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

by Craig Alanson

  “Wooo,” Dave whistled. “This is a big MFer.” Even with the image stabilization feature built into the telescope, the image was jumping around on the tablet screen. Ruhar, with their genetic enhancements, had finer control over their muscles; the telescope had not been built with the shaky hands of lowly humans in mind. “You think that is bigger than that Kristang battlecruiser we blew up, with that first projector shot? The, uh, what was the name of that ship?”

  “He Who Pushes Aside Fear Shall Always be Victorious,” Jesse answered.

  “Oh, yeah.” Dave snorted. “Always, huh? That name didn’t work for those lizards.”

  “Screw them,” Jesse had no sympathy for the Kristang, even if the crew of the Victorious had been vaporized in a sneak attack. “The database says that Ruhar ship up there is a battleship, the Tos Blendaro.”

  Dave laughed. “I wonder if her crew calls her the ‘Blender’?”

  Jesse laughed too. “I don’t think ‘blender’ means the same thing in Ruhar. Tos Blendaro is the name of a Ruhar planet, according to the database.”

  The three silently contemplated the giant alien battleship orbiting over their heads. “Hey, Cornpone.”

  “Hey, Ski. What’s up?”

  “I was just thinking. When I first heard Bish stole a dropship and went off on a crazy mission to hit the Kristang, I thought that was typical Bishop, you know? A stupid idea that had no chance of working. Like, what the hell could a group of humans in one dropship do against the Kristang, right? Then, we flew around this planet in one little Buzzard, and blew the hell out of an entire freakin’ battlegroup. Now I’m thinking, what the hell? Maybe Joe actually did something useful up there. Maybe it wasn’t just a signature Bishop grand gesture.”

  “Joe would do that?” Shauna asked. Although she had spent private time with Joe Bishop, she was realizing she didn’t really know him like his former fireteam mates did.

  “Oh yeah, Shauna,” Dave assured her. “Joe is all about the grand gesture.”

  “Especially if it’s stupid,” Jesse agreed.

  “Really?” Shauna considered that she hadn’t ever known Joe at all, not really.

  “Like using an ice cream truck against a Ruhar assault team?” Dave mentioned.

  “Hey, for Bish, that was a smart idea,” Jesse observed. “Jumping on top of an antitank mine to save us in Nigeria, now that was a classic Bishop futile grand gesture.”

  “Yeah. You know, though,” Dave titled his head in thought. “If stealing that dropship and going after the Kristang really was a grand gesture, Joe wouldn’t have brought volunteers along with him. He wouldn’t have risked other people’s lives. He must have thought the plan, whatever it was, had a real chance to succeed.”

  “Oh, come on, Ski,” Jesse scoffed. “You still think Bish was in command of that op?”

  “Yes, why? He was a colonel.”

  “Bish was a colonel like I’m a colonel,” Jesse shook his head. “Promoting him was a publicity stunt, he knew that better than anybody. He was a figurehead. That’s what he was on that op. No freakin’ way could Joe ever figure out how to steal a Ruhar dropship. And him plan an assault? Against Kristang ships? No way. Somebody else was in command; they used Joe as window dressing.”

  “You think that really was a UNEF special forces operation?” Shauna asked. “UNEF says they didn’t know anything about it.”

  “Yeah, and that’s what they would say, if it went south,” Jesse turned the telescope off; the Ruhar battleship was sliding below the horizon. “Odds are the Ruhar were in command of that op; they needed humans as cover, or something like that. It’s the only explanation that fits them using a dropship. No way in hell any humans could steal a dropship. Just to fly our stolen Buzzard, Lt. Striebich needed Emby to grant her access. I can guarantee there were Ruhar involved in Joe’s op, somewhere along the line.”

  “That makes sense,” Shauna agreed. She hadn’t given the subject much thought.

  “Anyway,” Dave pulled up the collar of his jacket against the chill of the night, “I guess it’s possible that Bish did something good up there.”

  “Yeah, before he got himself killed,” Jesse added quietly.

  “Why do you say that?” Shauna asked.

  Jesse took one last look at the sky. A sky filled with hostile aliens. “He’s not here, is he? Where else could he go? A dropship can’t fly all the way back to Earth.”

