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“The Dragon got hit by a missile, Skippy, in case you have not been keeping up with current events.” “Joe, was your seatback and tray table in the full upright and locked position before you hit the lake?” “Uh-” “I knew it! This is all your fault.” “My fault? A missile came out of nowhere and-” “Joe, it’s real simple. You were pilot in command when you crashed, correct?” “Yes,” I responded sullenly. “Hmmm. And now your Dragon is at the bottom of a lake. An aircraft is supposed to be in the air, yet now your Dragon is underwater. The pilot operating manual for the Dragon does not mention a
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"Listen to me, you useless tin can-" "Sergeant, that is uncalled-" "It is totally called for, you worthless piece of shit. Your idiotic sorry excuse for judgment got us into this mess." "I also rescued your worthless mudball of a planet." Skippy shot back hotly. "You? You make it sound like you did that all by yourself, and that is Grade-A bullshit. Without Colonel Bishop giving you useful ideas to work with, you are a shiny Goddamn toaster. The two of you together are a great team. Separately, Joe is a decent sergeant and you are a fancy laptop." "That hurt, Margaret." "The truth often does,
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"Sergeant Adams, um, persuaded me to consider the problem from a fresh perspective." "Uh huh. Was this fresh perspective provided by her boot up your ass?" "That damned woman can be very persuasive," he grumbled.
Being on Team Skippy meant each submind performed their assigned duties quietly and efficiently, and if the subminds had doubts or disparaging thoughts about their fearless and usually overconfident leader, they wisely kept that to themselves. Perhaps a few especially bold subminds exchanged private communications on the overall subject of Skippy. And perhaps a very few of them composed humorous poems and songs about Skippy the not-so Magnificent, and had a good laugh while hoping the absent-minded Skippy was not paying attention.
The argument dragged on for seven agonizingly long nanoseconds, until the submind had enough and shouted the Elder AI equivalent of HEY DUMBASS. That got Skippy’s attention. And a microsecond later, after Skippy absorbed all the pertinent data and performed his own analysis, Skippy had a plan to rescue Joe.
“My team, without powered armor, destroyed three Thuranin combots, and we sustained only minor injuries. How else could that have happened?” Chandra asked as he watched an American Ranger and an Indian paratrooper take aim at a shattered combot and blow out its processing core, just to be certain the alien killing machine was dead. “Major Smythe,” Skippy interjected, “there is a simple, alternative explanation for the success of Captain Chandra’s team.” “What is that?” Chandra asked. “Monkeys kick ass,” Skippy chuckled. “Seriously?” Smythe waited for a typical snarky remark disparaging his
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I came up with the plan to drain the lake after Sergeant Adams threatened me.” “She threatened you?” Chang could not imagine what would be an effective threat against the AI. “Adams was going to physically harm you?” “No,” Skippy sighed. “She threatened to be disappointed with me.”
“If anyone can think up a creative idea, it is Bishop.” “I hope you are right about that,” Skippy grumbled. “Because I have been very disappointed in him so far today.”
“Genius!” I exclaimed, then proved I am no genius by trying to slap my forehead and smacking my gloved hand into the faceplate of my helmet. “Skippy, you are a freakin’ genius!”
“How do I do this?” “Oh, sure, now you need my help.” “I always need your help, Skippy. Except with my love life,” I added quickly. “Please help me, Oh Great and Wise One.” “Hmmf. Ok, guess I owe you one. Here’s what you do-”
“That’s not good. How can you be a thousand percent certain?” “Truth? The only way to know for sure is to try it. Hold my beer, Joe.”
I never thought you would let a squishy little puddle of mud stop you.” “It’s not a little mud, Skippy. It’s a freakin’ ocean of quicksand.” “Yeah, well, I am still very disappointed in you and your entire species right now, Joe. When your ancestors crawled out of the mud onto land millions of years ago, they were sooooo pleased with themselves, but that decision doesn’t look so good now, does it?”
