Brushfire, p.3
Brushfire, page 3
part #11 of Expeditionary Force Series
“Cool. Hey, I am sorry about the awful job Joe did as DJ. I did offer to step in, but he said I should let him have fun.”
“I do greatly regret that you didn’t sing at the wedding,” she lied, to avoid him moping about it for days.
“Really? Cool! Hey, can I sing at your next wedding?”
She paused in the doorway. “I am not planning on having another wedding, Skippy.”
“Oh, sure you’re not planning on it. But, let’s face it, Frank is a great guy but he’s a guy. He is bound to screw up sometime, and-”
“Goodbye, Skippy.”
“I’m just sayin’, you know?”
“Goodbye.”
“Good morning, Gunnery Sergeant Adams,” Skippy said cheerily from the speaker in the ceiling of Margaret’s cabin, just after she slapped the wake-up alarm off. “It is a balmy seventy-two degrees inside the ship, with no chance of rain. The galley is making fresh, hot biscuits for breakfast. Nine people have signed up for your exercise class in the gym at 0900, and-”
“I do not need a reminder,” she avoided looking up as she flung aside the sheet and walked toward the bathroom.
“But-”
“That information is available on my phone.”
“I was just trying to help,” he could not have sounded more miserable.
“You are still trying to act as if nothing happened at Rikers.”
“Margaret, I-”
“AI, you will address me as Gunnery Sergeant Adams, or ‘Adams’.”
“AI? My name is Skip-”
“Skip. That’s what you did. You skipped out on us. You left us to die. You, you,” she bit her thumb, salty tears stinging her eyes. “You left Bishop to die.”
“Joe said he forgives me.”
“He has to say that. He is your best friend, your only real friend, and you abandoned him. If you do something like that to Joe, how can any of us ever trust you again?”
He sighed, a deep, weary sigh. “Is there anything I can do, so we can be friends again?”
“Apparently, we were never friends. Do your job, AI. You don’t need to talk to me, so don’t.”
“But-”
“Goodbye.”
“Good morning, Joe,” Skippy said in a way that meant he clearly was not having a good morning, and wanted me to ask him about it.
“What’s wrong, buddy?” Since Skippy had not woken me up at zero dark thirty the previous night to talk about anything stupid, I was feeling charitable to him. Also, if I did not ask him what was wrong, and pretend to be sympathetic about whatever his stupid problem was, he would mope about it all day. Maybe several days.
Plus, for some reason probably related to me being an idiot, I actually cared about him and his stupid problems.
“It’s Margaret. She is never letting me off the hook about this, is she?”
“Not if you take that attitude, she isn’t.”
“What attitude?”
“This isn’t about you, Skippy.”
“Hmm. I do not actually see the difference. I am trying to-”
“You are trying to make yourself feel good about a really shitty thing you did. If Adams forgives you, then you can forgive yourself, right?”
“Um, yes. It’s my understanding that’s how these things work. Why is that a bad-”
“You’re thinking only about yourself. That’s why it’s a bad thing. Have you thought about what she needs, what she wants?”
“Um, hmm. Ugh. I am never getting over this, am I?”
“None of us are getting over it, Skippy. She isn’t the only Pirate who is pissed at you.”
“That’s true. None of the crew are really talking to me. They all hate me.”
“They are all hurt, and disappointed by you, Skippy. You are not who they thought you were. That is never going to change. It hasn’t changed for me.”
“But, you said you understood what happened, why I did it. You forgave me.”
“I did. I meant it. Still, any time we get into a real serious situation, a little voice in the back of my head will be asking whether we can count on you, or whether you will find another reason to bail on us.”
“That is a rotten thing to say, Joe.”
“No. It is the truth. It would be rotten if I didn’t tell you that.”
“Joe, please, tell me what to do. I will do anything.”
“You can let Simms dress up your can in cute little outfits again.”
“Anything but that.”
