Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force Book 1)

by Craig Alanson

  "I am Sergeant Joe Bishop." I said, and put my teabag into a cup. It was a lot less elegant than the way she'd made tea. That irritated me for some reason. I knew the reason she had made her tea so slowly, deliberately, was to give her time to study me.

  She seemed amused. "I am the regional governor of Lesscorta, my name is Bahturnah Lohgellia." She paused to wait for the translator to catch up. "Your people who occupy my home town call me," she paused again, "the burgermeister." Her eyes twinkled, clearly expecting me to be amused. "I think that 'burgermeister' is easier to pronounce than my name, no?"

  I was amused. "Tah." Whatever troops occupied her town must have been stationed in Germany at some point. A burgermeister is sort of a mayor in Germany. I think so, I mean, the closest I had ever was to being in Germany was sitting in a transport plane while it refueled on the runway at Rhine-Main airfield.

  The burgermeister gestured for me to take my microphone and earpiece off. I pointed to my mouth, then my ear. "I need this so we can talk to each other."

  To my surprise, she responded in very slow, careful and squeaky English. "Sergeant Joe Bishop, please leave that outside. You can use this." In her hand was what looked like a Kristang zPhone, but a bit smaller. She offered it to me, with its own mic and earpiece. "I will explain," she said slowly, as if she had memorized only a few phrases of English, and found our words difficult to pronounce.

  I hesitated, then nodded. Army regs said I wasn't supposed to be away from my zPhone while on duty, but this was an opportunity to get my hands on Ruhar technology, and maybe gain some intel about the hamsters. It was why UNEF set up Embedded Observation Teams in the first place. I walked outside, gave my zPhone to Baker, came back in, and used the Ruhar device.

  "Thank you." The burgermeister said in English, then put her own earpiece in and switched back to using her translator. "It is comfortable?" Even the computer version of her voice had a squeaky tone to it.

  I looked at the display of the device, expecting it to ask me to speak a couple pages of text, so it could learn my particular speech pattern, but it displayed 'Ready' in bold red letters. That made me suspicious. "How does this know how I speak?"

  The burgermeister smiled. "Your speech has been recorded, analyzed, translated, and programmed into the device in your hand. We did not wish to waste your time in setting up the device, as we have much to talk about."

  So they'd been spying on me. Fair enough, of course they'd want intel on their adversary. "Why can't I use my own," I almost said zPhone but figured that wouldn't translate well in Ruhar, "tactical radio?"

  Again she smiled. A friendly smile, but also an 'I know something you don't know' smile. It was getting mildly irritating. "The Kristang did not provide you with advanced weapons," she pointed to my sidearm, "aren't you curious why they did provide you with advanced communications equipment, that is used by every human on this planet?"

  That made me pause. "Uh," hell, I wasn't a comms expert. "Probably, uh, every country on Earth uses different radio and computer gear, and since we don't have our own communications satellites here," I looked up at the ceiling, "the only way we can all talk to each other is with common radios." As I said it, it made sense, although I hadn't given it much thought before.

  No smile this time, the burgermeister shook her head side to side. It was fascinating to me that, between two alien species, body language seemed to be universal. No translation needed there. "Perhaps that is a convenient excuse. The true reason is that all of your communications go through a Kristang network. The Kristang monitor every word you say, they capture all your data transmissions, they track your every movement, anywhere on the planet. They can also shut down all of your communications, any time they want. Sergeant Bishop, when you leave here, you will certainly report our conversation to your military intelligence people. I suggest you conduct that conversation in person, rather than over the radio. Unless you want to be overhead by the lizards."

  That was all true, I guess. We all did use Kristang comm gear exclusively. But, why not? It was free, it worked great, it saved us from the effort of setting up microwave towers across the planet, and from trying to get American radios to talk to Chinese and Indian radios. Besides, the Kristang were our allies. "Maybe you are right. So what? The Kristang are our allies."

