilometers leaves a sphere of over two
trillion
cubic kilometers to search. While a missile is closing from that distance, the
ship would detect the threat and jump away, or raise shields. So, your plan
won't work, dumbass."

"Uh huh. What if we could shrink the area where a
ship is likely to jump in? Shrink it to, say, a hundred cubic kilometers, or
less?"

"Oh, sure, if you're asking for miracles. Why
don't you ask for fairy elves to fly in on a unicorn and take care of the
problem for us? That would be more realistic. Thanks a bunch for the vote of
confidence in my predictive abilities, but even my awesomely ginormous brain
power can't tell you where a ship is going to jump in, with that level of
accuracy. There are too many variables in a particular ship's jump drive at
that exact moment. The charge energy, how many coils are in use, the level of
calibration of how the entire system works together, the-"

"We get the idea, Skippy. A lot of variables,
yup. We're not going to guess, we're going to game the system by cheating. Beat
the house."

"Ooooh, you know me, Joey, I'm all about cheating
the laws of physics. However, give me a minute please, I want to get some
popcorn and an ice cold brewski. That way, I can sit back on the couch and
savor the moment, while you make a complete and total fool of yourself, with
whatever moronic so-called idea your monkey brain has dreamed up. Ok, I'm
ready, hit me with your best shot. Ha ha, this is going to be great!"

"You can warp spacetime, right? What you're going
to do for us is create an especially flat area of space time, inside the radius
where we know the ship will try to jump in. When that ship projects the far end
of its jump wormhole, that wormhole will be attracted to the flattest spot in
the target area by default. That’s because that spot requires the lowest energy
state to form a stable wormhole, or some other sciency physics BS like that you
told me once, when I was actually paying attention. We will be able to predict
almost exactly where a ship will jump in. Will that work?"

Skippy didn't answer. He didn't say anything at all.

"Skippy?" I asked. "Hey, are you
crunching numbers in there?"

Finally, he said simply "Holy shit."

"Yup."

"You are
such
an asshole! I hate
you." He genuinely sounded hurt. “Damn it!”

"Uh huh, got it. Is that a yes?"

However Skippy emulated a heartfelt sigh, it was
convincing. "Yes. Damn it. Ugh, I hate my life. A monkey has a good idea.
A freakin' monkey! Unbelievable! The universe is so unfair. Yes, it will work,
Joe, I can control where a ship jumps to within less than a hundred kilometers.
Nowhere near as accurate as I am with our own jumps, of course, there are too
many variables I can't analyze without being on the enemy ship before it jumps.
A hundred, even a thousand kilometers is close enough, our missiles will be
able to target and hit the enemy ship, before it can detect the missiles and
raise shields. Any ship jumping in will be a sitting duck. And, hey, in case
you think you're soooooo freakin' smart, I'm not going to create an especially
flat area of spacetime. What I'm going to do is create an area where the
flatness is negative."

Now he had me puzzled. "Negative flatness? Isn't
that a fancy way of saying it's curved in the other direction?"

"No. Ask one of your scientist monkeys to explain
it to you, if they can. Ha! For them, figuring out how the universe really
works will be simple, compared to explaining quantum topology to you."

He was entirely right about that, by the way. Because
we had time while we jumped toward the rendezvous point, I stopped by the
science lab to ask our team of human brainiacs how flatness could be negative,
my thought was that Skippy had been screwing with me. Damn, it was like sitting
next to a grandmother and asking to see pictures of her grandchildren. Which,
of course, no one would ever do, unless they were insane, because any
grandmother can inflict at least several hours of suffocating boredom while
talking about her grandchildren. After the third photo, and hearing about the
mundane accomplishments of little Maddy or Timmy, the unfortunate listener
starts wishing fondly for the sweet, sweet release of death. How come heart
attacks never happen when you need one? Anyway, our team of scientists were
more than happy to attempt explaining quantum topology to me, which should have
been my first warning sign. They were especially excited, because their
understanding of the subject had taken a great leap forward during their time aboard
the
Dutchman
, and they couldn't wait to show off their newly acquired
insights. Somebody, they were certain, was getting a Nobel prize when we got
home. I didn't have the heart to remind them that getting home was still more
of an 'if' than a 'when'.

They tried. They really tried. The fourth time our resident
rocket scientist Dr. Friedlander attempted to explain why X is the cubed value
of the Mu function, I mentally gave up. Skippy mercifully took pity on me at
that point, for which I was forever grateful, he faked an emergency that
required me to rush away to the bridge. That was the last time I was going to
ask scientists to explain science to me. It was best for everyone involved.

We dropped off four missiles, surrounding the spot
where the Thuranin destroyer was supposed to emerge from its jump into the
rendezvous point, then backed the
Dutchman
away half a lightsecond and
engaged her stealth field and defensive shield. The missiles were hot,
programmed to target the wormhole, they would go to full acceleration as soon
as they detected a ship emerging, without waiting for a signal from the
Dutchman
.
The missiles would operate in pairs; two would engage first, and if they scored
hits, the other two missiles would stand down, we didn't have missiles to
waste. If even one missile scored a direct hit on the destroyer, especially on
that ship's aft engineering section, the destroyer would be a sitting duck, to
be carved up by the
Dutchman's
comparatively weak maser cannons. All we
needed was one precise missile or maser strike on a reactor, or charged jump
drive coils, and the destroyer would become a cloud of particles. Our own drive
coils would be fully charged, so we could perform a microjump if the destroyer
was merely damaged and able to shoot back, or a major jump if the whole idea
somehow didn't work. Skippy did his sciency physics trick with creating an
especially flat spot in spacetime, in the exact center of our ring of missiles.
And then we waited.