Shit. I didn't know if I was ready to command a fireteam, three guys I didn't know. Andrews cleared his throat. "That was me waiting for an answer, Bishop. I know this is unusual, we don't have time for the normal process out here."
"Oh, yes, sir. Thank you. I mean, yes, I'm honored. Yes." Promotions were supposed to be a more formal process, I was taken completely by surprise. The Division had holes that needed to be filled.
"Uh huh." He sounded less than convinced. "Agnelli will keep you out of trouble. And, Bishop?"
"Yes?"
"Stay away from ice cream trucks." He wasn't smiling.
Taking command of a new fireteam wasn't the most difficult part of my promotion, my three guys all had experience in Nigeria and knew what to do without me needing to tell them much. Staff Sergeant Agnelli was patient with me and, other than the administrative part of the job that was overwhelming at first, I didn't have much trouble adjusting. The Army didn't have time to put me through the standard training, which saved me from memorizing a bunch of crap, and I'm sure that would come back to bite me in the ass later. The most difficult part of being promoted was leaving my old unit; Sergeant Koch, Ski, and especially Cornpone. Cornpone had a tear in his eye, which he said was caused by blowing sand, and my eyes teared up too. "Damn," Cornpone said, "think how much stupid stuff you get into when I'm around. What are you going to do without me? And the Army put you in charge of a fireteam?" He shook his head sadly.
"If I see an ice cream truck, I'll run the other way."
He snorted. "Bish, that takes care of, like, ten percent of the problem. You get into a situation, you should think 'what would Jesse do'?"
"And then do the opposite?" I laughed.
He made an exaggerated shrug, then gave me a back-pounding hug. "Take care of yourself, and don't forget to write."
I pulled out my zPhone. "Write? With this thing, I can see your ugly face whenever I want."
"Oh, damn," he rolled his eyes, "I forgot about that." He pulled out his zPhone. "How do I block people from calling?"
The Kristang didn't have faster than light communication, but the US Army rumor mill did. "Sergeant Bishop?" Shauna was the first person to call me about my promotion. "Man, they'll promote anybody."
"True enough."
"Seriously, good for you, Bish."
"Confession? I have no idea what I'm doing."
"Bish, we'll be fighting aliens. Nobody knows how to do this. We’ll make it up as we go.”
Damn, it was good hearing from her. Which reminded me, I needed to review the Army regs about fraternization, Shauna wasn’t under my command, she was in a different battalion. Did that mean I was Ok to continue being with her? I sure hoped so.
My new squad was led by Staff Sergeant Salvatore Agnelli, who despite the name had blonde hair and looked more German than Italian. In my fireteam, I lucked out, and both Agnelli and I knew it. Privates Chen and Baker, and Specialist Sanchez, were all veterans of Nigeria, and Sanchez had served briefly in Korea before that. Greg Chen was an ABC from suburban Maryland, he had to explain that ABC meant American Born Chinese, since I had no idea what he meant. Jeron Baker was raised on a farm in Alabama, which he was immensely proud of, and he was immensely grateful to get away from. And Pete Sanchez was from eastern Kansas, his parents had a small farm but his mother worked as a nurse and his father at a car dealership, their farm not being big enough to provide a living for a family. Their previous sergeant was now a staff sergeant, leading a squad in 2nd Brigade. We got off to a great start when none of them made a Barney joke, or asked about or seemed in any way curious about what I'd done the first time I saw a Ruhar. They'd read all about it, it was ancient history, and it didn't mean squat now. The four of us got to know each other in drills and combat exercises over the next week, I was collapsing in bed each night completely exhausted, and I hadn't been happier in a long time. I had a great team, and we were honing ourselves for battle with an enemy that had threatened our home planet. What we needed was a real mission.
Eight days after my promotion to sergeant, our brigade received orders to deploy. I’d been scrambling to get up to speed for the next war game, Operation Razor, in ten days. We got the news from Captain Teller, who assembled the company in an empty hangar on the edge of the base. He stood on a platform at the far end, with us crowding forward to hear him. “People, we have an opportunity."
Chen groaned and whispered "BOHICA, man." Bend Over Here It Comes Again was a popular saying in the Army, especially when an officer said we had an 'opportunity'. It usually meant we were getting screwed one way or another, hence the time-honored expression.
