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Either that or I’m just a complete idiot. Let’s go with the first explanation.
I am not great at physics, but there is one thing I do know.” “What’s that?” “We’re gonna have to science the shit out of this.”
“Wrong, dude, it was freakin’ hilarious,” he giggled like a little girl. “Truthfully, it was originally just a fun way to screw with you, but when you kept going and going and never caught on to what I was doing, it became an experiment to see how gullible a dumb monkey you are. I kept checking back in to see if you had caught on to my totally obvious trick, but noooo. Every time I looked, little Joey the dumb monkey was mindlessly working away without using his brain at all. The answer to my experiment is, damn you are a dimwit. Seriously, after a while, I started feeling sorry for you. Not
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“Skippy,” I sighed, “I get such a warm and fuzzy feeling of safety whenever I’m around you.” “Really? Wow, you’re even more gullible than I thought.”
“We will take that risk, Skippy. Remember, not all of us monkeys are as dumb as me.” “Oh, few monkeys are as dumb as you, Joe. Still, even the smartest monkey, hmm. Oops, did I just insult you again?”
“You want me to guess?” “As I would like to tell you my good news before the last star in the universe becomes a cold, dark cinder, we can’t wait for you to guess.
“This will be your new unit symbol, we’re calling your team the ‘Mavericks’.” Perkins picked up one of the patches, studying it. “Mavericks, huh?” “The idea came from one of the referees from that last wargame; she said your team was the element the Yellow commander failed to account for. Also,” Bezanson cocked her head. “You kind of have a reputation for going off and doing whatever you feel like, and maybe telling HQ about it later. You could at least send us a postcard, Perkins.”
Perkins channeling her inner Bishop
“I don’t know about y’all,” he pointed to his companions, “but I plan to carpe that diem until it begs for its momma.”
“I am no Ruhar,” Jates grunted, using the all-too-brief moment of surprise to get both hands firmly around the other man’s left arm. “I am true Kristang.” “Liar! Traitor!” The opponent screamed and used the full power of his hard-shell armor in a futile attempt to break free of the crushing grip exerted by the Ruhar skinsuit’s gloves. “You are the traitor to our heritage,” Jates’ words came out in a bubbling gasp as the two spun around and slammed each other repeatedly against the truck. “You are slaves to the Ruhar.” “We are all slaves. My masters have better technology.”
“I’m sorry. She sacrificed herself to save us, to save the lives on Paradise.” “Excuse me, Colonel Perkins, but that is not why Tutula acted, not why I am here. We serve the Ruhar to save our own people from slavery, to rescue our culture from extinction. I think in that way, my people and yours have something very important in common.”
“Hey,” Jesse didn’t like the pained look on Shauna’s face, and draped an arm over her shoulders. “We gotta have faith. We survived this far, what are the odds of that, huh? Somebody up there,” he pointed to the sky, “has been looking out for us.” Jesse had no idea that the being looking out for them was a shiny beer can.
“That is impossible,” Vinny declared flatly. A broken star carrier had jumped, under the control of a Ruhar ship?! A Ruhar ship commanded by a human. Vinny’s mind reeled at the idea of a lowly human being in command of anything more complicated than a rowboat.
For another species, agreement and curiosity would have been enough to settle the issue. For the Jeraptha, those factors merely served as an opening for renegotiating their financial arrangements, and to set side wagers on whether the broken star carrier had in fact survived a jump. And had jumped more than once. Had flown through a wormhole. Had arrived at a Kristang-controlled star system.
Of all the cultures we've seen in these books, the Jeraptha are most definitely my favorites
There was, to Vinny’s own surprise, a part of him that regretted leaving this Emily Perkins to die on the surface of the planet, for they both knew that would be her fate after the Deal Me In jumped away. Perkins and her team had accomplished incredible things against great odds by taking great risks, and Vinny felt she was a gambler at heart, just like his people.
Colonel,” his voice cracked with emotion, “I thought you were unworthy to command a Ruhar ship. I was wrong. You saved all our lives by doing something, several things, I thought were impossible. If we had not come to this world, the people of Paradise would not be aware of a terrible threat.”
Monkeys rule bitch!
but Lynn knew it violated some unwritten rule of the universe for her job to be easy.
“Holy shit, Skippy.” I said that with such force that I got tiny dots of spit on the inside of my helmet visor. “You finished reading about the dilemma Perkins got into?” “Yeah. O.M.G.” “That was my reaction when I downloaded the report. The Mavericks may be even more talented at finding trouble than you are.”
“If?” “Unless it kills us first.” “Once again, you are a huge source of comfort to me.” “I do what I can, Joe.
Joe, I should be insulted that I did not think of such a simple and obvious solution. Maybe I am so emotionally invested in this ship I’ve rebuilt several times, that I failed to consider sacrificing part of the ship.”
“Huh. Damn, this has never happened before.” “What’s that?” “You helped me with a math problem.”
