The Ruhar set his jaw and did not speak. Did not speak verbally; his eyes and body language spoke volumes.
“You and I are soldiers,” Bailey pointed to his uniform, ignoring that technically he was a Marine. “We can leave the touchy-feely bullshit to civilians, and talk about what really happened here. Or we can be nice and diplomatic and waste our time, while the lizards are kicking your asses all over this planet. Your planet.”
The Ruhar’s intense glare only intensified.
Marcellus set is mouth in a pained grin. “What General Bailey means is-”
“What I mean is,” Bailey interrupted, “that we humans have experience in down and dirty ground fighting. We have to, because by your standards, we don’t have any technology worth mentioning. Anything above ten meters off the ground, we’re hopeless,” he held his hands palms up. With the toe of a boot, he scraped a furrow in the rich forest soil. “But here, on the ground, we know how to fight.” He stared the Ruhar officer in the eyes. “Fight without orbital fire support, and without air power. You’re an infantry officer?”
The Ruhar waited for the translation, and nodded curtly.
“Great. Let’s put our heads together, and kick the fucking lizards off this planet.”
The Ruhar opened his mouth, then thought better and closed it.
Marcellus filled the silence, before Bailey could continue. “Orban Tahl,” he used the Ruhar’s rank, roughly equivalent to a major in the US Army. “Neither side controls space near this planet, and neither side can rely on air power. The current situation has both sides racing to reactivate and control as many maser projectors as possible. The Kristang are also trying to take, or destroy, enough Ruhar-held projectors to create a safe-fly zone for their ships overhead. If they can knock back projector coverage over one area, they can bring their ships back, and continue to erode projector coverage until they reestablish supremacy in space around Gehtanu. We are in a race against time for control of this planet, and General Bailey is correct; we do not have time for diplomatic niceties. The Deputy Administrator sent us out here because this type of warfare is what humans have experience with. She sent us here,” he stabbed an index finger at the ground, “because she hoped some Ruhar officers would be professional enough to know when they could use some help. So,” he took a deep breath as two Ruhar walked by, carrying a wounded soldier on a stretcher, “if you are happy with your results here today, General Bailey and I can fly back and enjoy the Administrator’s hospitality.”
“Or,” Bailey kept his gaze firmly fixed on Orban Tahl, “together we can make the damned lizards wish they’d never tried to take this planet from the people who call this place home.” Bailey knew, from a patch on the right shoulder of Tahl’s uniform, that he was a native, that he had grown up on Gehtanu.
“Tah,” Tahl nodded grimly, using the Ruhar word for ‘yes’. He held out a hand and Bailey shook it firmly. “Human, there are plenty of Kristang to kill. Why should we,” Tahl grinned, showing his incisors, “keep them all to ourselves?”
Beginning that very night, experienced UNEF infantry leaders were assigned to all Ruhar combat teams, whether assaulting a Kristang-held site, or defending a site controlled by the Ruhar. Typically, a UNEF ‘observer’ team consisted of one commissioned officer and one sergeant, chosen for their infantry experience and the likelihood they would not piss off the Ruhar they were embedded with. UNEF HQ thought that fostering a strong working relationship with the Ruhar military was just as important as helping the Ruhar win a chaotic ground war against the Kristang.
In addition to UNEF supplying ‘observers’, the Ruhar also reluctantly bolstered their thin manpower by taking on humans as security forces for critical Ruhar sites. These soldiers, chosen for their ability to get along with alien allies, were given human weapons and led by Ruhar officers. Even the most resentful Ruhar soldiers had to admit that having humans filling the role of defending important infrastructure, freed up Ruhar to take action against the Kristang.
UNEF loyalists also took responsibility for another task: cutting off Kristang access to human manpower. The Ruhar were alarmed by Kristang dipping into the pool of Keepers to boost their strength, and at first, the Ruhar assigned precious combat aircraft to prevent Kristang transports from overflying Lemuria. The Kristang took advantage of the Ruhar shifting their severely limited air combat strength, and the Kristang’s own few aircraft attacked Ruhar air bases and population centers on the northern continent. UNEF HQ quickly advised the Ruhar that UNEF could prevent Keepers from joining the Kristang; all UNEF needed was for loyal troops to be given weapons so they could surround Keeper villages. Kristang recruitment of Keepers stopped instantly.
