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

by Craig Alanson

  “Once we reach the powercells with the drill bit, we could set the surge inducer to trigger later,” Jesse suggested. “Set it on a timer, give us time to get away?”

  “To where?” Dave swung his arms around. “We’re on an island.”

  “There are other islands around here,” Jesse pointed to the sea, where islands dotted the horizon. “We can use the emergency inflatable boats from the Buzzard, head for another island?”

  Perkins rubbed the back of her neck. “If this island blows up, it will create a tsunami.”

  Irene pursed her lips in thought. “That’s still better than being here. The boats have electric motors, we could get to one of those islands, go on the other side, or climb high enough to be clear of a tsunami. Unless someone has a better idea?”

  No one did. “Jarrett,” Perkins pulled out her own zPhone. Annoyingly, it still had no connection to the outside world, but the map function still worked. And she had stored extensive data about the island, especially its subsurface geology. “Show me where we need to put the drill rig, in order to reach the powercells. This discussion is academic, unless we can get the drill rig in place. There are no roads on this island.”

  Shauna huddled with Dave and Jesse to find a place they could drive the drill, from their current location. Irene had rejected any possibility the Buzzard could move the drill rig anywhere. Even if the Buzzard by some miracle could get in the air, no way could it hover with the drill rig suspended on a sling below. The only way they could move anywhere was for the drill rig to move on its own six articulated legs. “Here, Ma’am,” Shauna announced after ten fevered minutes of searching for a location the drill rig could walk to, that also was close enough to the powercells. “We should be able to walk the drill rig up this riverbed, the tree cover is thinner there.”

  Perkins raised her eyebrows. “You can drill all the way to the powercells from that spot?” The projector was built into the extinct volcano that was the tallest mountain on the island. From the location Shauna had selected, they would be drilling mostly horizontally into the base of the mountain.

  “Yes,” Shauna nodded confidently. “According to the specs in the manual, we can easily reach the powercells from that location. The nanomaterial of the drill pipes can stretch a lot; we’ll be drilling a very small diameter hole, so we have plenty of material. And with a small drill bit, we can go fast.”

  “You trust the manual?” Perkins was skeptical. They were dealing with extremely advanced alien technology, but she could not imagine their portable drill rig punching such a long distance through the volcanic rock of the island.

  “It’s been right about everything so far, Ma’am. There are a couple possible locations, I suggest we go to this site, because there’s a seam of softer rock part of the way. We can drill faster there, and the vibration won’t transmit as far.”

  Perkins examined the data. “Is there really a seam, or is that an illusion created by the projector’s stealth field?” The network of projectors had remained hidden for centuries, because each projector was encased in a stealth field that fooled scanners. Instead of sensors seeing a giant machine beneath the surface, sensors had seen uninteresting dirt or rock, or whatever had been at that site, before the Kristang dug it out to install a projector.

  “I don’t know,” Shauna hesitated, unsure. “I’m not a geologist, Ma’am,” she admitted.

  “That’s all right, Jarrett, I’m not one either,” Perkins said. “This seam does look like it runs right up to the surface. If it’s there when we get there, we can assume it goes deeper. Ok, I’m sold. Get the drill rig out of the Buzzard, and make it mobile.” She contemplated the map on her zPhone. “We’ve never walked a drill rig that far.”

  “No, Ma’am,” Shauna agreed. “Because we’re only going to drill a really narrow hole, we can leave a lot of the heavier components here. That will help it walk through the rough terrain here. We can make it.”

  “All right, it’s been ten minutes,” Perkins declared. “Back to Buzzard, we’ve got a hell of a lot of work to do, fast.”

  While they worked to get the drill rig unstrapped, out of the Buzzard, set up and tested, Perkins mulled over a problem in her mind. “Striebich, Bonsu, we may need your bird to make a short flight.”

  Irene looked shocked. Surely Major Perkins could see the damage to the aircraft. “That would be very short, Ma’am. I don’t think it could reach the water from here. What kind of flight are you planning?”

  Perkins turned to Shauna, the team’s de facto drill rig ‘expert’. “Jarrett, you said that if we are able to drill into the powercells, the Kristang at some point will know what we’re doing?”

