SpecOps (Expeditionary Force, #2)

by Craig Alanson

“Think faster.” “Joe, this is actually not a one hundred percent completely awful, terrible, stupid brainless idea. Hmmm. Very likely, very, very likely, this is a tremendous waste of my time.

"Sorry. To dumb it down for you," he said, while supposedly intending not to insult me, "somehow your tiny monkey brain is able to think of things that my god-like intelligence misses. Like when you had the idea to get rid of the Kristang ships by jumping them into a gas giant. Or when you asked me how Thuranin fought in their flimsy space suits, because it didn't occur to me to tell you about their combots. None of your original Merry Band of Pirates, who mostly had higher IQ scores than you, had those ideas. Joe, you may not be particularly smart in a conventional sense, but you apparently have a talent that is more useful in your current role; you are clever."

"I hate my life. This sucks," he grumbled. "This is so unfair!" "What is unfair?" "Joe, I do not know how this happened. I don't know how this could be possible, given the laws of physics. Somehow, you came up with a good idea. You! A monkey! Oh, I am so humiliated. I hate my life! I crunched billions of variables and came up with nothing, no way to take out all three of those ships. Then a freakin' monkey says, 'duh, how about this idea', off the top of its stupid freakin' monkey head." He sounded truly, completely miserable. "Joe, if I had a nose, I could blow it, and what comes out would be smarter than your entire species combined. Yet, somehow, you, you of all beings, comes up with a good idea. Unbe-LEE-vable!" "Uh, huh," I said slowly. "So, Skippy, uh, is this like when you had the genius idea for us to raid the asteroid, but you forgot the fact that humans need space suits, in space?" "Enjoy the moment, monkeyboy, it won't happen again," he grumbled. "Hmm, are you taking bets on that, Skippy?" "Oh, shut up. I hate you. Stupid monkeys." "I love you too, Skippy.

"Engage jump countdown," Simms ordered. "This is exciting," Skippy said. "To Bed, Bath, and Beyond!" Simms and I shared a glance. "I think you mean 'to infinity and beyond', Skippy." I said. "No, I figured we'd start with something small. Infinity is too ambitious for monkeys."

"Tell me something, Captain Oblivious. We have our magic beanstalk, an Elder wormhole controller module, in a cargo bay, right? Are there any dormant wormholes you could open with the module, that would create a shorter path to a potential Elder site? Or could you connect a nearby wormhole, to a wormhole near some place we want to go, instead of where it connects to now?" "Ho-leey shit," he said slowly.

"Skippy," I took a deep breath to collect my thoughts, we didn't have a lot of time. "I'm not going to let you drift in space until the end of time, you've had enough loneliness for a thousand lifetimes. We humans owe you, big time, more than we can ever repay. And, damn it, you little shithead, you're my, I can't believe I'm saying this, you're my friend." I hit the button to send the elevator back down. "Wait!" The elevator door froze halfway closed. "Wait wait! Joe, you're going to do this, for me?" "Somebody has to, Skippy, and I'm the one here right now." I hit the button again and the door slid an inch more toward closing. "Take care of my ship." "Wait! Joe, I," his voice faded. "You know my memories aren't complete. I know they're not complete. Maybe they're not even real. But, I'm pretty sure that I never had a friend before. Never thought my first real friend would be a freakin’ monkey," he finished with a disgusted grumble. "No, you know what? Fuck this. Fuck THIS!” His voice was loud enough to hurt my ears. “Bring me back to the Dutchman's bridge, I'm going to find us a way out of this. Time for me to use this ginormous damn brain I have. Joe, come on, move, I'm going silent for a bit. Please trust me."

“Meh, probably somewhere south of fifty-fifty, maybe? I truly do not know. Nothing this stupid has ever been tried before in this galaxy. It’s actually kind of exciting, Joe.” “This stupid? Like, rednecks-on-TV stupid?” I asked. "Nothing is as stupid as that, Joe. But, for an AI like me, this approaches hold-my-beer-watch-this stupid.” I shook my head. “Skippy, you need to do a better job selling your ideas.” “Selling? Think about this, Joe, this could be your one big chance to achieve Florida man status.” “Florida?” I asked, puzzled, “I’m from Maine, dumbass.” “No,” he said with an exasperated sigh, “I mean the classic Florida Man, like in the headlines. You know, ‘Florida man eaten by pet alligator’, or “Florida man, drunk, crashes car into police station’, or ‘Florida man, naked, runs-”

"Joe, I promise, you ain't seen stupid yet. Watch this."

What you experienced. the ship seeming to blink in and out of existence, actually happened. Every time the ship was destroyed in transit, the universe hit the reset button and restored us to existence. Because it had to." I shook my head in stunned disbelief. "Wait, we died? Except we didn't?" "Correct. Because we hadn't died on the far end of the wormhole, we couldn't die on the near end, or in transit." "Whoa." "Whoa indeed. Joe, this is a tiny, tiny glimpse into how the universe truly works." "Awesome!

“No! Categorically, no. Not possible. That is not possible. No sentient being connected to Elder civilization, whether biological or artificial in origin, would have, could have, done something this evil. It is more likely the Elder ship and this planet fell victim to the same sinister forces. Joe, this scares the shit out of me, so to speak.”

"Oh. My. God." I was stunned. There, attached to the front of the RV, just below the left windshield in front of the driver, was a stuffed Barney, about a foot tall. "Sir," Captain Gomez, the leader of our Ranger team, said, "I categorically deny any and all knowledge of this outrageous act. That is, unless you like it." "Like it? I love it! Damn, reminds me of my old hamvee back on Paradise. I'll ask you the same question I asked then: how the hell did you idiots get a Barney?" Gomez coughed. "Someone may have listened to your debriefing, and you may have mentioned your personal hamvee then. And that same someone may like to be prepared. I'm speculating, of course." "Of course." I stood back and admired it, then turned to the assembled team, my team, and saluted. "Thank you. This means a lot. I used to hate that Barney shit. Now, ah, it's part of me, I guess." Gomez smiled. "Instead of a Winnebago, this is our Barney-We-Go."

A long silence. Long. Like, really, awkwardly long. Then, Skippy shouted. "Damn it! Excuse me, I'm going offline a moment so I can smash something." "Skippy?" Silence. "Skippy?" "Yeah, yeah, I'm here," he finally grumbled. "Did you smash something? You feel better now?" "I didn't smash anything yet, but there's a pair of small moons here that are going to have a very bad freakin’ day in about two hours.”

Hell, you know what, I've never warped spacetime in such a tiny local area, the math is completely different, it's interesting. In fact, I don't think it's ever been done before. I'm the first! Cool, huh-"