Trouble on Paradise: an ExForce novella (ExForce novellas Book 1)

by Craig Alanson

  Jesse tapped the UNEF patch on his own uniform. “You’re the one who left the service.”

  Chisolm’s jaw set angrily. “The United States Army made me a captain, Specialist. UNEF HQ betrayed our assigned mission, I didn’t.”

  Jesse leaned forward into Chisolm’s face. “You think-”

  Dave put a hand on Jesse’s chest and gently pushed him back. “Don’t antagonize the man, Jesse. We need his help.”

  “Help?” Chisolm was taken aback. “You want to join us?” He asked skeptically.

  “No, Sir,” Dave explained. “We want to ask your help with-”

  “You’re not- I know you two!” Recognition dawned on Chisolm’s face. “You’re on Major Perkins’ team,” he almost gasped with shock. “You destroyed a battlegroup of our allies, and you are asking me for help?”

  “The lizards are not our allies,” Jesse protested.

  “Colter,” Chisolm peered at the nametag on Jesse’s uniform top. “If you came here to argue with me, this is going to be a short conversation.”

  “No, Sir,” Dave assured the Keeper officer. “Jesse, shut up and let me talk.”

  Before Dave could continue, Chisolm grimaced as he shifted his left arm, the sling was causing pain and no matter how many times he adjusted it, the arm throbbed after a minute. “The two of you assume all of us Keepers are stupid, or we’re weak. That we either don’t see the truth about the Kristang, or we can’t face the truth so we cling to a comforting lie. Is that about it?”

  “Sounds about right to me, how about you, Ski?” Jesse replied, arms across his chest.

  “I said not to antagonize him, Cornpone.” Dave pleaded. “Captain, we have different ideas about what we should be doing out here, now that we’ve lost contact with Earth. You have your opinion, and we have-”

  “Opinion?” Chisolm shook his head in a dismissive gesture. “This is not a mere matter of opinion, Czajka. The difference between you and me,” Chisolm looked at the Keepers standing under the shade of the hangar. “Between you and us, is you believe those ‘Fortune Cookies’ are real. Right? You think the info we found written into food packaging came from Earth. You think those messages are the straight truth from Earth, and that the Kristang back home have conquered our home planet and are abusing humanity.”

  “Yeah, so?” Jesse still had his arms firmly across his chest. “Only an idiot would-”

  “We believe them, Sir.” Dave interrupted, pleading with his eyes for Jesse to shut the hell up.

  “The difference is, I don’t,” Chisolm said with conviction. “We don’t. The Kristang rescued our planet. The Ruhar attacked us, not the Kristang. We believe those ‘Fortune Cookies’ are disinformation planted by the Ruhar, to drive a wedge between us and the Kristang, and to sow dissension in the ranks of UNEF.” He laughed bitterly. “And it worked, didn’t it?”

  “How the hell could the Ruhar have planted messages inside food packages that came from Earth, aboard Kristang starships?” Jesse asked in a taunting tone.

  “I don’t know, but the hamsters have technology beyond our comprehension. Can you say for certain, with absolute certainty, that the Ruhar could not have done it?”

  Jesse’s defiant expression belied his uncertainty. “You can’t prove something didn’t happen. It makes no sense.”

  “My point, soldier,” Chisolm said calmly, “is the difference between UNEF and us Keepers of the Faith isn’t stubbornness or stupidity. It’s a matter of judgment. Tell me, what would you do if you thought the Fortune Cookies were fakes, planted by the hamsters?” He addressed the question to Dave rather than Jesse.

  “Uh, then, shit, Sir. I guess I’d be one of you?” Dave did not like the turn the conversation had taken. Was the difference between UNEF and Keepers really only a matter of judgment, of whether to trust the Ruhar more than the Kristang? Was he the one stubbornly clinging to the UNEF chain of command, rather than thinking for himself?

  “But we don’t believe that. I mean,” Jesse shook his head, angry at Chisolm for trying to confuse him. “We do believe the Fortune Cookies are honest-to-God messages from Earth.”

  “Yeah, Jesse, but he’s right,” Dave said hesitantly. “What, hell, what if we found out the hamsters faked the whole thing?”

  “Oh, fuck. I’ve had my mind blown too many times already. You’re on his side now, Ski?” Jesse asked, hurt.

  “No, ’Pone. All I’m saying is, if we thought the Fortune Cookies were fakes, we wouldn’t be helping the Ruhar.”