Even with enthusiastic help from UNEF, the situation on the ground was still precarious. Both sides had control of projectors; the Ruhar had an advantage in numbers, but the Kristang had reactivated enough projectors that Commodore Ferlant’s ships could not safely approach the planet safely. Ferlant advised that if the situation of the ground turned alarmingly against the Ruhar, he would risk his ships in action against the Kristang-held projector sites, but that would be the absolutely last resort.
Then, Ferlant’s ships unexpectedly destroyed the Kristang pursuit squadron, and combat power in the space around the planet became nearly evenly matched. Admiral Kekrando swallowed the bitter pill of failure, and agreed to a cease fire. Both sides kept control of the projectors they held, but further activity was halted. UNEF feared the Ruhar would still reach a deal to give Paradise to the Kristang, until a miracle happened, and the Ruhar found priceless Elder artifacts buried near projector sites. Almost overnight, the planet became a vital resource for the Ruhar, and soon a full Ruhar battlegroup hung in orbit. Admiral Kekrando was forced to admit defeat.
And the people of UNEF, trapped on an alien planet over a thousand lightyears from home, began to hope they could not only survive, but thrive.
And, someday, go home.
CHAPTER THREE
One week after the Flying Dutchman left the Paradise system
“This s-sucks,” Jesse ‘Cornpone’ Colter rubbed his gloved hands together.
“T-tell me about it,” Dave ‘Ski’ Czajka agreed. The ‘it’ came out like ‘ih’, because Ski’s numbed mouth had trouble forming hard vowels in the intense cold.
“I’m so f-frozen, my jaw can barely move to t-talk,” Jesse complained.
“Me t-too.”
Shauna’s voice broke in on their zPhone earpieces. “Hey, you two quit complaining, or get back in the Buzzard. You morons decided to go out there.”
“Hey, after all the work we did, freezing our asses off up here, I want to see this test, Shauna,” Ski said with a defensive tone.
“We can see it just fine from in here where it’s warm,” she teased.
“Yeah, sure, on a video feed,” Cornpone would have liked to put sarcasm into his voice, but his lips were so frozen, he couldn’t manage it. For protection in case of accident during the test, Irene had flown the Buzzard behind a hill, to put plenty of hard-frozen ice and rock between the vulnerable aircraft and any flying debris. “I want to see it.”
“See it? Through goggles what will filter out like 99% of the light?” Shauna’s voice had no trouble projecting sarcasm, since she was in the warm and cozy confines of the Buzzard.
“It makes a difference,” Jesse insisted stubbornly.
“What did you say?” Shauna asked. “Hold a minute, I couldn’t hear you, let me turn down the cabin heater. Irene has it set on ‘tropical’ in here. I feel like drinking a rum punch.”
“If’n I wasn’t such a Southern gentleman, I would say that you are an evil, evil woman, Shauna Jarrett.”
“And you are such a genius for being out there, Jesse Colter.”
Jesse cupped his gloved hands in front of his mouth and blew on the gloves, hoping the hot air would warm his lips. It didn’t. He removed a glove and blew on his hand, but his hand got cold so quickly, he had to pull the glove back on.
It was 12 degrees below zero Fahrenheit in the arctic of Paradise, and he and Dave were laying prone on snowpack, wearing the best cold weather gear the US Army on Paradise had available. He was wearing five pairs of thick socks; two on each foot and another on, someplace else that was very important to Jesse. The arctic gear totally sucked, compared to the clothing used by the Ruhar. In addition to socks, Jesse was wearing long underwear, a long shirt, a sweater, and a parka. Inside his cold-weather boots, cold was seeping through the socks. The thick fleece cap was keeping his head mostly warm under the helmet. The helmet wasn’t for protection in combat, because with a Ruhar battlegroup now based at Paradise, there was no longer any prospect of combat on or around the planet. He wore the helmet for safety, and as protection against the arctic wind. What was really making him cold, worse even than the gusty wind, was lying on the concrete-hard snow. Jesse and Dave had brought seat cushions from the Buzzard; the thin cushions only delayed the cold seeping through from underneath them.