  “Yes. Projectors have sensors in the soil around them, to detect intrusions and problems like water seepage. It depends on how well the surrounding soil transmits vibration from our drill bit. My guess is the Kristang will know something is wrong once we’re within fifty meters of the powercells.”

  “At that point, the Kristang will come looking for us, and blow up the drill rig,” Perkins declared.

  “You think they can get to the drill rig that quickly, Ma’am?” Dave asked. “Kristang can move fast, sure-”

  “What I think is,” Perkins explained, “that they have an aircraft stashed around here somewhere. They sure didn’t swim all the way here. I suspect they haven’t used their aircraft against us yet, because they think they shot us down and we’re out of the fight. There’s no reason for them to risk their aircraft, and they don’t know we don’t have antiaircraft missiles with us.” Or any weapons of any kind, Perkins thought bitterly. “You can be sure that when the Kristang figure out we’re trying to blow the projector’s powercells, their aircraft will be all over us. We need to find it first, and take it out.”

  “Our Buzzard doesn’t have any weapons, Ma’am,” Irene reminded her commanding officer. The defensive maser turrets didn’t count; they could only be used against missiles that threatened the Buzzard.

  “If it falls out of the sky onto the enemy, our Buzzard is a weapon,” Perkins said with a smile.

  “Oh,” Irene was crestfallen. The Ruhar trusted her with a special aircraft, and she had already gotten it shot up. Now she was supposed to deliberately crash it?

  “You can fly it remotely, correct?” Perkins knew the answer was yes.

  “We can control it remotely,” Irene answered unhappily. “This engine won’t fly at all,” Irene protested while pointing to the shrapnel-pockmarked starboard engine nacelle, with Derek nodding agreement. “We can draw power from the other engine, but this engine can’t provide lift or thrust. There are fan blades missing, or bent.” She tapped the engine cowling.

  Dave hopped up to grab the lip of the intake cowling. He slipped the first time, then got a firm hold the second time. He could see what the pilots meant, many of the fan blades were a mess. “Lt. Striebich, how many fan blades do you need to take off with?”

  “I’m not sure,” Irene glanced to Derek. That data was probably something they could calculate, using the Buzzard’s pilot manual.

  “We only need a short flight, I think?” Dave asked. “These bent fan blades, I’m pretty sure I can cut them away,” he offered hopefully.

  Derek looked to Irene, considering the idea. “Whatever blades are left, they’ll need to be balanced.”

  “Balanced enough,” Irene mused, reluctantly warming to the idea of her precious aircraft flying one last mission. “It will only be a short flight, like he said. We can deal with vibration; we’ll override the safeties.”

  “Flying the ship remotely, we won’t get any seat of the pants feedback. I could set up a vibration sensor,” Derek offered.

  Irene tilted her head, amused. “Derek, I don’t need my backside vibrating to fly a Buzzard. Major,” she turned to Perkins. “I think it’s worth a shot. If we can’t get the engine balanced, we don’t lose anything.”

  “Except time and effort,” Perkins reflected unhappily. “Czajka, I appreciate the
offer to work on the engine, but we need you on the drill, if we’re going to get it running.”

  “We,” Derek pointed to himself and Irene, “can handle cutting away the busted fan blades.” Derek didn’t want to trust a non-pilot to do that task anyway.

