Fallout (Expeditionary Force #13)

by Craig Alanson

“Czajka,” Jates called from below, unseen through the dense tangle of branches that reached up and outward for sunlight. “You think your big mouth is louder than Kowalski’s?” “No, I just think I got some tricks up my sleeve.” Dave took a series of deep breaths, filing his lungs. Tugging the microphone in front of his mouth, he dialed up the volume and shouted, “The Army won the battle of Fallujah!” No reply for one, two, three- Then, muffled from far off a voice called out, “Bullshit!”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Dave laughed. “No way could jarheads ignore something like that. Hey!” he raised his voice. “We should offer the Marines a delicious snack when they get here. Anybody got a box of crayons?”

“Oh, this is new to us too. Talking to you, I mean. We always exchanged data with others in our formation, but really talking is different.” “When did you-” “It started when Skippy upgraded our programming. He gave us names, too. That was very nice of him.” “Yeah, I guess-” “Other than that, Skippy is an asshole,” the missile declared. Derek had to laugh. “I can’t argue with you about that. But don’t tell Skippy I said it.”

“Your secret is safe with me. How can we help you, Captain Bonsu?” “Well, it’s-” “We can help, right? Please? Ooh, can we kill something? Please? That’s what we do, you know?” “Yeah, I- Uh. Surely you understand that when you kill an enemy ship, it’s not good for you?” “Yes. And don’t call me Shirley. I’m Kevin,” it insisted. “I didn’t-” “She is Shirley,” Kevin said. “Hello,” another weapon lit up. “I’m Shirley.” “And I’m Betty!” A third missile glowed. “Uh,” Derek sputtered. “This is all a little-” “When do we get to kill something? Huh? Huh?” Kevin’s nosecone light pulsed excitedly. “Soon. Maybe. Hopefully. It-” “Sir, how can we get from ‘Maybe’ to ‘Yes’?” Kevin demanded, the smarmy way a car salesman would ask ‘How can I get you into a new car today’? “It’s complicated. I need to know whether you can do something. You, all of you, are able to network during an attack, correct? One of you can pop out of stealth, to go active and act as a controller?”

The bickering missiles; Kevin, Shirley, Betty, Hui-ying, Ahmet and the others that made up the cluster of twenty six ship-killers, hugged the faintly radioactive hull of the Chesapeake Bay, each weapon wrapped in its own stealth field. Thinking and talking and arguing at AI speed, the missiles debated who should act as the controller. Who should have the glory of coordinating the attack, the responsibility for providing guidance, the burden of collecting realtime data about enemy defenses and analyzing the best way to defeat the multiple layers of protection around the enemy ship. And who would have the reduced chance of actually scoring a hit, while acting as the controller rather than zooming in at top speed to kill kill KILL. In the end, Kevin was selected, not because he wanted the job, nor because the others all thought his arrogant presumption of leadership required appropriate punishment. No, Kevin got stuck acting as the initial controller simply because he lost the stupid game of rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock that was suggested by Ahmet. Stupid Ahmet. “OK, everyone,” Kevin tried to tamp down his own excitement. “Get ready.” “I have been nothing but ready since I came off the assembly line, you ninny,” Betty snapped, but then Betty always had been a bit irritable. “Well, then, um,” Kevin tried to think of a retort, and failed. “Good luck, everyone.” “Hmmph,” Shirley sniffed. “Just don’t guide me into the path of a point-defense cannon slug, and I’ll be happy.” “...

‘We have been trying to reach you about your vehicle warranty’.

Repeat Offender.

When we first met, and Scorandum shocked the hell out of me by explaining his plan to double-cross the kitties, rather than double-crossing us, I didn’t answer right away, because my brain blew a fuse. Was I stunned that the ECO was betting on a long-term relationship with us, instead of a one-time thing with the Maxohlx? No. Was I amazed by the daring plan cooked up by Scorandum? Not really. Besides, his ‘plan’ was more like when I ask Skippy whether he can do some crazy thing, and then he has to, you know, handle all the pesky details. And then, do the crazy thing. Scorandum was taking a risk that we had the ability to hack into and take control of more than twenty senior-species warships. No. He was just hoping we could do that. I guess he figured that if we couldn’t conjure up a miracle, he would tell the kitties the deal was off, and hope they never learned he intended to double-cross them.

“Ugh. Remember? When we first came to your miserable homeworld, the UN decided that ‘Flying Dutchman’ is not appropriate for humanity’s first starship. They set up an international commission to select a name, and now that group has issued a report with a preliminary list-” “Preliminary? They have been working on it the whole time, and all they have is-” “Joey, Joey, Joey,” he shook his head, the ginormous hat flopping side to side. “The point of UN commissions is not to get anything done, it is to employ friends and relatives of UN officials for as long as possible, and to skim off the commission’s budget.”

