ExForce 11: Brushfire

ExForce 11: Brushfire

Author
Craig Alanson

Narrator
R.C. Bray

Release
December 15, 2020

Publisher
Podium Audio

Run Time
19 hours 18 minutes

Previous
ExForce 10: Critical Mass

Next
ExForce 12: Breakaway

Author's Summary

**SPOILER ALERT!**
*The section(s) below SCHMAYBE includes **Spoilers**.*
***FULL SUMMARY COMING SOON***
Until then...

Captain Uhtavio "Big Score" Scorandum, in temporary command of the Ethis and Compliance Office stealth cruiser *Time Off For Bad Behavior* and while in orbit of Tohmaran, was in stealth mode and observing the situation above the planet when two Maxolhx heavy cruisers were destroyed by the *Ghost Ship*. He discussed, with Sublieutenant Kinsta, the revalation that the *Ghost Ship* was actually controlled by Humans and not rogue Bosphuraq. During the discussion, Kinsta informed Scorandum that one Jeraptha had placed a wager that humans were in control of the *Ghost Ship*. With his winnings, he purchased the planet, Jamandra, one of the Jeraptha's "Big Five" industrial worlds where components for Jeraptha jump drives were produced, and renamed it "Ollivar's World".
Joseph Bishop meets with Major General Jeff Ross and he and Gen. Ross commiserate with each other about how difficult Lt. Col. Emily Perkins was and could be. Together they visit Admiral Jet-au-Bes Kekrando.
On the first stop of their Galactic Kick-Ass tour, the Merry Band of Pirates go to Rikers in Valkyrie to deal with the Kristang who were responsible for capturing, torturing and killing human men, women and children. They exact revenge on and destroyed all the military components on the planet. They inform the remaining Kristang leadership to never visit or fly anywhere near the two islands where many of the human remains were. Joe tells them that the satellites remaining in orbit would take necessary action, if needed. The Pirates vow to themselves that at some point when it's feasible, they will retrieve the bodies and return them to Earth for proper burial.
While leaving Rikers, Joe signaled the Thuranin and told them that they would be eliminated if they showed their faces in the area again.
The Pirates next stop on the tour was a meeting between Joe, Admiral Gost-Ren Tashallo of the Mighty 98th Fleet and Captain Scorandum. Admiral Tashallo, on behalf of the Mighty 98th and the Jerpatha, offered to provide troop transport ships for humans to travel back to Earth.
The next stop on the Pirates' Galactic Kick-Ass tour was to kick some sense into the Keepers of the Faith. The last significant collection of Keeper slaves under the control of the Kristang Death Stalkers clan, who would sell Keeper slaves to other Kristang clans or the Thuranin. The Pirates' STAR team rescued those remaining Keepers from the Death Stalkers.
The fourth stop on the smash-hit tour was at a Thuranin planet called Slithin which had their major military bioweapons facility that the captured humans on Rikers and Keepers would have been sent to for testing of bioweapons.
After the successful destruction of the Thuranin military bioweapons facility, the Pirates headed to Paradise. Joe takes a stealthed Panther down to the surface and meets with Chief Administrator Baturnah Logellia. This surprised her since she had assumed Joe was dead.
At first she didn't believe Joe when he told her how he and the Pirates escaped, stole a Dodo, a Kristang frigate, a Thuranin star carrier and went back to Earth, killed all the Kristang on and around Earth, flying their stolen star carrier around the galaxy, stopping various aliens from going to Earth, including destroying a Thuranin surveyor ship, sabotaging negotiations between Kristang and Ruhar for a ride to Earth, starting the Kristang Civil War, destroying two Maxolhx battlecruisers, sending and abandoning a Maxolhx fleet outside the Milky Way, capturing three Maxolhx ships and creating Valkyrie, masquerading asthe Bosphuraq *Ghost Ship*, attaining Elder weapons and planting stealthed Elder weapons throughout Rindhalu and Maxolhx territory, set on a timer and requiring a passcode to deactivate. Joe asked Skippy to show himself and explained about "Emby". He then had Skippy disable weapons on the two Ruhar battlegroups and the SD Network in orbit of Paradise. Only after Joe had Valkyrie jump into low orbit so that the Burgermeister could see for herself did she believe him.
Joe spend a few days explaining things to UNEF-Paradise Headquarters and answering questions from various UNEF personnel. On the fourth day, the Sure Thing jumped into orbit carrying the Mavericks and around two hundred Alien Legion troops. Perkins told Joe that Admiral Kekrando would handling the military situation on Tohmaran from this point forward.
Joe met with Lester Cornhut, who co-owned a brewery with Dave Czajka, again and they had a cookout in Lester's backyard with cheeseburgers (even though it was with lab-grown meat).
Joe, Czajka and Jesse Colter went to Lemuria to wisit their old Fire Team leader, Greg Koch, who had left the military and become a farmer who provided specialized crops for humans and Ruhar (including providing hops to Czajka for his brewery). While in Lemura, Joe was approached by former UNEF personnel on how to handle personal situations such as having, after fearing for several years that everyone on Earth was either in abject slavery or dead, gotten re-married on Paradise and then finding out that their former spouses were still alive and never re-married even though UNEF had declared the people offworld to be officially dead, so they could stop paying accumulated salaries and benefits.
The final stop of the Galactic Kick-Ass tour wasn't really part of the tour. Valkyrie stopped at Avalon take everyone back to Earth... which included bringing the civilians from Rikers aboard again, plus Hans Chotek and the other UN diplomats who Joe privately called the Three Stooges. A handful of scientists begged me to let them stay on Avalon, so they could continue to conduct research. Their biological and agricultural experiments would fall apart without constant tending, they argued, and all the research they had done would be for nothing. Joe understood, and sympathized with their anxiety, but his decision was final. He could not in good conscience allow anyone to stay on Avalon, because he had no idea when, or if, the governments of Earth would sanction another flight out to the beta site. With humanity possessing Elder weapons, he worried that the sense of urgency to establish a beta site would fade, which in Joe's opinion would be a major mistake. But, that was another issue above his pay grade.
A short while later, Lt. Col. Simms asked Joe what he was going to do about *control* of the Elder weapons. Joe knew that the US Army would order him to turn the weapons over to the National Command Authority (NCA). The problem was that if one Nation on Earth had the control of the weapons, the others would demand access to the same weapons, creating severe international tension. It was a six day trip back to Earth and Joe said he would give Simms a heads up on his decision. He had lied to her. He had already decided what he would do.