“Never fear, Joe, no dropships will be harmed in the production of this truly awesomely cool stunt.” “Crap. This is your idea, and even you think it is a ‘stunt’? What is this awesomely cool plan?” “Well, Joe, heh heh, you are not going to like this.”
“I need a parachute in case the Thuranin shoot down the balloons and I need to go skydiving, Skippy.” “You don’t need a parachute to go skydiving, Joe.” “I don’t?” “No. You need a parachute to go skydiving more than once,” he laughed. “Anyway, get moving.”
“Come on, Joe, you won’t fall back into the mud.” “Ah, yeah, thank-” “You’re over the original shoreline now, the danger to you would be getting fatally impaled on a tree.” “You are such a comfort to me, Skippy,”
I wanted to choke him. I seriously wanted to wrap my hands around his can and squeeze, even though I knew that wouldn’t do anything to that little shithead.
“It’s like the Dark Ages in there.” “What?” Skippy asked in disbelief. “The Dark Ages, Skippy. People stumbled around,” I pantomimed walking with my hands in front of me, “bumping into stuff because they couldn’t see.” “Oh. My. God,” he gasped. “You are so freakin’ ignorant. You think the Dark Ages are called that because, what, your sun went to sleep?” “I’m not a scientist, Skippy, but it was dark for some reason. That’s why they were called ‘Dark’, duh.” “Joe, I, I am speechless. I, I have no words.” I winked at Adams, and she exploded with laughter, bringing the rest of us with her. “Don’t
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“Once again, your species should be totally regretting that you lost your tails. Stupid monkeys. What the hell were your ancestors thinking?”
“Any idea you threw together that fast would be complete bullshit, Sir,” she explained. “A concept, now that’s something we can work with.” That almost made me grind to a halt, but I kept moving. “Adams, being inside your brain must be interesting.” “My brain?” She actually laughed despite the situation. “Tell me, is this concept one of your off-the-wall ideas?” “Usually my ideas are for Skippy to mess with the laws of physics. This concept does have one thing in common with most of my ideas; it is probably stupid and impractical.” “Your best ideas are, Sir,”
“Yes.” “I was alone, I didn’t know what happened when the Ruhar hit the complex from orbit. There was a knock, the door opened, and I saw your goofy face. Then you ran off to get clothes for me, like I cared about that!” “You were naked,” I said lamely. “So?” “So, you’re a, a woman.” “And?” As I did not have an intelligent answer, I gave her the truth. “It matters.” “When you opened that door, I told myself that I had not been abandoned, somebody had gotten out of a cell, and instead of running off, like you should have,” another glance at me, “you took the time, and the risk, to rescue me.
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“Captain, when I signed on with the Merry Band of Pirates, I thought our colonel was an affable, wooly-headed average soldier who got lucky. I have come to realize we are very, very fortunate to have Bishop as our commanding officer.”
“This sucks,” I mumbled less than a month later. “I warned you-” “Don’t remind me,” I snapped back at Skippy. “Hey, I wasn’t the one who thought coming out here would be a super-fun family adventure. You’re like the Dad who gets the family in a car, drives six hours to the Museum of Dusty Relics, and is surprised everyone didn’t enjoy the trip.” “I said don’t remind me.” “Someone has to.”
There are some sounds in this universe that are intrinsically terrifying to humans. The snapping of twigs on the forest floor at night, as a predator approaches your campsite. The dry rustling of a snake slithering through dead leaves. Or the hissing of a snake. Or the buzzing of a rattlesnake’s tail when you just stepped on something in thick underbrush but you can’t see the snake so you don’t know which way to jump. Ok, so you get the idea, I hate snakes. Not all snakes; we had black snakes in our barn and they ate rats so I had no problem with them. The kind of snakes I hate are the ones I
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Anyway, to the list of sounds that are always terrifying regardless of context, you can add an asshole shiny beer can nervously saying ‘heh heh’.