  Two members of Major Perkins’ team were entirely happy to hear about their new assignment. More than happy, they were thrilled. Pilots Irene Striebich and Derek Bonsu were thrilled to hear they would continue to fly. And not only fly, this time they got to fly a special, modified, long-range version of the Buzzard transport. The hull was stretched, which meant they could fit the drill rig, plenty of spare parts, and the team would not be squashed between the drill rig and the cockpit. This Buzzard even had seats that lay completely flat for sleeping, and a fully-equipped tiny galley. Compared to their arctic mission, this would be a luxury vacation.

  Because the projector they were to reactivate was on an island far offshore, almost a quarter of the way around the planet, even the Buzzard’s additional powercells would not provide enough range to get there and back. So, Irene and Derek had to not only be certified to fly the different type of Buzzard, they had to learn and become proficient at mid-air refueling. When the projector was fully operational and the Buzzards were on their return to base, a dropship would be descending from orbit to refuel them.

  Irene did not have any doubts she could master flying the new type of aircraft; a Buzzard was a sweet bird to handle and a couple extra tons of mass weren’t going to change its basic flight characteristics. Buzzard engines were overpowered, Irene knew the engines of her new ship would not have any problem carrying the drill rig, full crew and all their supplies. Nor was she worried about refueling in midair. She had done simulations of Ruhar procedures for aerial refueling, and the process was almost fully automated. The actual procedures she had witnessed were so simple a baby could do it. The ‘baby’ aircraft approached the ‘mother’ ship, and the mother ship took control of the baby’s navigation; linking the two aircraft as one. The power connection then extended from the mother ship, guiding itself into the port on the aircraft to be refueled. Once connected, it took less than a minute to bring the baby’s powercells up to full charge, then the connection retracted itself, and navigation control was restored.

  The Ruhar in-flight refueling procedure was child’s play compared to refueling operations Irene had done as a Blackhawk pilot. One time in a driving rainstorm over the Nigerian jungle at night, she had been nursing a stricken Blackhawk that was leaking fuel from shot-up tanks. The rate of fuel draining from the tanks was even greater than the rate of fuel being rapidly gulped by the one thirsty turboshaft engine that was still operational. Irene had her one working engine screaming at full power as the helo lurched in a raging thunderstorm. Being over dense jungle under insurgent control, with no place to land and eight wounded soldiers, she would have run the tanks dry and crashed, except for a blessed angel appearing in the ungainly, fat form of a C-130 Hercules. It took her four tries, with the bullet-crazed cockpit windows lit up by the blinding strobe effect of lightning arcing through the clouds, to connect to the refueling drogue. The tanks were too leaky to top off, so she took on as much fuel as she could, then she was forced to disconnect from the refueling drogue as the wind shear grew too dangerous for the C-130. The Herc climbed to get above the dangerously roiling winds of the thunderstorm, but Irene had to fly through it; her own bird bouncing up and down hundreds of feet in the brutal winds. It was a race to see which would happen first; the thunderstorm blowing itself out, or the fuel tanks running dry and the turboshaft sputtering and dying. Or, Irene had thought to herself, another possible source of impending doom was the rotor blades over her head losing lift, as the Blackhawk was slammed toward the treetops by violent downdrafts.

  She had survived that night, as did seven o
f the eight wounded soldiers she was carrying. The storm lessened enough for the C-130 to return, and she had been able to hook up for another half tank of fuel. When she landed on a dirt road miles from base, she had been soaked to the skin, and she had not been sure how much was from sweat, how much from rain splattering through bullet holes in the windows, or whether she had peed her pants in terror. If it were the latter, she wouldn’t be ashamed. She had gone through forty minutes of thinking every moment would be her last, and her greatest fear had been getting her crew and the wounded soldiers killed.

  That incident is what she thought of when she was taking simulator training for inflight refueling of a Buzzard. This shit is easy, she told herself without bravado. She would like to see a hotshot Ruhar pilot refuel a Blackhawk at night, even in good weather. Refueling a Blackhawk behind a C-130 Hercules, with the drogue being buffeted by the four spinning turboprops of the Herky Bird, and the Blackhawk’s own whirling rotors. The Ruhar, she was certain, would pee their pants every time if they had to perform such a task in a primitive human aircraft.