“You can stop hogging the microphone on Karaoke night.”
“Not that either.”
“Listen, Skippy, I understand what you’re going through.”
“Joe, that is just something people say when-”
“No. I really do understand. The entire crew is pissed at me, too. I concealed the truth, lied to them. Worse, I lied because I didn’t trust them to handle the truth. Simms is frosty with me, you must have noticed that.”
“I have. What are you doing to make her forgive you?”
“I’m not doing anything about it. That’s the point. It’s not about me. She is hurt, and she is right to be hurt by what I did. What I am doing is not repeating my mistakes. No more secrets. I am involving her in every decision, telling her about my concerns, asking for her advice. Same with Smythe. The way I am letting them know how sorry I am, is by not ever again doing what hurt them. You know what?”
“What?”
“It feels good, Skippy. Not keeping secrets. Being able to talk with people I respect and trust, talk about stuff that is bothering me.”
“OK. Hmm, I’ll have to think about that. What can I do? Joe, please, tell me what to do.”
“First, never bail on us again. Second, if you want Margaret to be your friend, then you be the best friend to her that you can be.”
“How can I be her friend if she won’t even talk to-”
“Do things for her, not for you. She doesn’t want to talk to you? Respect her wishes. Don’t talk to her.”
“This is hard, Joe.”
“If earning her friendship was easy, would it matter so much?”
“No. Ugh. You monkeys have hundreds of thousands of years of instincts about how to deal with interpersonal relations programmed into your brains. You know this stuff. This is all new to me.”
“I will help you any way I can. It’s tough for me, too. I would like to be friends again with Margaret, but she barely speaks to me.” The worst part, I told myself, was that she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. My guess was, she was embarrassed about certain quite intimate things she said to me, back when nanomachines were messing with her head.
“What are you doing about that?” He asked.
“Nothing. The best thing I can do for her, is to give her the space she wants. I’m doing that because I care about her.”
“Gotcha.”
The next morning, Margaret tapped her phone to turn off the alarm, swung her feet on the floor, and stretched her arms over her head. The speaker in the ceiling crackled softly, something Skippy did so his morning greeting did not startle anyone. She felt a flare of anger, bracing for an argument.
“Uh, like, hey,” Bilby drawled. “Good morning to you, and all that stuff. The STAR exercise at 0930 has been moved to portside docking bay Charlie-2, we had to perform unscheduled maintenance overnight on bay Bravo-1, so it’s not available. Wow, those exercises you do would, like, make me really tired, I don’t know how you-”
“Bilby? Why are you talking to me?”
“Oh, like, you want me to do a puppet show instead? I’ve got some socks that could-”
She rolled her eyes. Talking with the ship’s new AI could be a chore. “What I meant is, why are you talking to me? Usually, Skippy-”
“He asked me to take over.”
“Mm.” I did not want to talk with Skippy, she told herself. So why am I disappointed? That’s simple. Because me refusing to talk made that sneaky little shit miserable. Now, if I want to yell at him, I will have to contact him.
That is not going to happen.
“Skippy doesn’t want to do it anymore?” She asked, pretending to be casual about it.
“No, like, he told me it is really fun. It is kind of cool. He thinks the crew would rather have me talk to them, you know?”
“Yes.” She stood up, and automatically began making the bed in proper Marine Corps fashion. “I do know. Please continue.”
“Cool. Breakfast this morning is-”
CHAPTER THREE
Leaving the idyllic vacation world of Tohmaran behind, we jumped away to launch the Merry Band of Pirates Galactic Ass-Kicking Tour. Really. We had T-shirts and coffee mugs with the logo. It was-
No, you can’t buy the T-shirts, you had to be there.
OK, sure, there are probably second-hand shirts available on eBay or somewhere.
No, I’m not going to wait while you log in.
Anyway, what was I saying?
Oh, yeah. We were off to kick some ass.
Also to kiss some ass, if you want the truth.