  “I guess,” Jesse replied, disappointed by his friend.

  “There’s something else,” Chisolm knew when to press an advantage. “The fact is, we aren’t sure the Fortune Cookies are fakes. We don’t know, and neither do you, not for certain. You switched your loyalty to the Ruhar because you think the Ruhar will treat UNEF better than the Kristang will, am I right about that?”

  “So would you, if you opened your eyes,” Jesse retorted.

  “I agree with you.” Chisolm said simply.

  “Wait, what?” Jesse sputtered, disarmed.

  “I agree the Ruhar will treat humans here better than the Kristang would have, if the Kristang had retaken this planet. The difference between you and me,” Chisolm’s eyes narrowed, “is I’m not thinking only of myself. We came out here to defend Earth; to protect the billions of people back home. Maybe the Kristang have betrayed us,” his injuries prevented him from shrugging with his shoulders, so he used his eyebrows instead. “I accept the fact that I can’t do anything to change the situation. What I can do is not give the Kristang any more reason to think of humans as untrustworthy. Everything we do out here reflects on humanity as a whole, and directly affects Earth. I have a family back home. To protect them as best I can, I am not going to give the Kristang a reason to hurt my family back home. I’m putting the billions of people on Earth before my own selfish interests.”

  Jesse wished he had tossed away the trash and gone directly back to the Buzzard.

  “You want me to do something for you?” Chisolm addressed Dave. “Then answer a question; what do you think will happen when the Kristang on Earth find out a group of humans destroyed a Kristang battlegroup? Did the two of you ever think about the consequences to our people on Earth, or did you only think of what would be best for UNEF here?”

  “The lizards on Earth won’t find out about that.” Dave stated confidently. “The wormhole to Earth is shut down. The lizards there have no idea what is happening out here.”

  Chisolm shook his head slowly, with pity for Dave. “You’re sure about that?”

  “The Ruhar told us. And the Kristang pretty much as admitted it,” Dave retorted.

  “And you are willing to bet the lives of your families back on Earth? That wormhole shut down suddenly. What happens if the wormhole reopens tomorrow?”

  “Shit,” Jesse said with disgust. “What if Santa Claus takes us all back to Earth in his sleigh tomorrow?”

  “I’m not going to convince you today,” Chisolm looked Jesse directly in the eyes. “I want you to think about it.” With the corner of one eye, he saw Dave’s head nod slightly. “What do you want from me?”

  Dave was then unsure what he wanted, so he looked to Jesse.

  What Jesse wanted to do right then was walk away, but seeing as talking with Captain Chisolm had been his idea, he plunged ahead. “There’s a guy over there,” Jesse jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “Eric Koblenz, he’s a Keeper. He was in our Company, then he lived in our village for a while.” Until Eric pulled up stakes and moved to one of the unofficial Keeper villages. “If you ask me, Eric doesn’t care about whether the Fortune Cookies are real or not, he doesn’t think that deep. We had a sergeant in our village, a rabid-” Jesse realized using that word was not the best way to get Chisolm to help. “A ‘dedicated’ Keeper. This sergeant worked on Eric, and Eric became a Keeper because of that. Eric wasn’t with us in Nigeria, he was a replacement brought in after we rotated back Stateside. He’s always had
a chip on his shoulder about not having been in Nigeria, and not ever having been in combat.” Even on Paradise, when the Ruhar raided and then took back control of the planet, Eric had not seen any action. “Captain, Eric is a scared, stupid kid who thinks he has something to prove. He’s throwing his life away.”

  Chisolm looked over Jesse’s shoulder to the cluster of people standing under the shade of the hangar. Until that day, he had not met Eric Koblenz, and only knew of him from news on the zPhone network. “What do you want me to do?”

  “He won’t listen to us,” Dave explained. “We were hoping you could talk to him?”

  Chisolm’s eyebrows raised in amused surprise. “You want me to persuade one of my fellow Keepers that I’m wrong, and he shouldn’t come with us?”

  Now that Chisolm said it, Jesse thought it was, indeed, a dumb request. “Look, Sir, if he’s really sure of what he’s doing, then he can go with my blessing. But if he’s doing this because-”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Chisolm stated. “All of us,” he pointed to the assembled Keepers, “have fought against the Ruhar, or acted in a manner hostile to the Ruhar or UNEF. Eric never fired a shot, but he did participate in a raid that planned to capture weapons from a UNEF security patrol, then use those weapons against the Ruhar. The Ruhar intend to hold us in prison for the rest of our lives. Your friend may not be sure why he joined the Keepers of the Faith, but he is sure that going offworld with the Kristang is a better option than life in prison.”