Teller waited a moment for the inevitable murmuring to die down. "We have an opportunity to put our new toys into action, and do something useful in this war. UNEF received orders, we move out in two days and a wake-up. First Brigade is going in with one British and one French battalion. UNEF is all in on this one, everybody's going. The whole force is bugging out over the next two weeks.”
A guy in the front spoke up. “What’s the mission, Captain, we gonna kick some rodent ass?” The question was asked with deadly seriousness.
Teller made a face like he’d just bit into a lemon. “No, the Kristang say we’re not ready for that. I’ve seen Kristang battle simulations, and they’re right, we’re not ready. We’d just get in the way. Most combat happens in orbit, or further out, and since we don't have a space navy, we can't help there. The Kristang have retaken a colony world they lost to the Ruhar a while back, they’re kicking the Ruhar off the planet. They’ve reached a truce, the deal allows the Ruhar to evacuate their civilian population over a thirteen month period, it will take thirteen months, because there are almost a million Ruhar there now. Our job is to occupy the planet, and facilitate the evacuation.”
This news did not please the Company.
“Garrison duty?!”
“Shit. We’re gonna be peacekeepers.”
“We have to wear fucking blue helmets?”
Teller held his hands in the air, until we quieted down. “I came out here to fight the Ruhar, just like you, to kill those rat-faced motherfuckers. I don’t get to do whatever I want, I'm in the Army. Our job out here is to protect Earth, and since we sure as hell demonstrated we can’t do that by ourselves, the best way for us to protect the folks back home is to work with our allies. The Kristang are stretched pretty thin right now, they don’t have many troops to spare to hold the places they’ve captured. That’s why they asked for infantry. There's some sort of biological hazard on this planet that prevents the Kristang from landing in force right away, the Kristang say the Ruhar are cheating on Rule Number Four. The Ruhar say the virus or whatever, is left behind from back when the Kristang occupied the planet. That's for them to argue about. Bottom line is the Kristang can't land their troops on this planet unless they're wearing full environment suits, and that ain't happening. Until the Kristang can develop an antidote to the virus and distribute it in quantity, UNEF is going to be fully in charge on the ground. This is a job we can do, and we’re going to do it to the best of our ability. Those are our orders.”
“What’s the R-O-E, sir?” A loud voice from the back asked about the Rules Of Engagement.
“No shooting, unless they shoot first. Whether we like them or not, the Ruhar on this planet are mostly farmers, and that includes women and children. The Kristang tell us not to expect much opposition, the Ruhar civvies should be happy to be alive and allowed to go home.” There was a lot of grumbling from Able Company. Teller didn’t flinch. “This is a test, in case you haven’t figured that out yet. So far, all the Kristang have seen from humans is us dying, without inflicting much damage on the Ruhar.” He paused, frowned, and continued. “In double-U double-U Two,” he pronounced the words precisely, “the US Army didn’t hit the Normandy beaches in their first battle. We landed in North Africa first, and those of you who know your history, know that’s a damned good thing. We were completely unready to take on the Germans in 1942, if we’d
landed in Normandy first, we would have gotten our asses kicked back across the Channel. By fighting in North Africa, and Sicily, and Italy, we learned how to fight the Germans, learned what worked. The Kristang have given us a few shiny new toys to fight with, that doesn’t mean we know the best tactics to use them against the Ruhar in ground combat. The Kristang have trusted us with what should be a simple job, we can not screw this up. We take control of the planet, we move the Ruhar civvies to the space elevators and get their furry butts off the planet, and we secure the place, until the Kristang sort things out upstairs and can land their own troops. We are going to show the Kristang that the United Nations Expeditionary Forces are disciplined, competent, and ready to take on combat operations in the future. Platoon leaders, I want your squads ready for departure inspection at 1400 hours the day after tomorrow. Are there any more questions?”
I spoke up. “Sir, where are we going, and what can we expect for conditions?” I wanted to know as much as possible about what my new fireteam would be getting into.