To Jesse’s left, a pair of Ruhar were also lying prone on the snow, wearing clothes no heavier than humans would wear on a nice brisk Fall afternoon on Earth. The difference was, the hamster clothing was super high-tech nanofibers, with heaters and cooling tubes woven in. The two hamsters were happily chatting with each other, snacking on what looked like a type of energy bar. Seeing the Ruhar eating what might as well have been a candy bar made Jesse’s stomach rumble with hunger. He pressed the mute button on his zPhone and turned to look at Dave. “Shauna may be right about us being stupid for staying out here.”
“You wanna go in?” Dave asked hopefully. It had been his idea to watch the test from outside, and now he was regretting Jesse’s agreement.
“No, man. At this point, Shauna will think I’m a wimp for backing out now,” Jesse lamented with a shake of his head. “I got to keep up my tough-guy image.”
“You do realize I can hear you?” Shauna asked.
“Oh, shit!” Jesse’s cheeks grew red even in the cold. “Damn it, I pressed the mute button!”
“No,” Shauna explained, “your fingers must be frozen. You pressed the ‘broadcast’ button. Everyone in the area can hear you.”
To Jesse’s left, the shoulders of the two Ruhar were shaking as if the aliens were laughing. Because they were laughing, at him. One of the hamsters glanced at him, then turned away to say something to her companion. They both exploded with laughter.
“Hey, glad I could entertain y’all,” Jesse said sourly. Holding up his zPhone, he carefully set it back on the private channel, that was supposed to be used only by the human crew. All zPhone communications rode on the hamster network, so nothing humans said via zPhone was truly private, but it was better than broadcasting everything, all the time. “Darn it, now I really feel like a freakin’ idiot. Come, on Ski, no point freezing out asses off out here.”
“Too late,” Shauna warned with a giggle she couldn’t suppress. “Less than thirty seconds to ignition. You need to stay where you are.”
“Shit,” Ski said under his breath. “Cornpone, next time I get a stupid-ass idea like this, don’t enable me.”
“Oh, like this is my fault?”
“I never said-”
“Ten seconds, cut the chatter,” their pilot Irene ordered from the Buzzard’s cockpit.
Dave and Jesse adjusted their Ruhar-supplied goggles, and replied with a silent thumb’s up to the two Ruhar.
“-three, two, one, ignition!”
The sky was the color of dull steel; sky and distant snowpack blending so there was no horizon to be seen. The only feature to break the monotony of the landscape was a mountain of dirty snow and black rock, forty miles away. On top of the mountain was a tower with a beacon that blinked alternating yellow and blue; flashing a bright strobe light every seven seconds. The Ruhar goggles allowed the light of the beacon to shine through, dampening the intensity only a bit. Now the top of the mountain dissolved into a searing, intense thin beam of light lancing up into the frozen gray clouds. Automatically, the goggles protected the eyes of the wearers, and also automatically lifted the protection within less than three seconds.
“Wow!” Ski shouted.
“Hot damn!” Jesse replied, and high-fived Ski’s gloved hand.
The Kristang projector they had spent the past eight days excavating, examining and preparing had just fired six low-power shots up into the sky. The test shots were aimed at targets in orbits far from Paradise, in an area clear of ships. Even at super low power, the backscatter from maser photons burning through the clouds would have blinded the two exposed humans. Dave felt a welcome warmth on his face from the still-glowing clouds. “That felt good.”
“Stay where you are,” Irene warned. “The shockwave will be hitting your position soon.” The first test shot had been more powerful than the others, as the first shot had to clear a temporary hole up through the clouds. Now that hole was slamming closed at supersonic speed, and a sound of tremendous, ground-shaking thunder rolled over the frozen landscape. Dave and Jesse lay flat, faces down, as the wind of the shockwave blasted them, grateful for the protection of the ridge they were behind. And grateful the hamster engineers had been successful in reducing the power of the projector’s maser beam shots. If the projector had been firing at full power, even from forty miles, the backscatter of the maser beam in the atmosphere could have fried exposed skin. Projectors were designed to punch through the shields of a starship; collateral damage to the surface around them was a very minor consideration.