  “Shit,” Jesse breathed, deflated.

  “He’s not our friend,” Dave said with a sad frown. “The guy’s an asshole.”

  “He’s a fellow soldier, and you’re concerned about him,” Chisolm clapped a hand on Dave’s shoulder. “I admire that. Czajka, Colter; think about what I said. We came out here to protect Earth, not to make a better life for ourselves. I,” he nodded as the Ruhar guards gestured for him to come with him. “I have to go.”

  “For what it’s worth, Sir,” Jesse snapped a very quick salute. “Via con Dios.”

  “You too, soldier. If we meet again, I hope it is under better circumstances.”

  Chisolm walked away, while Cornpone and Ski stood riveted in place. “Hell, that didn’t go the way I planned,” Jesse muttered. “I am a freakin’ idiot.”

  “You think he’s right?” Dave wondered uncertainly. “Not about being a Keeper. I mean, is he right that if we thought, or found out, that those Fortune Cookies were all a hamster trick, would we be on his side?”

  “Shit,” Jesse shook his head angrily. He liked things in life to be simple black and white. Captain Chisolm had complicated a subject that should have been starkly simple. “If the Ruhar have been lying to us all along, then we are well and truly, royally fucked, Ski. Because for damned sure, the lizards are no friends of ours.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  As they walked back to their Buzzard, a truck pulled up and Major Perkins got out. Jesse and Dave broke into a trot and reached the bottom of the ramp as Perkins did. “Trash run, Ma’am,” Jesse explained, as he looked in dismay at the two new bags of trash an annoyed-looking Shauna had packed while they were uselessly arguing with Chisolm. “Did the Burgermeister say anything interesting?” They all by then called the Deputy Administrator ‘Burgermeister’; Perkins had told them the Ruhar woman was fond of that nickname.

  “Yes. She told me the commander of our arctic vacation reported we performed well, and I am to congratulate the team. I’ll tell our pilots later. More importantly, we have another mission, and it’s not the arctic again.” Perkins did not mention the upcoming mission might be the very last time humans were allowed to do anything other than farming on Paradise. “We’re going a quarter around the planet, to a projector site on a tropical island. It’s going to be a long flight, so the Ruhar are giving us a special long-range Buzzard.”

  “A tropical island? Whoo-hoo!” Shauna exulted. “Should we pack swim suits, Ma’am?”

  Frolicking in the ocean was something Perkins had not inquired about; there were dangerous predators in the oceans of Paradise, but swimming close to shore might be safe. She would like her team to be able to enjoy quality downtime, after they drilled a tunnel down to the projector and the Ruhar technicians were working to reactivate it. “That is a good question, Jarrett, I will ask our new Ruhar liaison.”

  “Liaison?” Jesse asked. “Who’s that?”

  Perkins explained. “We are all going to be on our very best behavior around our guest. The Deputy Administrator stuck her neck out for us, and she’s asking a personal favor on behalf of her nephew. If this mission goes well, it may help his career as a cadet to have worked with us. If we screw something up, he’ll catch part of the blowback and so will his aunt, and the stink will get all over us again.”

  Shauna looked distinctly unhappy. “This is not just a babysitting assignment, Major?” Shauna knew that if there was any babysitting to be done, the two female officers were of course not going to do it, and Jesse and Dave would assume babysitting was a woman’s job. Which would mean Shauna inevitably getting stuck with the task.

  “No,” Perkins made a slashing motion with one hand. “Absolutely not. The Burgermeister made that clear to me. We could use a liaison officer, especially one who is well-connected,” she added hopefully. “Um, she did say her nephew is a little awkward, I hope that means he’s a normal Ruhar of his age. You’ll receive a full briefing packet when-” She had noticed the pained and hurt expression on Dave’s face. “Czajka, is something wrong?”

  Dave looked at Jesse, who nodded. “Ma’am, when we were dumping trash, we, well-” Dave explained the mostly one-sided conversation they had with Captain Chisolm. While he was talking, he glanced at Shauna, embarrassed to appear so weak, so uncertain of himself. “I was just thinking, Ma’am, that Chisolm might be right. That if the Fortune Cookies are fakes, we’ve been all wrong about helping the Ruhar. Shooting up that battlegroup might have been the wrong thing to do.”