Anyway, I got it right, didn’t I?” “By luck.” “You keep telling me there is no such thing as luck.” “In your case, the universe has made an exception.”
“You have dreamed up ideas that made me question my understanding of physics, like when you suggested we project a jump wormhole through an Elder wormhole. So, keep the ideas coming. But, I suggest you not pat yourself on the back until I confirm your idea will work.”
“No. Even I am capable of learning a lesson, whether I like it or not. No way am I going back in that hellhole.”
Poor Skippy
“Its basic matrix was very much like me, which is troubling because of what else I learned.” The avatar froze and flickered for a second, nearly making my heart stop but before I could say anything, the avatar moved again. “I would like to double-check my analysis, but I am confident there can be no mistake about it. Joe, that AI was involved in throwing the planet Newark out of its original orbit. That Elder AI wiped out an intelligent species.”
Well... Shit
“Technically the correct word is ‘sapient’ but we’ve been using the term ‘sentient’ all along, so go ahead. Yes, Joe, based on changes in my matrix over time, I believe there is a strong possibility that me being fully self-aware is a fairly recent event, like within the past five or ten million years.”
Just when you think you have a grasp of time... Bum! Something happening ten millions of years ago is a "recent event"
Laying on my bed was a woman. A naked woman. No, it wasn’t a woman, my slow brain realized in a flash, because I knew all of the few women aboard the ship. The person laying on my bunk, her chest thrust out and her legs spread, was not a woman. Although she was anatomically correct, which is all I will say about that subject. “Helloooo, Joey,” she said in a sultry voice. “Come in, we can have fun.”
“Apparently, the Thuranin who designed that dropship never met an ignorant monkey, hee hee,” Skippy chuckled.
Our jump into the Paradise system was interesting, and by ‘interesting’ I mean ‘batshit crazy’.
I would need to renew my license and get a new photo! That would be my chance to- Oh, crap, that wasn’t going to work. No matter how careful I was to not look like an idiot when the DMV took my photo, a certain asshole beer can would hack into the system and alter the image. I’d be lucky if I didn’t look like a brain-damaged chimpanzee.
Whoooo, I am tired. Skippy needs a nap. I’ll set an alarm to wake myself. Ohhhhh,” he yawned, “that was a good nap.” “You, uh, took like, a half-second nap?” “Half-second in meatsack time, four hours in Skippy time.” “Wait, you really took a nap? I thought you never slept?” There were things about Skippy that were different after he killed the worm and rebuilt himself, and I did not yet know everything that had changed. “I do not sleep the way monkeys do, what I did was sort of rearranging my sock drawers, tidying up data storage that got cluttered while I was concentrating on the bots. It was
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“Crap, Skippy, if we could weaponize your singing, we could conquer the galaxy in like, a week. Please, please for the love of God, no more opera like that.”
Sir,” he turned to me, “special operations troops are trained to resist interrogation. I know one of the American outfits uses a recording of the poem ‘Boots’ by Rudyard Kipling, because it is bloody awful and monotonous and goes on forever; it is impossible to ignore. The SAS uses similar tactics, but nothing compares to your beer can singing opera.”
“Some enchanted morning, you might see a beer can, you might see a beer can, upon a dusty shelf. And somehow you know, you know even then, that you will regret it, again and again. No one can explain it, Skippy doesn’t try. Beer cans are assholes, no point asking why. Once you have found Skip, run far awaaaaay!”
“No, Joe, the lizards did that, and worse, to all the women. The issue Margaret is still struggling with is what happened next. Instead of taking their anger out on Adams, the lizards made her watch as they slowly tortured Major Zhou to death. It took sixteen hours, Joe, the Kristang administered crude medical treatments to keep Zhou alive so they could continue abusing her. Then they told Adams she would be killed last, so she would have to watch all the other women suffer first.”
“He is screaming insults too harsh for delicate monkey ears to hear. I will translate for you. Hmm, bad word,” he reported while the lizard howled and exhorted his crew to do something, anything. At that moment, the crew of that ship were realizing to their horror that they had no control over any system. “Another bad word, Jeez, he’s repeating himself. Come on, put some effort into it, will ya? Ooooh, very bad word, now we’re getting somewhere,” Skippy chuckled. I had to laugh along with the Merry Band of Pirates, because that that point, Mister Asshole was so angry he was hopping up and
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“Oh, no problemo, Joe. Glad we had this little talk, if it makes you feel better about the inevitable extinction of your species. See? I am totally nailing this empathy shit.”
“For realz, homeboy. Joe, you jumped this ship through an Elder wormhole. Believe me, the universe trembles when you monkeys get an idea. Oooooh, I can’t wait to see how you monkeys get out of this mess.”
She also asked me how you manage to find trouble everywhere you go.” “Trouble finds us. Our Mysterious Benefactor ‘Emby’, whoever that is, recruited us to dig up those maser projectors. It wasn’t our idea.” “That’s not the point. Perkins, I am certain the Burgermeister would prefer you find trouble on some other planet.”