Why, when we had a stash of freakin’ Elder weapons, did we need to kiss anyone’s ass?
Because we want humanity to have a future in the galaxy, and not just be confined to one planet. That’s it: we controlled one planet. Paradise doesn’t count. To spread beyond one planet, we had two options: fight for habitable worlds, or work with allies for our mutual benefit. In the long term, it was better to have allies. One thing I had learned since that fateful Columbus Day was, you never know what is going to happen, so you need to be prepared for anything. Especially, be prepared for the unexpected. The key was the ‘long-term’ part of the equation. Long-term means a long time, like, thousands of years. Hundreds of thousands. Millions, maybe. One thing I know is that Joe Bishop is not going to be around in the long term. I mean, that guy is a jerk. He is bound to piss off someone and get a well-deserved beat-down, right?
Or, being a stupid monkey, he will probably stick a fork in a light socket and kill himself.
What about Skippy? He will protect us, right?
Uh, shmaybe.
Sure, he should be around for a long time, but our experience had proven that he also might do something stupid and get himself killed, or lose the awesomeness abilities that make him special. Hell, at some point, the whacky antics of monkeys might cease to amuse him, and he could decide that some other species would be more fun to abuse. Or, he could simply become fascinated by investigating some nerdnik thing, like the density of various hydrogen isotopes outside the galaxy, and forget that humans exist. He is incredibly absent-minded. Skippy could theoretically live forever, or until the last star in the universe became a cold, dark lump of, whatever stars became when they burned all their fuel. No, I do not expect humans will still be drinking beer and watching football at the end of the universe, although I think we can all agree that, if humans are still watching football then, they will be drinking beer.
Also, there should be nachos.
My point is, the continued survival of humanity should not depend on any one thing, like an unreliable and absent-minded AI.
So, we needed to plan on humans becoming a major player in the galaxy, and that means we need to work with the species that already live out there.
Well, we need to try to work with some of the star-faring species. Some of them just desperately need a serious ass-kicking.
The first stop on our tour was a place we had visited recently enough that the floors were still sticky, and there were crushed soda cups and popcorn on the floor. Plus there was probably other stuff on the floor of an unsavory or illegal nature, that I will not mention. The last time we were there, we rocked the house, and there were still fireworks lighting off in the parking lot.
OK, the fireworks were actually chunks of a Thuranin starship that was falling out of orbit, but that burning debris looked like fireworks. It was heartwarming to think that, among the pieces of metal and composite creating bright streaks as they fell through the atmosphere, some of those pretty, fiery trails might be the corpse of a hateful cyborg asshole.
It’s the little things in life that make it really special.
Sadly, due to a screwup by our idiot tour manager, the roadies’ bus got delayed, and we arrived at Rikers without advance notice. That is why there were no reporters or groupies waiting when we jumped in.
I was bitterly disappointed about the lack of groupies.
What we did find waiting for us was a squadron of six starships. They were not actually waiting for us, since our public relations team had failed to notify anyone. Instead of groupies, we found a Thuranin battlecruiser with a destroyer squadron, plus a Maxohlx light cruiser. In the spirit of fostering future interspecies cooperation, we jumped in close to the Maxohlx cruiser, and immediately trapped all six ships in a damping field. At first, the Thuranin ships did not know what to do. According to their treaties with the Maxohlx, the little green pinheads were supposed to come to the aid of their patrons, even at the expense of their miserable lives. If they jumped away to save themselves from the fearsome ghost ship and the Maxohlx survived, their people would pay a terrible price for the cowardice of those five ships. Also, the Thuranin commander had to be thinking they should stick around to get into the fight, hoping the Maxohlx ship damaged us badly enough that the cyborgs could sweep in for the kill, and claim all the credit.