  Irene and Derek were cutting away fan blades and testing the starboard engine, which was still vibrating terribly even at idle. Shauna, Jesse and Dave had taken the stripped-down drill rig on a long walk, first along the beach, then up a streambed into the interior of the island. The rig had sustained damage from the Kristang missile, but Shauna knew it was still functional. Emily Perkins was not a pilot, or aircraft mechanic, or familiar with the operation of the drill rig. She did have a long career as an intelligence analyst, before Emby enlisted her into reactivating centuries-old alien hyperweapons. Using her experience as an analyst, she reviewed sensor data and images collected by the Buzzard on their brief flight over the island, searching for a hidden Kristang aircraft. The enemy aircraft was almost certainly enveloped in a stealth field, a fact she confirmed by the simple reason that no aircraft was visible anywhere on the island. Between images from their own Buzzard, and those transmitted through datalink from the lead ship before it was destroyed, she could see nearly ninety percent of the island. The images and sensor data covered a hundred percent of the mountain with the buried projector, and she concentrated her search there. The Kristang would have sought a landing site as close to the projector as possible, to minimize the distance they had to carry whatever equipment they used to dig down to the projector control chamber. Perkins felt it safe to assume the Kristang, whoever they were, did not just happen to carry a portable drill rig with them. However they were getting access to the projector control chamber, they were very likely doing it with improvised equipment. Lasers, even explosive shape charges. That meant a lot of heat being generated, yet the two Buzzards had not detected anything unusual during the flight in. Or had they? Damn it! Yes, they had, Perkins saw! The Kristang no doubt had camouflage netting and a stealth field concealing the site they were excavating, and halted activity when they detected the Buzzards approaching. The Buzzards had shared a datalink, and the pilots had been communicating frequently, making it easy for the Kristang to detect them long before they approached the island. The warning the Kristang had received had been enough time for the excess heat to dissipate, and most of the remaining heat had been masked by the stealth field. Yet sensors on the Buzzards had noticed a heat signature, which had been tagged as nothing unusual on a volcano. If the crews had been paying attention, they might have asked why an extinct volcano was generating heat. Perkins did not fault her crew or the Ruhar; this part of the planet was poorly surveyed, being so far from civilization. It was an understandable mistake, though a fatal one.

  Ok. So now she knew where the Kristang had a stealth field operational, that meant she could examine the characteristics of their stealth field. And look for another stealth field, somewhere near the projector.

  Great idea, except it didn’t work. With the sensor data she had access to, she couldn’t find anything. Nothing, Nada. Zilch.

  Fine. Forget about fancy alien technology, she would go back to basic techniques. The Kristang needed a place to land their aircraft. She looked for clearings near the projector excavation site, moving outward in circles. There were only four clearings large enough to land a Buzzard-sized aircraft within two kilometers of the projector.

  Damn it! None of the four sites showed any sign of anything concealed under netting and inside a stealth field. Which was not surprising; that was the point of camouflage netting and stealth fields.

  Hmmm. None of the four sites were comfortably large enough to land a Buzzard with much clearance for safety. Perkins knew her two pilots would confidently tell her they could easily set a Buzzard down with mere inches to spare; the Kristang pilots were at least as skilled. However, no pilot could prevent downwash from the jets from disturbing the surrounding trees.

  Aha! “Got you, you bastard,” she muttered delightedly. The largest of the four clearings, the one second closest to the projector site, had tree limbs that were limp and turning brown. They must have been broken by the aircraft as it landed. As Perkins examined the images, she whistled. “Must be a big sucker.” Based on the sizable area of disturbed vegetation, the Kristang’s aircraft was much larger than a Buzzard. Possibly some type of dropship? An interesting fact, but not relevant. She didn’t need to know what type of ship the Kristang had, all she needed was to kill it.

  “Got it! Striebich, Bonsu, we have a target,” she announced excitedly.

  “Just a minute, Ma’am,” Irene’s voice grunted with strain. “We just about have this- Ow! Shit! I bashed my fingers!”

  “You all right?” Derek asked with concern.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Irene said, sucking on her bruises fingers. “That was stupid. Ok, that’s the last one, let’s try it again.” She dropped to the ground and backed away from the engine. “Major Perkins, it’s best if we’re on the other side of the Buzzard when this engine cranks; I can’t guarantee a fan blade isn’t going to go spinning away into the trees.”

  Derek got the damaged starboard engine started, and ran it up to five percent power. “The vibration isn’t bad,” he reported. “The dampeners are handling it.”

  “Run it up,” Irene ordered. The engine was capable of running at 65% of its maximum power, before the vibration became unmanageable. “We’ll keep it to 50% power,” Irene suggested. “With the missing fan blades, the engine gives up only,” she checked the remote control tablet, “35% of normal takeoff thrust. We lightened the bird,” she glanced at the pile of seats, spare parts and everything else they had stripped out of the Buzzard. “We’re good, it will fly.”

  “Yeah, like a wounded duck,” Derek observed with a frown.