  The simulator gave her a passing rating, and Derek Bonsu also passed easily. The two humans didn’t even have a silent, unspoken rivalry about their rating in the sim; the Ruhar refueling process was so laughably easy there was no point to a contest between them. The next step was an actual refueling test, aboard the actual Buzzard they would be flying on the mission. Irene and Derek gave their new ship a thorough inspection and found everything well-worn, and the maintenance logs indicated a long list of recent repairs. After their first checkout flight, Irene and Derek added a dozen ‘squawks’ in the log, noting problems they had found. The Ruhar crew chief was not happy to see more work added to his schedule. “You report the rear ramp would not fully extend in flight, until you cycled it twice. And then it would not seal properly after it was retracted? Why would you,” he emphasized the last word scornfully, “ever need to open the ramp in flight?”

  “We would need to open the ramp in flight,” Irene explained with a patience she did not feel, “if the ship is in trouble, and we need to dump the drill rig to lighten our load. For example, over open water.” She mentally added an unspoken ‘you jackass’.

  Their Ruhar flight instructor, who was not the most friendly person Irene had ever met, cut off the crew chief’s scathing reply. “The human is correct. It must be fixed. The first eight items on the list must be fixed before we fly again. The other items are simple and should not take significant time to remedy.”

  “I will add this ship to the schedule,” the crew chief glared at the flight instructor, feeling betrayed by his fellow Ruhar. “My crew is overworked,” he swept a hand across the parked rows of aircraft and dropships needing maintenance before they could fly. Many of the aircraft still had battle damage that had only been cataloged, not even scheduled for repair. The battlegroup had brought in a wave of replacement aircraft, and most of them had a lengthy list of issues to be fixed before they could be considered flightworthy. As usual, Gehtanu got the unwanted leftovers from other Ruhar worlds. “We have combat aircraft that require priority attention. This ship,” he rapped his knuckles on the composite fuselage, “will not be in the air again for ten days, if not longer.”

  “No,” Nert declared quietly, and the crew chief raised an eyebrow. Until Nert spoke, the crew chief had not even acknowledged the young cadet’s presence. “We have inflight refueling practice maneuvers scheduled for tomorrow. After tomorrow, the refueling dropship will not be available for another three days. The humans are needed for a mission of vital importance to the security of Gehtanu. This aircraft must be returned to flightworthy status by tomorrow morning.”

  “Cadet? Who are you to-” the crew chief began hotly.

  “His aunt is Baturnah Logellia,” the flight instructor explained. “And this little shit,” he pointed to Nert, “will not hesitate to call her. I suggest you get your crews to work overnight, if necessary. I want a checkout flight one hour after sunrise, and there had better not be any additional problems, unless you want to find yourself fixing toilets.”

  Nert grinned, and winked at Irene and Derek. Irene gave him a half smile back. She didn’t like pulling rank, especially when it involved politics. And particularly she did not like people using family connections to get favors. In this case, with the Ruhar openly biased against humans, she could not fault Nert for doing his job as their team’s liaison. The Deputy Administrator wanted Major Perkins’ team to begin their mission in three days; that meant Irene and Derek had to perform their inflight refueling test the next day. Any slip in the schedule would be an excuse for the Ruhar to remove humans from the projector mission.

  The Buzzard was fully ready for flight the next morning. Irene knew that because the crew chief had ‘helpfully’ sent updates to her zPhone every half hour, while she was trying to sleep. After the third update, when she had been unable to silence her zPhone, she had tucked it under the mattress, and drifted off to a restful sleep. The crew chief had not been as resentful as she expected, partly she thought the Ruhar was proud that his crews had addressed all the squawks so quickly. The check ride, with the flight instructor at the controls and Irene in the copilot seat, went acceptably so they contacted the refueling dropship.