Before I could contact the kitties and go into my song-and-dance routine about how there was a new sheriff in town, they hit us with everything they had. Valkyrie absorbed the hits, and maybe I should have been understanding that the enemy commander was just reacting to a sudden and unexpected threat. Unfortunately for that ship, I was not in the mood to take any shit, so Valkyrie’s big guns pounded that little cruiser to scrap. My actions were not based entirely on raw emotion, we were there for a purpose unrelated to either the Maxohlx or Thuranin, and could not allow them to get in our way. We also could not allow any of those ships to jump away and bring in reinforcements, because we had a tour schedule and we did not have time for any nonsense.
So, after the Thuranin saw their patron’s ship become a loose collection of glowing scrap, they turned tail and burned hard-
For about fifteen seconds.
That’s how long it took for them to get my message that they were to cut thrust, safe their weapons, drop shields and generally cease and desist any futile bullshit, or we would be quite happy to use their little squadron as target practice.
They ceased and desisted forthwith, or whatever fancy legal term you want to use.
With the Thuranin taken care of for the moment, we turned our attention to the main event. You might say that blowing up a senior-species warship was our warm-up act, in which case we had a totally kick-ass warm-up act.
Speaking of kicking ass…
“Bilby,” I said, standing up out of the command chair. “Connect me with the asswipe in charge of this place.”
“Sure thing, Colonel Dude. Uh, the guy’s name is-”
“I don’t care about his name. Our relationship won’t last long enough for us to become drinking buddies.”
“Gotcha. OK, he’s ready to talk. Audio only, or video also?”
“Video. We want this asshole to see us.”
If I wasn’t boiling over with anger, it would have been funny. On the main holographic display appeared a lizard, rather more gaudily-dressed than the typical minor clan leader of a backwater planet. Seeing his formal outfit told me two things. He had been dressed up to impress the Thuranin or the Maxohlx or both. And he was overdressed to compensate for the fact that he was not important at all. Since Skippy’s strike, when he freed me from the hospital, also took out the previous clan leadership of the planet, this asshole was new to the job, and probably trying to keep his head attached to his neck by impressing his own people.
I had news for him: seeing a flashy outfit only got me more pissed off.
The part that would have been funny was his facial expression. Kristang are bipedal like humans, and despite the stereotype, are not really lizards, they are warm-blooded like us. Also like us, they have two eyes, ears on either side of their heads, a mouth at the bottom of their faces, and a nose above the mouth. Given those features, it is not really surprising that their body language, especially facial expressions, could be recognized by humans. For example, when the video first came on, his eyes were slightly narrowed, his lips drawn into a tight line and the skin flaps above his eyes were down. An expression of fear. That made sense. He had just seen the much-feared ghost ship, scourge of the galaxy, jump in and hammer a Maxohlx ship to scrap. Back when Valkyrie was disabled and a Thuranin frigate jumped in to identify us, word that the ghost ship had been sighted near Rakesh Diwalen must have reached the Kristang on that world. The arrival of our ship must therefore have been a surprise but not a complete shock. The lizards must have been asking themselves why the rogue group of Bosphuraq had flown a killer warship to the unimportant little world, but their primary emotion had to be fear rather than curiosity.
That changed the instant he saw me. Thinking about it later, it was funny how his expression changed from fear to another universal thought: What. The. Fuck?
“Yeah, it’s me,” I announced. “Us. Humans. We are flying the ghost ship.”
He said something, clearly sputtering from the greatest shock of his life. We didn’t hear him, as I had the sound muted.
“Shut your mouth.” He didn’t comply, which was probably understandable. I was not in an understanding mood. “Hey, shithead. I said, shut your mouth.”
Again, he sputtered at me, waving his hands. In addition to shock there was now fear again on his face, plus anger. A lowly human was daring to give orders to him. To get his full attention, I held up an index finger, and crooked it up and down in a signal to the crew at Valkyrie’s weapons station. They knew what I wanted.
Railguns spat out projectiles, and seconds later, a target on the surface was obscured by an orange fireball, then a sooty black mushroom cloud rising up from the site.