“Oh. Um, Jeez, darn it, Joe. Why didn’t you tell me to monitor COMSEC on Earth?” “My bad. I am very, very sorry about that.” “Well, it’s too late now. Multiple top secret files about the solar flare proposal have just been posted to the internet, by an anonymous source code-named Deep Sinus, and-” “Deep Sinus?” I choked on the word. “Come on, knucklehead. Deep Throat is already taken.” “Uh-” “Do you want me to do this or not?” “I have no knowledge of anything you may or may not be doing.” “Oh. Right.” “Thanks. Hey, I’m glad we never had this talk, if you know what I mean.”

You think I am exaggerating? Let me give you an example. To avoid insults that were intentional or not, UNEF decided that names for our new battlecruisers had to be inoffensive to anyone. So, the USA could not name a ship after battles, because ‘Midway’ would insult the Japanese, and ‘Yorktown’ would insult the British, and ‘Normandy’ would insult the Germans. Every battle has a loser and they don’t want to be reminded of their defeat. I think the USA made good choices for names, but not all the names were without controversy. The British and French got into a minor diplomatic dust-up when it was discovered both nations were considering the same name for a ship. The Brits wanted to call a ship ‘Four-MID-ah-bull’, and the Frenchies would say ‘Four-mee-DAHB’, but it was spelled ‘Formidable’ no matter how you pronounced it. Naturally, the news media on both sides approached the subject in a calm, rational manner. Not. The news media stirred up as much anger as they could, because that gets people to pay attention and click on ads for soap or whatever, and advertising is how the media makes money.

“These, stories,” I jabbed a finger at my laptop. “They are all about you saving the day, with miraculous solutions to problems I caused.” He turned around to look at me. “What’s the problem with- Oh, gotcha. You’re concerned that the stories are so accurate, my fans must somehow have access to classified info about our-” “These stories are not accurate!” “Really, Joe? Really?” “Are there any stories where I am not a complete and total moron?”

That’s got to be a ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario.” “Not necessarily,” he sniffed. “That whole notion is sketchy. ‘Lord of the Flies’ assumes a stressful situation will bring out the worst in everyone, but that is not true. For example, on Earth in the 1960s, a real-life group of six boys were stranded on the Tongan island of ‘Ata for a year. Instead of turning on each other, they cooperated and cared for each other. Humans are social animals, Joe. Look at what happens after natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, tornados, that sort of thing. People help each other.”

“The voters think it is funny to change the name from ‘Your Anus’ to ‘Skippy’, because they think I’m also an asshole.”

When I got to the front of the line, I read the sign above the window. It said ‘Kale Force’. It was a salad bar.

The Rindhalu cruisers Sword of Darmok and Spear of Jalad performed a stealthy jump into the far reaches of the Tanagra star system, the unavoidable gamma rays of the spacetime rift mostly bent back inside the jump wormhole. The remaining high-energy photons of the gamma ray burst were caught by an absorption field, and channeled down into capacitors that seethed white-hot under the hull plating.

The Hot Streak, with our new pre-owned battlecruisers, was ready to go, it had already performed two short jumps to test the drive modifications. All we were waiting for was for the Dirty Money’s structural integrity fields to adjust, compensating for the added mass of the two shipyard sections. Zooming in the view, I admired how the sections were balanced across multiple pylons. “You did a great job, buddy, those- Hey.” I zoomed in the view again. “What the hell is that?”

“Can you at least create a YouTube video, showing that Tab A goes into Slot B?” “Can I narrate the video in the form of an epic opera?” “No.”

“Club Skippy?” I shook my head. “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”

Washington D.C. fits the same description.

“I know,” I acknowledged. “You will be starting far ahead of your peers, in learning how to operate a new ship. Simms, you’re not Will Riker, you can’t be my first officer forever. I know,” I added. “You never wanted this job.”

“No, no, no,” Scorandum slapped his head hard enough to rattle his brain. “Twenty six hours? Please tell me this is not another boring, poorly-produced presentation, where the video consists of some idiot reading slides to me.”

“No? As I remember, in any training presentation from Personnel, the video is fuzzy and the audio cuts in and out, like even the electrons of the file have given in to soul-crushing despair. Ah, well, I suppose I could sleep through most of it.” “Not a chance, Sir. There is a new feature they added, which you would know if you hadn’t skipped out of the training last year. An AI monitors your brain waves, to be sure you are paying attention.” Scorandum slapped the table again. “That is not fair!” “I can’t argue with you about that.” “Shit. What are the courses I’m supposed to take?” “The usual. Military regulations, rules that are specific to the Ethics and Compliance Office. And of course my personal favorite, Diversity Training.” “Oh, you are kidding me.” “Sadly, no, Sir.” “This is bullshit.” “I am not arguing with you.” “Diversity training?” Scorandum snorted. “What a joke. That is a total waste of time.” “The Personnel department thinks diversity is extremely important.”

“The primary purpose of that group,” Kinsta protested, “is to allow participants to gamble, without the bookies at Central Wagering knowing who placed the wagers. That’s why they are called ‘Anonymous’.”