“The short answer is we're going to Bum Fuck Neptune." The smile only lifted one side of his mouth. "Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, a bit more oxygen than we're used to. Gravity two percent heavier than Earth. The star is hotter than our Sun, but the planet is further away, so the climate is similar to Earth; hot at the equator, ice caps at the poles. It's mostly a farming colony, the Ruhar call the place Gehtanu, which translates roughly as New Grain Field, or something like that.” That drew a chuckle from the crowd. “The Kristang call it Pradassis. We're calling it Paradise. It’s got one big–ass continent, a couple island chains and big islands like Greenland size, the rest is ocean. Our PowerPoint Rangers put together a briefing deck, which your platoon leaders should have on tablets to distribute, it says the main continent is largely flat grasslands, like the US Great Plains, or the Russian steppes. Lots of big farms tended partly by robots, with the Ruhar clustered in villages. All the intel we have will be available on your notepads shortly, I need everyone to study up during the flight. The whole 10th Division, plus our British and French friends, will be loading on three transport ships, and the trip will take sixteen days. After we drop, the Kristang will keep a destroyer plus two frigates in orbit for fire support, but this is our show. General Meers has assured the Kristang that we can handle this, we are not going to prove him wrong.”
Shauna pinged me before I could contact her. "You hear? We're moving out!"
"Yeah, we're going to Paradise."
"Paradise!" She laughed. We hadn't been together since my promotion to sergeant, we'd both been too busy and I was way too tired. It hit me then that I might never see her again, once we left our base on Camp Alpha, we'd probably be on different transport ships, then assigned to different sites scattered across the surface of Paradise.
"Hey, uh, good luck on qualifying for infantry." I didn't want to call to end, and I didn't know what to say.
"Thanks, that'll have to wait until we get there." There were loud voices in the background. "Joe, I have to go, let's keep in touch?"
"Sure." And that was it. At least we'd be on the same planet.
You might think that 'two days and a wakeup' means we had two full days, plus a luxurious full night of sleep, before we had to assemble for departure. You would be wrong. The 'wakeup' happened at zero dark stupid, it felt like my head had barely hit the pillow before lights snapped on in the tent, and my feet had to hit the dirt. Getting up at zero dark thirty was nothing new to me, and I didn't resent it even though I was not by nature a morning person. Or even a mid-morning person. My sister was an annoyingly cheerful morning person, and growing up I'd wanted to smother her with a pillow more than once.
Anyway, I had to get up at zero dark stupid, which meant I then had to wake up my fireteam. The difference between zero dark thirty and zero dark stupid, is that zero dark stupid means you rouse out of bed, get all your gear ready and assemble for departure inspection, only to stand around for three fucking hours when you could have used those three hours for something productive, like sleeping. As a sergeant now, I had to endure the resentful glares from my team while keeping a neutral expression on my face.
The whole departure was a clusterfuck. The Kristang wanted their dropships loaded as quickly and efficiently as possible, which meant cramming the maximum number of people aboard in a frantic rush, even if that meant splitting up platoons, squads or even fireteams. When we finally boarded a dropship, Baker and Chen had their feet in the door when the MP held out a hand to stop anyone else from boarding. "We're full, move on to the next ship," she announced.
I frantically yanked Baker and Chen back out by hauling on their packs, and waved another two guys forward. Hell, no way was I going to let my new fireteam get split up right after we'd met. You'd think we would be first in line to board the next dropship, but the MPs keeping us organized had other ideas, and several dropships lifted off before we were waved forward. Being aboard a dropship wasn't the last of the confusion, when our dropship docked and we got aboard the Kristang starship, we discovered we were not only aboard a different ship from the rest of our platoon, but most of the ship was occupied by the US Army 3rd Infantry Division, not our home unit the 10th. The ship had people from the 3rd, the 10th, most of a company of US Marines, more than a full company of Chinese, two squads of Brits and a scattering of Indian troops. Either the Kristang didn't understand the concept of combat loading, or they had so little regard for human combat capabilities that they figured it didn't matter whether our units were scattered all over hell and gone. Supposedly UNEF HQ was keeping track of who was where, but I had no way to contact anyone in my chain of command. I got us to bunk with some other people from the 10th. It was a lonely voyage, and I was grateful that my guys shrugged and took it in stride. If this was the worst fuckup we got into, we'd be doing great.