  That irritating smile came back. "Allies? Alliances are for equals. The Kristang are your patrons, and you are their client species. Their pets. Or slaves."

  "And you are our enemies." I said it before thinking. My mother would not have been happy about that; I was a guest in the hamsters' house, drinking tea, and I was not being polite.

  "We have no wish to be your enemy. Please wait for me to speak," she held up a hand, "I can understand if you are angry, there is much you need to know, much the Kristang have not told you, or have lied to you about. My people have known about your species for over a thousand of your years. Our long-range probes found you, and placed stealth satellites in orbit around your planet to observe. Tell me, haven't you wondered why, since this war has been going on for thousands of years, Earth wasn't attacked a long time ago?"

  My jaw dropped slightly open. She was right, that had been bugging me, seriously bugging me, and I wasn't the only person who had been asking that question. Why wait to attack now, when humans have nukes? Why not attack long ago, when humans were living in caves, and thinking fire was the pinnacle of technology? It didn't make any sense. The Ruhar weren't stupid, so...? Why? If UNEF HQ knew, they hadn't told me.

  Because the need to use a translator meant she talked v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y, I'll summarize what she said. The reason Earth hadn't been attacked before is simple. Until recently, Earth was out of practical flight range, for both sides of the war. It was possible for specialized, long-range starships to reach our low-rent part of the Orion Arm, Earth just wasn't worth the time or the expense. For some reason that even the Maxohlx and the Rindhalu didn't know, every once in a while, wormholes shifted. It happened randomly, or in a cascade across a whole quadrant of the galaxy. A shift could happen after a couple decades, or it could take hundreds or thousands of years. Some wormhole A, that used to connect to a wormhole B, suddenly connected instead to a wormhole C, and B shifted to connect to D. Or a wormhole could stop working altogether, or a previously unknown wormhole could suddenly activate. A planet that was strategically important could find itself an isolated backwater, after a wormhole shift. Or a planet that was too far from a wormhole for anyone to bother with, could suddenly become an important staging base for both sides to fight over. That's what happened to Earth. We were happily living alone in the galactic hinterland, far from any wormhole, and on the very edge of Ruhar territory, but far enough away that the Ruhar hadn't found it worthwhile to travel the extremely long distance to Earth. Then there was a shift, and a long-dormant wormhole came to life. One end of the wormhole was near Earth, the other end of that wormhole was in Kristang territory. That wormhole near Earth was close enough for a Thuranin star carrier to make the trip to Earth in about a week, which made Earth a good place for the Kristang to get a new foothold in Ruhar territory. Before the wormhole shift, Earth was much too far away for a military campaign by the Ruhar, and impossible to reach by the Kristang.

  "Wait a minute," I said as I digested what the burgermeister had told me. "You attacked Earth. If we're too far away for a practical military campaign, why did you bother? That must have been an enormous effort." I thought about the complicated logistics of our occupation of Paradise, and we had a wormhole to get our supplies most of the way here. If the Ruhar had to schlep the whole way on foot, as my grandfather would say, how the hell had they done it? And why attack a planet, if you can't sustain a force there? It's not like we were a threat to them.

  The burgermeister nodded. She clearly had been prepared for this question. "I am not sure your translator is picking my words up accurately, so please tell me if you do not understand. When we realized the wormhole shift had opened your planet for exploitation
by the Kristang, we decided to act first, and our patrons the Jeraptha pulled together what long-range ships that were available to respond. Once we knew for certain that the Kristang intended occupy your planet, we degraded your industrial infrastructure, to make Earth a less useful staging base for the Kristang. It was a quick strike raid by a small number of ships, we could not launch a full scale attack at that distance. Our ships traveled for five of your months to reach Earth, and five months back."