  Irene bit her lip, studying the site where Major Perkins thought the Kristang had hidden some type of aircraft. “It’s doable. What do you think?” She asked Derek. Irene had flown a Blackhawk transport helicopter on Earth, Derek had been an attack pilot.

  “We can fly along this ravine,” he traced a finger over the map, “it gives cover from the mountaintop. When we pop up over this ridge, we’ll be right on top of whatever aircraft they have. We should have,” he scratched his chin thoughtfully, “five seconds? From when we pop over the ridge to, um, impact.”

  Five seconds sounded like a long time to Perkins. “If the Kristang are ready for it, they’ll shoot the Buzzard as soon as it clears the ridge.”

  “They won’t know we’re coming,” Derek grinned with a wink. “We’ll fly low and slow enough along the ravine, they won’t see us, and they won’t hear us. The starboard engine is surprisingly quiet until the throttle is at forty percent power, we’ll keep it below that. This will work, Major,” he looked up into Perkins’ eyes. “How confident are you this spot is where they parked their aircraft?”

  Perkins explained about the broken tree limbs.

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Derek agreed. “But if their pilots were smart, they would have set down there, dropped off their people and equipment, then flown to a better spot to park their bird.”

  Irene nodded. “That’s what we would do.”

  Perkins suppressed a groan. She had been patting herself on the back for finding a stealthed alien aircraft, and her pilots were raining on her parade. “Shit. If that’s the case, it could be anywhere.” They would only get one shot at using their crippled Buzzard on a suicide mission. “We’ll stick with the plan.” Was that the smart thing to do? Forty thousand Ruhar, and the fate of humans on Paradise, might depend on whether she guessed correctly. “It’s the best we can do.”

  They waited until Shauna sent a message that the drill bit was close to the powercells. Major Perkins shook her head in amazement at how short a time it had taken for the drill to reach that far through the volcanic rock of the island. Alien technology truly is incredible, she told herself. As soon as Shauna’s signal was received, P
erkins ordered the Buzzard to be started and sent on its last mission. As Derek Bonsu predicted, the unbalanced aircraft flew like a wounded duck.

  What mattered was, it flew.

  “Ahhhh, this narrow bandwidth signal is creating a serious time lag in the visuals,” Irene warned, struggling with the remote control unit. “I’m having to trust the map and anticipate turns in the ravine, the images I’m getting are behind by almost a second. The portside engine almost clipped a rock a second ago,” she said, her eyes hidden behind the virtual-reality goggles. In order to prevent the Kristang detecting the remote control commands Irene was sending to the Buzzard and the sensor data the Buzzard was sending back, they were using a very low-power, compressed signal that mimicked background noise. That was great for avoiding detection, but terrible for accuracy.

  “Can you compensate?” Perkins asked anxiously. Shauna was holding the drill bit sixty meters from the powercells, fearful the Kristang had already discovered their activity. For the last twenty meters, the drill had been chewing through a vein of extra hard rock that required almost the full power of the drill; that hard rock would transmit vibrations the Kristang might detect.

  “I am doing that, Ma’am,” Irene tried to keep the annoyance from her voice. Since she was Irene, it didn’t work. “With this lag, I won’t know exactly where the ship will be when it crests the ridge. I’m going to let the autopilot guide it to crash after I pull it above the ridge.”

  “Use your best judgment,” Perkins said tersely, fighting the knot in her stomach.

  “What the hell are they doing?” Dave fumed. Being a soldier, he was used to standing by to stand by; sitting around doing nothing while waiting for someone else to get off their asses. By extraordinary herculean effort, which the US Army would consider ‘doing their jobs’, they had wrestled the drill rig up a partly dry streambed. Chopping branches off trees, fighting their way through dense underbrush that continuously snagged on the rig, and scratched the three humans and one adolescent Ruhar on every piece of exposed skin. Thorns that were especially thick poked right through their Army Combat Uniforms until they were all bloody here and there. All the time Dave had spent working with the drill rig had not changed his instinctive feeling that the six-legged machine was creepy. Watching it climb, its computer-guided legs almost intelligently feeling their way up the slope, had filled Dave with revulsion, as if the alien-built drill rig was a blood-thirsty insect crawling to bite him in half.