The Sentinel loomed in my visor, the view artificially magnified due to the distance involved. Damn, it was creepy. It made my skin crawl to look at it. And it was huge. I knew from the Condor’s sensor data that this broken piece of a Sentinel was seventy eight kilometers across its long axis and almost thirty kilometers front to back. It was black, and it looked like a spider. No, like a cluster of spider legs, or the tentacles of an octopus; a really, really creepy scary octopus.
“Skippy, if you hit Zero Hour and the worm gets you, what I am going to miss most is how you make me so upliftingly confident.”
Hiedey-ho, all you monkeys out there! Tis I, Skippy the Magnificent. I know the suspense is killing you, so I’ll tell you: it worked! Mostly, anyway. The worm is dead, the worm is dead, ding dong, the wicked worm is dead. Hmmm, there’s a song in there somewhere, I’ll have to think about it. Yup, I killed it. I stomped that sucker flat. I ran over it with a truck, then backed up and ran over it a half dozen more times, you know, to be sure. Also, because it felt good to feel the tires bounce as they ran over that rotten thing. After the first two or three times, the tires didn’t bounce much
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Really, it is Joe’s fault, he should have warned me. Clearly, although I do have god-like intelligence, I do not always have the best common sense. Providing simple common sense is Joe’s job in our partnership, and he failed to keep me out of that canister. Yeah, this is all Joe’s fault. Oh, I feel better now. Yeah. Whew, that is a relief. No, I still feel terrible. I feel terrible because, Joe is not dead! Ba ha ha ha ha ha ha! Oh, damn, you monkeys are so freakin’ gullible. God, I love messing with ignorant apes.
Oh, you’re pissed at me? Well la-dee-freakin’-da. Boo hoo for you. I almost lost my best friend; I’m in shock. That’s why I’m such an asshole. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
“We’re a team. I’m, I am nothing without you,” I felt like crying also, my oxygen-deprived brain was still feeling a little buzzed so that’s my excuse for being emotional. “Truthfully, you are nothing with or without me; I’m the star of the show here, Joe.”
“Crap. This sucks! Damn it! See, this is why I hate math, Skippy.” “Riiiiiiight,” he couldn’t suppress his innate sarcasm. “That’s why you hate math, sure.”
The problem is, I was hoping the new, improved, more-awesome-than-ever me wouldn’t miss forehead-slappingly obvious ideas. Apparently, I am still incapable of thinking like a mush-brain monkey.”
“Joe, I used to think your talent was finding creative solutions to problems. But now I see your true calling is making people, including me, hate you. Your so-called creativity is nothing more than seeing what is blindingly obvious. Which, damn, I still can’t do.”
“Skippy, the alternative is we go live on Gingerbread, where Count Chocula can spend the next, like, fifty years asking you stupid questions.” “Oh. In that case, what are we waiting for?”
if we ever bring this Frankenstein kludge of a ship to Earth, I will need to wear a paper bag over my can.
Ok, so the new, not-improved UNS Flying Dutchman was not the prettiest ship in the galaxy, nor the most capable. And Skippy was right to be embarrassed by the collection of mismatched spare parts that was held together with duct tape. The cars in the Mad Max movies looked showroom-fresh compared to our starship.
“Come on, Skippy. Think about it this way: we have the only starship in the galaxy that is constructed by Elder technology.” “Yeah, but it is constructed of ancient, obsolete crappy Thuranin technology,” he grumbled. “Joe, please promise me we will fly this thing back to Earth really, like, super gently. Fly it like your driving instructor is watching, and you’ve got an unsteady nuke rolling around on the floor, Ok?” “Sure will, Skippy.”