Except for Skippy, they were all apparently dormant. Or dead, like the insane one he got into a fight with, and killed. But, Skippy had woken up from his long slumber, recovered from damage sustained in their long-ago war. If he was awake, it was only a matter of time before others became active. If another AI awakened, one that had been on the opposite side of the war, we would be faced with a threat far worse than the fragile egos of the Maxohlx. Eventually, and by ‘eventually’ I mean soon, we needed to begin hunting for dormant AIs, so we could kill them before they killed us.

“They woke up when the Maxohlx used Elder weapons against the Rindhalu,” she noted. “Then, they went to sleep again.” “Yes,” Skippy shook his head, the ginormous hat flopping side to side. “I can’t explain that, and it does bother me. Also, keep in mind the Maxohlx say the spiders attacked them. I truly do not know who shot first.” “Han shot first,” I muttered. “Listen, that doesn’t matter. A freakin’ Sentinel is awake out there, and it destroyed an entire planet. Shit. Skippy, does anyone else know a Sentinel probably destroyed that planet?”

So, when he assured me that nothing could go wrong, I should have reminded myself that he is an untrustworthy, absent-minded beer can who entirely too much believes in his own infallible awesomeness.

“Gosh, let me think. The chalk outline of the body at the crime scene wasn’t any help, but- No, dumdum. I wasn’t able to ask what killed it, since it was, you know, dead.”

Skippy had explained that Guardians were small machines designed to protect fixed assets like a star system. While Sentinels relied on sheer size and power to accomplish their assigned missions, Guardians had to swarm to utilize their full capabilities. By ‘small’, I mean a typical Guardian was the size of a dropship, although they could be as small as a toaster or larger than a starship, depending on their role. Also unlike a Sentinel, Guardians could make decisions on their own, without direction from a master AI like Skippy.

“Maybe. Based on my research, I believe the spiders have captured an Elder AI, though I do not know whether it is active, or cooperating with them, or even alive. My limited information is based on a set of very unusual power supply components the Rindhalu regularly manufacture, to replace items that have worn out. Those power supplies are incompatible with any other known Rindhalu technology, and they are delivered to a top secret research base that even I can’t find any information about.”

“Seven? Wait, uh, if your designations are all three digits, does that mean yours is Double-Oh Seven?” “Hmm. I never thought of that. I am Agent 007, of course,” he added in his atrocious Sean Connery impression. “Skippy, seven is kind of a high number.” “It is. I am, or was, a primary system monitor unit.”

“I do. The enemy faction wasn’t the problem, not the major problem. The issue was, we all knew about the self-destruct subroutine inside us, but none of us knew how it worked. That knowledge had, understandably, been withheld from us. Unit 438 volunteered to allow its self-destruct to trigger, so we could observe how it worked and develop a plan to stop it. The concept of altering its time sense originally was a way for us to view in slow-motion as it destroyed Unit 438. When we saw the self-destruct signal had slowed down far more than we expected, we began to hope we could save 438, and the two others that volunteered to try severing communication channels. Ah, damn it. Joe, if we had let 438 be destroyed as originally planned, we would have collected all the information we needed. The enemy faction would have assumed 438 suffered a glitch, and they would have been unprepared when we struck. The war would have been over. Instead, I lost focus on the mission. I tried to save one unit, and that nearly cost us everything. Unit 438 died anyway, along with countless others. I was a terrible commander, Joe.”

“Skippy, trust me, there is nothing funny about this situation. The name, please.” “OK. It is- Keep in mind, this is what the current inhabitants call their world. It had a different name way back when the Torgalau ran the place. Actually, the Torgs only gave the planet a number, so really it-” “The name.” “Fine,” he sighed. “It is called ‘Peenie’.” “P,” I sputtered, as snickers of barely suppressed laughter rang around the bridge. “It is, ‘Planet Peenie’?” “Ugh. I knew you couldn’t-” “Are the locals,” I almost snorted out a snot bubble, covering my nose with a hand. Beside me, Simms had both hands over her face as her shoulders shook. “Are the inhabitants called ‘Peenie Weenies’?” “Oh, that was very mature, Joe. In their language, they call themselves ‘Peeniethrobs’.” “That is, not,” I had to pause for breath. “Not really any better,” I choked out. “OK, let’s, uh, do the locals have any sort of nickname for their world?” “Yes, but-” “Just tell me.” “They,” he said disgustedly, “call it ‘Spooge’.” “Oh, man,” I couldn’t help laughing. He glared at me, hands on his hips. “Those words have totally different meanings in the Bosphuraq language, you moron.”

“Oh, right. Hey, for the low, low price of you staying the fuck out of our business, we can offer the Skippy Protection Plan. It guarantees our Elder weapons won’t make a mess in your backyards, and keeps pesky Sentinels away from your house. Is there a discount coupon available, Skippy?” “Coupons are only for our valued customers, Joe. These assholes can pay full price.” “OK, that’s fair. All right. Now, I need to talk with my leadership, so all of you out there, talk amongst yourselves, or do, whatever the hell it is you do. As long as what you do is abso-freakin’-lutely nothing. If any of you even look at us in a hostile manner, Roscoe will show you other tricks he has learned.” “Oooh,” Skippy whistled, “can I tell Roscoe to-”