  I called bullshit on that. "And you arrived at the same time as the Kristang? Right." Then I realized that 'right' may be translated as 'correct'. We'd been instructed to speak in simple language to the Ruhar, as idioms, slang and emotion-laden speech like sarcasm may not make sense across the species barrier. Although based on my interactions with the Ruhar, body language was universal, at least among bipedal species. "What I meant to say was, I doubt what you said is accurate."

  "We did not arrive at the same time as the Kristang," she explained with what I interpreted as a slightly condescending smile. "Our ships watched the wormhole, in case the Thuranin sent a force through, we knew they were probing the area, but were not absolutely sure of their intentions. Earth is not the only habitable planet near the new wormhole. After the invasion force came through the wormhole, we waited for three weeks for the Thuranin ships to assemble and complete the journey from the wormhole. When we realized Earth was their target, our heavy ships engaged them, while our raiding force launched precision strikes on Earth. We did not hit cities, our purpose was not to kill your people, it was to reduce your industrial capacity, so the Kristang would not find it so easy to sustain a foothold at the edge of our territory."

  "You killed a lot of people." I shot back angrily. "Humans."

  "As a soldier, you are familiar with the term collateral damage?" She waited for me to nod. Nodding was one of those universal body languages. "Our targets were electric power stations, factories producing certain types of equipment, and industrial facilities which create materials such as metals. All of which are infrastructure which could be utilized by the Kristang. When we attacked your fission power plants," I assumed the translator meant nuclear power, "we hit the electric distribution center next to the reactor, we were careful not to hit the nuclear reactor. We did not wish to contaminate your planet, and cause deaths and suffering needlessly. Those Ruhar soldiers who were forced to land in your home village, were on their way to destroy the electric distribution center at a fission power plant in a place called Connecticut." As there was no Ruhar word for 'Connecticut', the word came through in her slightly squeaky rodent voice, without translation. "We couldn't risk striking that power plant from orbit, even with smart missiles."

  That gave me a pause. She told the truth about the attacks on nuclear power plants, none of the reactors around the planet had been hit. "You didn't want to contaminate a planet you wanted to occupy!" I waved my hand to shut her up, as she tried to speak. "No, I'm done with your lies." I slammed the teacup down angrily on the table, stood up, and bowed stiffly. "Thank you, madam." When I got outside, I saw a group of hamster kids playing with the soccer ball I'd brought, and couldn't decide whether I was more angry at the hamsters for trying to justify attacking Earth, or for me allowing myself to be soft on the enemy. One of the hamster kids waved at me, and I ignored him. I felt like crap about that later, they were alien kids, but they were still only kids. They hadn't attacked Earth. I just wanted someone to be mad at.

  I was pissed for about a week, angry that I'd let her manipulate me. Angry that she tried to use me to feed us bad intel, to sow dissent in our ranks, to conduct a psyops campaign against us. It wasn't going to work. But, when I finally did talk to an officer about it, during one of Lt Charles' visits, I talked to him face to face, and pantomimed taking off his zPhone. To my surprise, he nodded silently and left his zPhone outside the tent. "What is it, Sergeant?"

  "Sir, that regional governor hamster gave me intel about how wormholes work. It may be BS, but figured I should pass it up the chain. And she said I shouldn't talk about it over a zPhone, because the Kristang may be listening."

  He nodded. "Command has been worried about that. Our allies control all our communications on Paradise. And our transport. And our food supply, and everything else. All right, what do you know about wormholes?"

  I told him, as best I remembered. He nodded. "You're right, it's probably bullshit, but I'll pass it along to battalion HQ."

  Lester Cornhut had been telling me the burgermeister wished to talk again, and he was insistent, almost pleading with me. I felt sorry for the hamster, but I was still pissed off, and wasn’t going to be manipulated again by a lying weasel, or hamster. According to Lester Cornhut, the regional governor had made a special trip to Teskor just to talk with me. Or talk to me, or at me. I told him, thank you, but no. He looked hurt.

