SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) by Craig Alanson Page A

Elder sites known to
current species."
    "Damn. That is impressive."
    "Ahhh, not so much, if you really understood the
data." Skippy said sourly. "The Elder sites known to current species
are the easy to find, obvious ones. The dumdums inhabiting the galaxy today
only find Elder sites if they happen to trip over them in the dark, so to
speak. Almost all of the Elder sites that have been mapped are in star systems
capable of supporting carbon-based life. The unmapped sites, that I predict we
should find, are mostly in star systems centered around obscure stars such as
red dwarfs. I am not yet, of course, able to determine how good my model is at
predicting the location of more obscure, minor Elder sites. However, I am
highly confident."
    "Great. This time, your good news, is good news
for sure. What's the bad news?"
    "The bad news is where we have to go to check out
these unknown, potential sites. By definition, they are in out of the way
locations, else they would have been discovered by now. The model predicts only
a handful of sites that are conveniently close to our location."
    "Well, we will check out those-"
    "Whoa, whoa!" Skippy cautioned. "No so
fast, hot shot, let me finish. Of the handful of predicted sites, two are
inaccessible now, the stars they were orbiting have become red giants and
swallowed those planets. Another site was in a star system where the star went
nova; even if that site still exists, it is likely damaged, and we'd have a
hell of a time finding it now, it would have been thrown off its original orbit
in an unpredictable fashion. Three other sites remain undiscovered, but are in
star systems occupied by species with equivalent, or superior, technology to
this ship. It would be substantially risky to enter those star systems."
    "There's nothing we could check out around
here?"
    "Oh, I didn't say nothing. There are four sites
within a month of here. Two of those sites are good prospects, the other two
are low probability."
    "Mmm hmm, within a month from here. How long to check
out all four sites?"
    "Oof, you had to ask me that," Skippy
sounded disgusted. "Uh, calculating now, a least-time course would take,
meh, three and a half months, the sites are scattered inconveniently, we have
to take roundabout routes through wormholes to get to all four sites."
    "Meh?" I said, surprised.
    "Huh?"
    "You said 'meh'. Like when something isn't bad,
it isn't great, it's just, you know, 'meh'."
    "Oh, yeah. In this case, 'meh' was me suppressing
my instincts, and telling you that the estimated transit time is three and half
months, instead of me saying three months, seventeen days, ten hours, twenty
one minutes and forty eight point two six seven seconds. Roughly."
    "Roughly? In the future, let's go with
'meh'."
    "I thought so. Also, that is average transit
time, not including time to match course with the sites, fly down in dropships,
explore the sites, all that."
    "Kind of implied, Skippy."
    "Yeah, you'd think so, but I'm trying to explain
hyperspatial navigation to monkeys, so-"
    "Got it. Not all monkeys aboard this ship are as
dumb as me-"
    "None of them are, Joe. Well, I'm only
considering standard IQ tests in the crew's personnel files, of course."
Skippy paused. "Oh. Hmm. Did I just insult you?"
    "Ya think?"
    "Hey, blame that facts, not the messenger.
Besides, I've told you before, that the standard IQ tests of your species, are
woefully inadequate predictors of ability to create innovative solutions
to-"
    "Christ, Skippy, you sound like the buzzwords on
those stupid PowerPoint slides that I'm supposed to study."
    "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