Jesse stripped off his gloves, helmet and cap, unzipped his parka, and gratefully accepted the hot cup of tomato soup from Shauna. After being outside, the interior of the Buzzard felt like a sauna. It felt good. So did the hot cup in his hands. “Did it work? The test?”
“We won’t know until the Ruhar complete their analysis,” Derek Bonsu answered from the cockpit, leaning over to speak through the open doorway. “We’re supposed to get an update when Major Perkins gets back.”
Perkins had been given the honor of observing the test from the Ruhar’s command Buzzard, parked a quarter mile away. According to the Ruhar, it was an honor; Perkins was not so happy about it. Most of the Ruhar project team openly resented humans accompanying them, and Perkins had to stretch her patience and tactfulness to the limit when dealing with the hamsters. Fortunately, she was mostly able to pretend their subtle insults did not translate well over zPhones, and she concealed her growing fluency in understanding spoken Ruhar. When Perkins came into the Buzzard, half frozen from the short walk, she gave her team the good news while taking off her parka. “The test was a success, based on preliminary data,” Perkins announced, less happily than might have been expected.
“However,” Irene rolled her eyes.
“Hmm?” Perkins asked.
“With the Ruhar, there’s always a ‘however’, ma’am,” Irene observed. “This is the sixth projector we’re been involved in reactivating with them, and every time the preliminary data shows the test was successful. And every freakin’ time, the hamsters decide they need another round of testing. And that second test always shows everything is great.”
“Lieutenant, I understand you are annoyed at how slow the process is going,” Perkins said, without sounding as if she was being understanding about it. “You need to keep in mind that the Ruhar are dealing with alien technology, enemy technology. They not only have to make certain these projectors won’t blow up in their faces, they need to know they can rely on the projector grid for planetary defense. Even a battlegroup being based here doesn’t ensure our safety; the Kristang could attack while the battlegroup is deployed somewhere else. That Elder power tap and the comm nodes they found make this planet a prime target. If that means the hamsters are being super picky about the condition of each projector, I am fully on board with that.”
“How long, ma’am?” Dave asked.
“If the Ruhar decide they require a second test-”
“And they will,” Shauna groaned.
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br /> “-then we will be here another six days, before we can start packing our suitcases.”
“Six days?!” Irene slumped in her chair. Six days was bad enough when they were reactivating projectors in a nice climate. Six days of enforced idleness, and six days when she couldn’t fly. At least when they were at a site with pleasant weather, they could get out of the cramped Buzzard. They could set up tents for privacy, put up a volleyball net, sit around a campfire in the evenings. In the frigid hell of the arctic on Paradise, the six of them were stuck inside the Buzzard all day. Six people; three women and three men. Living, sleeping, cooking, using the one tiny bathroom. That got old really fast.
The problem wasn’t just being stuck inside the Buzzard for six more days, it was six days during which there was absolutely nothing for the humans to do. The Ruhar grudgingly trusted the humans to set up and operate the drill, to give the Ruhar access to the buried projector. Once the drill created an opening in the projector’s casing, the Ruhar took over, and did not allow the humans even to visit a projector. The arrogance of the Ruhar was supremely irritating, especially so because Major Perkins’ team had reactivated projectors all on their own, without the Ruhar having any idea their planet even contained such a weapon.
“Oh, this sucks!” Jesse squeezed Shauna’s hand. “The weather forecast is for blizzard conditions, starting in six days.” If the second test was successful, and that was a sure as a sunrise, the Ruhar would want the humans to immediately begin disassembling the drill rig and pack it back into the Buzzard. Although the Ruhar could take their own sweet time inspecting and testing a projector, they demanded the humans to move quickly, with no excuses. High winds, subzero temperatures and heavy snow could not be allowed to delay the operation. That meant the six humans would be stumbling around, half frozen, wrestling the balky drill rig back into the Buzzard. With the back ramp of the Buzzard open, snow would be swirling into the cargo compartment, drifting into every corner and crevice. Irene and Derek would have the heaters on maximum power, worried that extensive cold soaking would cause a critical Buzzard component to fail. Spare parts were a long, long distance away.
Trouble on Paradise: an ExForce novella (ExForce novellas Book 1) Page 4
