Black Ops (Expeditionary Force, #4)

by Craig Alanson

A strong commander would have been quietly calm, and focused on resolving the problem rather than assigning blame. Chewing me out in front of the crew had only eroded my authority; you dress people down in private, not in public.

In one of our cargo bays was a ‘magic bean stalk’, an Elder wormhole controller module we had stolen from a Kristang asteroid research base during our first mission. Skippy could use it to shut down a wormhole, which is how the Thuranin and Kristang no longer had access to Earth. He had discovered that he could also use it to temporarily change which distant wormhole a nearby wormhole connected to. That had been my idea, by the way. Being able to temporarily change local wormhole connections saved the Merry Band of Pirates a tremendous amount of time, because we could use a single wormhole to get to our destination, rather than hopscotching from one wormhole to another like all other ships in the galaxy had to. We could go directly from, say, Atlanta to Duluth, instead of going Atlanta-Dallas-Chicago-Detroit-Duluth. Except, of course, there is no reason for anyone to ever to go to Duluth.

Oh, crap! Now I’m going to get flooded with angry messages from the Duluth Chamber of Commerce. All I can say is, get in line behind the people from Newark, after I maligned their fair city by naming a miserable planet ‘Newark’. Anyway, bite me.

Wanting to get an early start on my day, I got out of bed at 0445 and went to the galley for coffee. To my surprise and delight, the American team was already baking biscuits. I love fresh, hot biscuits, so I took two of them back to my office and began checking messages. “Hey, Skippy,” I mumbled over a mouthful of delicious, buttered biscuity goodness. “Good morning to you, Joe,” his avatar popped to life on my desk. “What’s up?” “I was wondering; there are bi-scuits, and tri-scuits, right? So, is there a plain ‘scuit’? What would that look like?” The avatar froze for a moment, then slowly said “Oh. My. Go-” “Hey, I got it. There are bi-cycles and tri-cycles, and a cycle with one wheel is a uni-cycle. So, it would be called a uni-scuit, whatever that is.” “I, Joe, I am speechless. I have no words.” “A triscuit is more dry and salty than a biscuit, so would a four-scuit be like a potato chip? Or should that be called a quad-scuit?”

“Good. Need to keep you awake, so I’m going to tell you a joke, Ok?” “Your, jokes, terr-ble.” Jones breathed. “Ha! Listen, this guy walks into a bar, with a shopping bag, right? He sits down, puts the bag on the bar. Something in the bag is moving, and the bartender says ‘Hey, buddy, no animals in here’. You with me, Jones?” “Yah.” “The guy is looking real unhappy, totally down in the dumps, he reaches in the bag. He pulls out a brass lantern, then a small piano, a little stool, and finally a little guy in a tuxedo, about a foot tall. The little guy sits on the stool and starts playing the piano. Playing the piano, right?” “Yah. Got, it.” “Bartender says,” Williams’ grasp on a handhold slipped for a heart-stopping moment before the suit gloves restored their sticky grip. He could see the problem was some sort of fluid leaking from the access hatch above had coated the handhold. He moved his hand to the left to avoid the slippery fluid, and continued climbing down. “Bartender says, ‘That’s amazing, where’d you get him?’ Guy points to the lamp. ‘Magic genie granted me a wish, But he don’t hear so well-’ Before the guy can stop him, the bartender grabs the lamp, rubs it and shouts ‘I want a million bucks!’. POOF! The bar is filled with ducks! Ducks everywhere, under the tables, in the street outside, feathers flying all over the place. The bartender says ‘What the hell?’ So the guy says ‘I told you the genie don’t hear so well. You really think I asked for a twelve inch piani...

“Two guys in an English pub, one says ‘From your accent I guess you are Irish’. Second guy says, ‘Yes, from Dublin’. ‘Me too!’ first guy says. ‘I was raised in Drimnagh, went to St. Mary’s school’. ‘Drimnagh? St. Mary’s?’ Second guy can’t believe it. ‘I graduated from St. Mary’s in 1982’. First guy slaps his forehead. ‘Faith and begorah. I graduated from St. Mary’s in 1982 also!’ Bartender says,” Jones paused for breath, “he says to himself ‘This is going to be a long night. The Murphy twins are drunk again’.”

First, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Second, the enemy also makes plans.