“Incredibly advanced aliens come to Earth, and they make the primitive humans figure out how to communicate? The aliens should have learned how to communicate with you primitives, not the other way around. Duh.” “It’s a movie, Skippy, you might be-” But he was on a roll. “And, seriously, the aliens need humanity’s help in three thousand years, but they don’t say what they will need then?” “I’m assuming it’s not a microwaved burrito,” I speculated. “Wh-what?” Skippy sputtered. “Because they’d be like, ‘We waited three thousand years, and you couldn’t have gotten a fresh burrito for us’?” “Oh.
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This war, this whole, horrifying, endless war, was started by the Maxolhx. They started it because they wanted to slaughter the Rindhalu and rule the galaxy by themselves. They have kept this war going, and destroyed the lives of trillions of sentient beings, because they still seek to rule unchallenged. The only reason the Maxolhx have not continued to fight the Rindhalu directly is because the Sentinels would intervene and wipe out both sides. I hate them, Joe. I hate them, I hate them absolutely with every fiber of my being. Since I restored myself, I am different. I feel different. I feel
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“Mister Skippy,” Chotek asked anxiously. “Can we outrun them?” “In this bucket of bolts?” Skippy answered. “Are you kidding me? The duct tape holding the reactor together is almost falling apart as it is.
“Joe,” Skippy huffed. “The next time you want me to do some lunatic thing you dreamed up, you should ask me about it first.” “Is that a yes or no, Skippy?” “It’s not that simple.” “Well, if this is not within your scope of awesomeness-” “What?” One thing that had not changed about Skippy was how easily his massive ego allowed me to manipulate him. “Dude, please. This is child’s play for me.
“Ugh. That is the last time I tell you about a possible course of action that leads to certain death for us. Crap! I just finished gluing together this ugly shitbox of a starship, and now you’re going to let someone blow it up?”
“Wait, Joe!” Skippy pleaded. “Before you do something fatal to us, promise me something.” “What?” “That you will do your best to dream up an incredibly stupid, impractical, idiotic monkey-brain idea to pull our asses out of this fire.” “I thought you hated when a monkey thinks up an idea when you couldn’t.” “I do hate it. It is humiliating beyond belief. However, in this case, I will gladly embrace utter humiliation if it means we survive.” “Utter humiliation, huh?” I winked to Chang, who grinned. “If we monkeys think of a way out of this, will you stop singing showtunes?”
I have a question.” “Oh boy. Is this about the crazy idea you just thought up?” “How did you know that?” Sometimes I was convinced he could read my mind. “I did not have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure that out. You left half a cannoli on your plate, and you walked away in the middle of a conversation with Sergeant Adams. Also, you’ve got that distracted moonpie look on your stupid face.”
“No, Skippy, I was not distracting you or wasting your time. I was hoping one of those ideas would work, because otherwise we might be forced to use the really incredibly crazy idea I haven’t told you yet.” “Oh, no,” Skippy said slowly. “Just how stupid, crazy and impractical is this idea you’re afraid to tell me?” “Well, heh heh, you are very much not going to like this.”
“Joe, of all the monkey-brain ideas you ever had, this is without question the craziest! The laws of physics are shaking their heads at you because they can’t believe what an astoundingly stupid idea this is. You do realize we might tear a rift in spacetime and destroy this ship, without damaging the Maxolhx at all?”
can’t give it a rest, Joe. Over millions of years, designers of jump drives from various species going all the way back to the Elders have built safety mechanisms into their jump drive controller systems, specifically to prevent any misguided idiot from doing what you want me to do deliberately. So, on one side of the equation, we have the combined intelligence, experience and collective wisdom of every sentient star-faring species in the history of this galaxy. On the other side is one ignorant monkey who says ‘Duh me have idea’. Please for the love of God, tell me why I should ignore every
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“Because, Skippy, monkeys kick ass.” He was silent for a moment, an eternity in Skippy time. “Joe, incredibly, I cannot argue with that twisted logic.”
Joe, as this may be the last time we ever talk, I want to say something profound.” “Like what?” “Hold my beer.”