CHAPTER FOUR PARADISE
Unlike Alpha, Paradise had a space elevator. It looked a bit different from the one that hovered over Earth, someone told me this one was put there by the Ruhar. That surprised me, I figured the Ruhar elevator would have taken a hit during the battle when the Kristang had retaken the planet. Maybe targeting space elevators was against one of the unwritten Rules? Or maybe it was just practical; the people trying to conquer a planet wouldn’t want to damage a valuable asset, and the defenders figured, even if they lost that battle, they could try taking the planet back again someday? The Ruhar elevator rode a lightning bolt like the one on Earth did, but whereas the Thuranin elevator ‘cable’ was pure energy, the Ruhar design had a physical cable, thinner than a human hair, in the center of the lightning bolt. Because of this, the Ruhar didn’t have any vital facilities on the equator of Paradise; if that cable ever snapped, it could wrap itself around the planet several times, and crash down with a considerable impact despite the small mass. We were told the cable had explosive charges along its length, to make it less of a disaster if the cable ever snapped or was cut, but for sure I didn’t want to get stationed on the equator, I’d spend half my time looking warily at the sky.
The trip down the elevator to Paradise wasn’t much different than the trip up from Earth, except there was no smiling Army cook serving delicious cheeseburgers, we had to settle for MREs again. And this elevator car had more windows, and the passenger compartment was easily three times the size of the one at Earth, I guess this one was designed primarily for civilian use. We got a good look at Paradise as we descended, and we descended pretty fast, there was a lot more vibration than I remember on my one other space elevator experience. Paradise looked good, at least it had a lot of green and blue, not the star-blasted dead browns and tans of Alpha. As the elevator car got close enough so I could see the outlines of villages, it occurred to me that I would soon be setting foot on my third planet. And this would be my first planet that was enemy territory, even if that enemy had already surrendered to the Kristang. Getting low enough so individual buildings were distinctive, I touched the new sergeant’s stripes on my sh
oulder. This place was a home of my enemy, the aliens who had attacked Earth. Not that I needed any extra motivation, but at that moment, I was filled with determination to do everything I could to get the Ruhar off this planet on schedule, and show our saviors the Kristang that humans could be entrusted with more important tasks in the future. And if any damned hamsters got in my way, well, I’d remember the rules of engagement, but I wasn’t taking any crap from the hamsters. I would show them the same courtesy they showed us, when they sneak attacked Earth and destroyed much of our electric generation capability.
When the elevator car landed with a gentle thump, we were hustled off as quickly as we could move. It wasn’t ten minutes after the last of us cleared the fence line around the elevator complex, that a series of alarm blasts rang out, and the car ascended again to pick up the next group in orbit. I watched it, craning my neck, still amazed, as the guards hurried us along to an airstrip, where there was a line of the biggest airplanes I’d ever seen. The guards called them ‘Dumbos’, because of their large body and relatively small wings. They had four engines, buried inside the wings near the roots, and they were probably six times the size of the US Air Force C-17s I’d gotten used to. Dumbos needed only a short runway, but they couldn’t take off straight up, that took too much power to be practical in a heavy lifter. While I was watching, one lined up and took off, its engines screaming, and I swear the thing was airborne in less than four hundred yards. The engine exhaust could pivot down to help get it off the ground, then the wings took over to provide lift. Anything that big, moving that slowly through the air, made me think there must be an invisible string holding it up. Like Buzzards, Dumbos were leftover Ruhar equipment that we humans were expected to use, until the Kristang took over.
We were supposed to assemble by platoon, except my fireteam was alone. I managed to keep my fireteam together, it wasn’t difficult, and after a while I learned where we were supposed to go to eventually link up with our platoon. Once staff sergeants counted noses in squads, then platoons and then at the company level, we waited. And waited. And waited some more, in the hot sun. We must have waited for an hour, as other platoons and companies matched past us onto Dumbos, and as Dumbos landed, loaded and took off again. I could see Chickens and Buzzards circling the airfield in the distance, they were already a familiar sight from Alpha. The blessing was whatever material the tarmac was made from was a light tan color, and didn’t bake in the heat the way dark-colored asphalt would have on Earth. After an hour, with my fireteam being on their best behavior for their new sergeant, we finally marched halfway across the airfield, past a couple empty waiting Dumbos, to our Dumbo. It was good to see the US Army was just as awesomely efficient and organized on other planets as it was on Earth. We all crammed together on uncomfortable seats made of lightweight netting, and sat down to wait again. There was cool air blasting out of vents in the front of the cabin, by the time the air got to us in the back, it was as hot and humid like the air outside. Some kind of commotion was going on at the back ramp, with a captain pointing at a tablet and arguing with a lieutenant. The lieutenant shook his head at the captain, and walked toward us, clearly unhappy. He got close enough for me to read ‘Koenig’ on his nametag, and I stood up and saluted. “What’s going on, sir?”
Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force Book 1) Page 10