  During the first actual refueling maneuver, behind a real dropship, Irene had been singing quietly to herself, even yawning with boredom. The Ruhar flight trainer made her and Derek each go through basic refueling process three times. Then he screwed with them. The instructor deactivated the flight computer, forcing Irene to fly manually. That was no problem for her; flying the big Buzzard on manual was easier than flying a Blackhawk. The instructor threw more problems at her; power failures, intermittent system glitches, complete loss of sensors at night. For that last scenario, Irene had calmly donned vision-enhancing goggles and flew smoothly to connect to the refueling cable on her first attempt. Finally, the instructor told Irene that the Buzzard had lost power to one engine, the second engine was on fire and the powercells had less than one percent remaining.

  Irene pulled the Buzzard into a gentle turn away from the lumbering dropship, reduced the blazing engine to idle and activated the fire suppression system.

  “What are you doing?” The flight instructor pointed anxiously at the dropship. “Your fuel state is critical! You must connect immediately or we will lose power permanently.”

  “Yes,” Irene responded without looking at him. “With fire in one engine, procedure prohibits approaching the tanker ship, due to risk of explosion. If I am able to put out the fire, and the engine throttles up successfully, I can try to connect.” She looked directly at him, since the instructor decided how the scenario would play out.

  “Correct,” the instructor avoided her eyes. “Striebich, I judge you have performed adequately. Derek Bonsu, take the pilot seat, it is your turn.”

  As Irene strapped into the jump seat next to Nert, she allowed herself a ghost of a smile. ‘Performed adequately’, she asked herself. Sure, she thought, like the sun might rise the next morning. She had aced the test, and she knew Derek would do the same.

  Whether the internal politics of the Ruhar on Paradise would cancel the mission was something she had no control over.

  The flight instructor refused to state whether he would mark Irene and Derek as ready to make a long overwater flight, in a new model of Buzzard. Major Perkins met her two pilots in the ready room her team had been assigned at the airbase. “Well? Lieutenant, did the instructor approve the two of you for flight?”

  “I don’t know, Ma’am,” Irene admitted. “We did everything by the book. I think the instructor was pissed that we didn’t break something. That asshole better not give me a taco on that exercise; we were freakin’ perfect.”

  “Taco?” Nert asked, confused by the translation.

  “An unsatisfactory rating begins with the letter ‘U’,” Derek explained while sketching a ‘U’ shape in the air with a finger. “A taco shell looks kind of like a �
��U’.”

  “You passed, you will be approved,” Nert interjected.

  “You spoke with the instructor?” Perkins asked.

  “Yes, but I didn’t need to. The pilots did everything correctly, he can’t justify failing them based on performance. Although I do think he wanted to. Major Perkins, my aunt wishes your team to fly this mission. Unless the pilots made a terrible error, they were guaranteed to pass.”

  “Great, thank you,” Derek said sarcastically. “That makes me feel wonderful about it.”

  “Oh, no!” Nert rushed to add. “You both achieved more than a 95% score overall. I do not know the exact rating for either of you, all I can tell is you were rated,” the translator stumbled over the word. Nert frowned, and looked up something on his zPhone. Then he spoke without the translator. “Your word is ‘outstanding’, I think is the correct translation?” He switched the translator back on. “The flight instructor told me he believes your success is due to the fact that you have been trained to fly your own primitive human aircraft, which is more difficult than flying a Ruhar aircraft. That makes up for your slow reflexes and general lack of coordination and fine muscle skills.”

  “Thank you, Nert,” Irene said while rolling her eyes at Derek. “We appreciate the compliment.”

  “It is my pleasure, Lieutenant Striebich,” Nert cluelessly beamed with pride.

  Perkins rolled her eyes at that remark. “We have an aircraft, then. Jarrett reported the drill rig had been serviced and is ready and waiting for us. We need to get it checked out top to bottom, then loaded aboard the Buzzard, today.”

  “Ma’am,” Irene looked stricken, “Bonsu and I got up at 0330, and it’s been a stressful day. We were hoping to catch some rest.”

  “I understand that,” Major Perkins said with sympathy. “Lieutenant, we need to make damned sure some Ruhar doesn’t think it is his patriotic duty to remove us from this mission by sabotaging the drill rig, or our ability to carry it safely in the Buzzard.”