Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force Book 1)

by Craig Alanson

  The next thing I know was Sergeant Adams tugging at my shoulder, trying to bring me back to reality. I looked up and back at her with an expression on my face that must have terrified her more than the Kristang ever had, for she jumped back away from me. I dropped the rifle and rose shakily to my feet.

  "Jesus fucking Christ." Adams said in a hoarse voice. "I think I'm gonna to be sick."

  I felt the same. I had killed before, but always at a distance, always rifle rounds reaching out to kill, to kill people I couldn't always see clearly. This was different. In my rage, I had crushed the Kristang's skull like a ripe melon, there were broken bits of white bone, dark red blood, and everything else was like lumpy gray mashed potatoes or Thanksgiving turkey stuffing, just icky unidentifiable bits. "Breathe," I said, "breath deep and slow." It wasn't clear if I was talking to Adams or to myself, for my stomach was heaving.

  We both stood leaning against the wall, overcome with shock, breathing deeply. She got control of her stomach first, I was coming down off a frightening adrenaline high. She walked over to the Kristang's prone body, and to my utter surprise, kicked it viscously. "I recognized this fucker. He's the asshole who tortured me." She leaned over and spat where its face used to be. "Are you Ok, sir?"

  "Uh." There was dark red Kristang blood splattered over the front of me, including on my face. My left pinky finger was bent and began to throb as I noticed it, I don't remember when it got sprained or whatever. "Yeah, fine."

  "What now, sir?"

  I looked at her blankly, still thinking like a buck sergeant. She was a staff sergeant, and outranked me, so, oh, yeah. Shit. I'm a colonel now. For whatever that was worth. A colonel in an army that was trapped on an enemy-held planet. A colonel in an army that had handed me over to another enemy, to be executed for the crime of trying to keep a shred of my humanity. "Adams, I say we search this place for other prisoners and food supplies. Then we steal some transport and pop smoke." Meaning, get the hell out of there.

  “Oorah." She said, which was the jarhead equivalent of the proper US Army ‘Hooah’.

  I looked at the Kristang rifle in my hands. "Better find out if this thing works." It didn't appear to have any damage from me using it as a club against its former owner. I pointed it at the dead Kristang, braced it against my shoulder, and pulled the trigger. Nothing. "Huh." A button, there was a yellow button on the right side, above the trigger. Depressing the button made it turn red. This time, the trigger worked, an explosive-tipped round hit the Kristang's torso, and a fountain of gore splattered back onto me. Not that I could tell the difference. "Yellow means safety is on, red means safety is off."

  "Got it."

  We only found two more live prisoners, most of the cells were empty, and as we walked closer to the center of the base, more of the building had collapsed. Adams had to be careful, walking across broken bits on her bare feet. The first prisoner we released was a female captain in the Indian army, a Buzzard pilot named Desai. She was naked, of course, Adams went in to reassure her that we were rescuers, and to give her my uniform shirt, which was long enough to cover her ass. Adams held her hands up and pantomimed friendly gestures, which wasn't needed, as Desai spoke better English that I did. The trauma she'd endured hadn't affected her judgment, as soon as she pulled on my shirt, she dashed out of the cell behind Adams.

  The other prisoner was my sort-of friend Lt Colonel Chang. His cell door was busted open, but the cell had partly collapsed on top of him, and by the time we reached him, he had managed to wriggle free, except for his left foot being trapped under a section of the ceiling. We lifted the broken piece enough for him to crawl out. He had a deep, nasty gash on his left calf and a cut on his forehead that he shook off, saying he would deal with it later. I could see his point. Beyond Chang's cell, the corridor had collapsed. If any humans were alive in the rubble, it was going to take more than the four of us to dig them out, without heavy equipment.

  "No," Chang said, shaking his head. "The lizards told me there were only six prisoners left after last night. Beside us four, one French and one British."

  "Damn. I found one dead Frenchie and a dead Brit back there. This is all of us, then."

  Adams yanked on my waistband and pulled me back around a corner, holding a finger to her lips. "Two Kristang, sir, in that white building, I saw them through the doorway."

  "They see us?"

  "I don't think so, one of them had its back to us."

  I jerked my head back over my shoulder. "We go back, see if-"

  Three Kristang came out of the white building, all three carrying rifles, but not wearing helmets or body armor. They weren't looking in our direction, they had their backs to us, looking up at the sky. I didn't hesitate. Either Kristang ammo fires quietly, or their rifles had built-in silencers, because it only made a pop-pop sound as the rounds came out of the barrel. The explosive tips impacting Kristang bodies did make a loud noise. They all went down quick, only one of them managed to fire off a round, and it wasn't aimed anywhere near us. Orders weren't needed, we all sprinted across to the Kristang, picked up rifles and ducked inside the white building. "Red means the safety is off," Adams demonstrated.

  "One of them is still alive," Chang warned, and brought his rifle up. Adams pushed the barrel aside and shook her head angrily. "No, sir. Not you." She looked at Desai, and the two women nodded. One Kristang was rocking side to side on the ground, I'd missed hitting its torso and blown off one arm. Desai put two rounds in its head, then muttered something in Hindi, I assumed it was something like 'adios motherfucker' or whatever the Indian army equivalent was.