  Three days later, a pair of hamvees roared up to our command post in a cloud of dust. I'd been on our basketball court playing a game of horse with Baker when they arrived, we both scrambled to put shirts on quick. A major hopped out of the lead hamvee, accompanied by a security detail. "Sergeant Bishop?"

  I saluted. She looked vaguely like our brigade intelligence officer, who I'd only seen pictures of. "Yes, ma'am."

  "I'm Major Perkins. I need to talk to you, inside." She gave me the now-familiar gesture to take my zPhone off.

  Inside, I was glad that we'd spruced up the place that morning, we'd been getting casual about policing our trash out in the middle of nowhere. "Bishop, your intel about the wormholes caused a shitstorm at UNEF HQ. Someone there mentioned the wormhole shift intel to the Kristang and they blew a gasket, wanted to know where we'd heard those outrageous lies, denied the whole thing. Which means it's true, and the fucking lizards are lying about it." That was the first time I'd heard a senior officer speak against our allies, it surprised me. "You heard this from a Ruhar? I want to meet her."

  "Uh, sir, that's complicated. She doesn't live here in the village, she's like a regional governor or something around here. She comes through here once a week, and we met at her friend's house, for tea." I felt like an idiot saying I was sitting down for tea with the enemy. "It's a hamster thing, they have tea when they meet."

  "All right, when is she coming back?"

  "Day after tomorrow, supposedly, but, I told her friend here that I didn’t want to talk to her again. I can give word that I’ve changed my mind?”

  "Hell, Bishop, that won't work, I need to meet with her. You don't know what questions we need to ask her. UNEF has a lot they want to talk about."

  "I don't ask her questions. She talks, and I listen. She talks about whatever she wants. I figured she was bullshitting me, like, a hamster psyops thing." Damn, the burgermeister had been telling the truth!? "Do you want to hear everything she told me?"

  "Yeah." She pulled a tablet and microphone out of her pack. "I'll record what you say on this. On this, and not on a zPhone, you got that?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Loud and clear." Especially since the burgermeister had told me not to trust the Kristang-supplied comm gear.

  She put the tablet on a table, plugged in the microphone, and looked around our little command post. It was a damned good thing we'd straightened up and cleaned the place, cleaned like scrubbed from top to bottom, not just swept dirt under the furniture. We had even moved the furniture around and used a floor cleaner polisher thing the hamsters had left in a closet. The floor polisher worked great after we played around with it for an hour, as the hamsters hadn't let any helpful instructions. Major Perkins nodded approval. "You like it here, sergeant? It's kind of isolated, these embedded observation teams."

  "I do like it, ma'am. I'm a new sergeant, so being way out here means I get to make mistakes without a butterbar looking over my shoulder." As I spoke, it occurred to me that Major Perkins had been a butterbar once herself. "Uh, I wasn't-"

  "Relax, sergeant." She laughed. "When I was a butterbar second lieutenant, I was perhaps the single dumbest officer in
the history of the United States Army, and that's saying a lot. Course, back then I didn't know it. This place may be Bum Fuck Neptune, but enjoy it while you can, a lot of fireteam leaders would love to have this opportunity to get out on their own. And if the intel you're providing is as solid as UNEF thinks it might be, you're doing damned good. Let's get started," she pulled up a voice recording app on her tablet.

  Major Perkins came back two days later, but the burgermeister didn't, so we sat cooling our heels most of the day, until a hamster kid riding an electric bicycle came looking for me, to deliver a message that the burgermeister was busy, and would like to meet me the next day. Me, and only me. Major Perkins was not happy, but she took the hint, and gave me a list of questions that I had to memorize.

  That began my short career as an intelligence officer. The list of questions from UNEF didn't do any good; the burgermeister apparently had a plan of what she wanted to talk about each time we met, and she was sticking to her plan. I would meet with her twice a week, and Major Perkins, sometimes accompanied by a captain from division HQ, arrived the next day to debrief me. I felt like a kid passing notes in high school, but what could I do?