  “Captain Chisolm is right about that,” Perkins replied, to the surprise of Dave and Jesse. Then she cocked her head. “People like Chisolm know they have to wrap their load of crap around a tiny kernel of truth, to hold it together. Yeah, I agree that if the Fortune Cookies were planted by the Ruhar, then maybe we shouldn’t have helped Emby destroy that battlegroup. I’ll tell you this for certain: the Fortune Cookies are not fakes. They included multiple private authentication codes given to UNEF commanders before we left Earth. Because I was in Intel back then, I received a personal message for myself, in a Fortune Cookie. It was supposedly from my mother, and one thing she said was her dog had knocked a molasses bottle onto the kitchen floor, and the corners of her kitchen floor were still a sticky mess weeks later. That message wasn’t from my mother; it was a code that I told UNEF Command to send, to authenticate messages. The rest of the message contained details of how the lizards were fucking over our home planet. That bit about molasses was known only to me, and UNEF Command on Earth, no one else. Unless the Ruhar were using magic, no way could they have known that. The idea of the Ruhar planting the Fortune Cookies assumes they somehow got past Kristang security, and Thuranin security, and altered the packaging on food that was loaded into Kristang containers on Earth. That makes zero sense,” Perkins shook her head. “If the Ruhar wanted to screw with us, they could have planted DVDs or thumb drives or something, and faked messages that way.”

  “Makes sense,” Dave mumbled quietly. “I’m sorry, Ma’am.”

  Emily Perkins nodded with sympathy. Sometimes she forgot how damned young her soldiers were. “Fanatics like Chisolm prey on people’s uncertainties, and they know exactly how to manipulate people they want to recruit,” she said, thinking Chisolm would have made a good intel officer. “And Chisolm is dead wrong, anyway. He said he’s going with the Kristang, so they will have less of a reason to oppress our home planet? That is pure, one hundred percent bullshit. You know what we call giving in to a bully, so he won’t hurt you as much? Appeasement
. The United States military doesn’t do appeasement, it never works. What Chisolm should be doing is what we’re doing; building a relationship with a real ally. We don’t need to play nice with the Kristang, we need to kick them in the teeth, and chase them the hell off our home planet. We need help from the Ruhar to do that. Us helping Emby destroy that battlegroup was the right thing to do; it told the lizards there are consequences to fucking with humanity.”

  Dave straightened up. Everything Major Perkins said made perfect sense, and more importantly, it felt right. Maybe that was why Emily Perkins was a major. “Yes, Ma’am. I’m clear about it now.”

  “Hooah,” Jesse said, and bumped fists with Dave. “What’s next, Ma’am?”

  Perkins looked around. “We unload all our gear from our stolen Buzzard,” the Ruhar security forces were still sore about that subject, but they had allowed Perkins and her team to keep flying the aircraft. And while they had been using it, the aircraft had acquired dents, scratches and minor broken bits and pieces from carrying a heavy drill rig that barely fit in the cargo compartment. She grinned. “We wouldn’t get much for trading this thing in, I suppose. God news is the Ruhar are allowing us to swap it for a new model. We’ll be flying in a special long-range Buzzard for our next mission. Before we turn this one over to them, we clean it, scrub it top to bottom, so the Ruhar ground crew has less to complain about.” Cleaning the Buzzard was a public relations gesture; Perkins was sure the Ruhar would overhaul the aircraft top to bottom. “This Ruhar liaison we’re getting,” she rolled her eyes, “will be arriving this afternoon. We’ll need to have someone with this Buzzard at all times, until he shows up.”

  Dave was by himself in the Buzzard, when there was a knock on the Buzzard’s composite skin near the open back ramp. “Hello?” It was a woman’s voice.

  Dave’s head spun around, and he bumped into a structural frame. He had been cleaning nooks and crannies, getting the Buzzard ready to be returned to the Ruhar. “What? Ohhh,” he added in a low voice. “Wow. Uh, hi?” His voice uplifted to end in a nervous squeak. It was woman. A real, live, human woman. Attractive, with short light blonde hair. And best of all, her French Army infantry uniform indicated she was an enlisted Caporal, not an officer. Before realizing what he was doing, he nervously ran a hand through his hair, smearing lubricating oil through his hair and on his forehead.