  "Thank you." She said to Adams. If Chang was angry at a sergeant reprimanding him, he didn't show it. He knew human women had been tortured by the lizards, he understood Desai needed some feeling of payback. Splattering lizard brains across a dozen square meters was a good start.

  "Does anyone know where they store food around here?" I asked. "The lizards gave me an MRE each morning, they must have human food somewhere."

  "I haven't eaten in two days." Desai said, and Adams nodded.

  Damn, now my one meal per day felt like a luxury. We searched the white building, wary for more Kristang, all of us extremely trigger-happy. Desai found a cabinet that contained seventeen packages of American MREs and the Chinese Army version of field rations. Adams and Chang said they weren't hungry, but I insisted they tear open one package and share it to start, eating slowly. They needed the energy. We didn't find anything else that was useful, no human clothing, no spare weapons and ammo. There was Kristang clothing, I gave Desai my pants and put on Kristang pants, she donned a Kristang shirt that was way too big, and gave my shirt back. If we ran into trouble, I thought my shirt, with my rank insignia, would be useful. Kristang boots were much too large for the women, they cut up clothing and wrapped the strips around their feet, I thought that was clever, it was Desai's idea. As Adams was tying off her makeshift shoes, a pair of Ruhar Vulture Dropship attack birds roared by overhead. It was time to leave.

  There were a trio of Kristang armored personnel carriers parked by the fence, the doors weren't locked but they wouldn't start, and we didn't have time to look for keys or computer chips or whatever was needed. A Ruhar hamvee was nearby, the windshield was cracked but the powercells had a 70% charge, and it started right away. We circled the compound, so we could drive away down the one road with tree cover. Tree cover was likely no protection considering the Ruhar had eyes in the sky, but it made us feel safer somehow. Our last glimpse back at the destroyed lizard compound was of a Dodo coming in to land, escorted by the pair of Vultures. I crossed my fingers and hoped they'd consider one hamvee to be not worth bothering to investigate.

  The tree cover ran out after a couple kilometers, and we were driving northwest through open grasslands. Our road came to an intersection, and I called a halt. "Does anyone know where we are?"

  No one did, not a single clue. To the south, we could see a Whale and some Vultures descending, headed away fr
om us. Away from them was as good a direction as any, so we kept driving northeast. And later ran into Captain Clueless and his checkpoint. The road went over a bridge, on the far side were several hamvees and soldiers, human soldiers, mostly wearing US Army gear, so we were happy to encounter friendlies. Or so we thought.

  It was an MP unit, led by a 2nd lieutenant, from the variety of unit insignias and nationalities, he must have pulled together any people he could find. They trained their rifles on our hamvee as we crossed the bridge, then ordered us to stop. I got out, cradling the Kristang rifle under my left arm, and saluted with my right. "Report, Lieutenant, uh." I squinted at his nametag, "Rogers."

  "Sir?" His return salute was hesitant. I wore US Army colonel's insignia on my uniform top, which was so smeared with dried Kristang blood that my name tag was partly obscured. My pants were Kristang, with their distinctive yellow and black pattern, and I carried a Kristang weapon. Also, I was much too young to be a real colonel in anyone's army.

  "We ran into Kristang back down the road," I used my right thumb to indicate the direction behind our hamvee, "and tactically acquired this gear. We don't have comms," I pointed to my empty waistband, "what is the situation?"

  "You attacked the Kristang? Sir, I think I have to place you under arrest." His men raised their weapons. This could get ugly fast.

  "Lieutenant, unless you've totally had your head up your ass," that phrase was becoming my favorite, "it can't have escaped your attention that this planet is under new management, by the Ruhar. UNEF's mission here is over. Every human on Paradise is a prisoner, of the Ruhar. You planning on arresting all of UNEF, and turning us over to the hamsters?"

  "I have my orders-"

  "I am a God-damned full-bird colonel in the United States Army, and you are a particularly dumb-ass second lieutenant." I said hotly, careful to keep my rifle cradled under my left arm. "Lt Colonel Chang here, and Captain Desai, also outrank you in UNEF, and Staff Sergeant Adams outranks you in smarts. Stand down, right now, that's an order."

  Desai pointed her rifle out the window, directly at Rogers' head. "I am not going back to that prison." The rifle barrel was shaking slightly, either from anger, fear or low blood sugar.

  "Me neither." Adams agreed, stepping out of the hamvee. The expression on her face was more frightening than her rifle. "Colonel Bishop, permission to nuke this asshole's brain if he even looks at me funny?" She looked Rogers in the eye. "I've spent the past five days being starved and tortured by the lizards, and I really, really want to shoot something."

  "Everyone, calm down." The voice of reason came from a sergeant in Rogers' patched-together unit. "LT, maybe we should hear them out."

  Rogers nodded, and his people slowly lowered their weapons. With a nod from me, my people did the same. "That's better. Now, I'm Colonel Joe Bishop, you know, the Barney guy." Recognition dawned on Rogers' face. Damn. Adams had been right, never give up an advantage. "The four of us were prisoners of the Kristang, until the Ruhar hit the base, and sprung us, by accident. All the other prisoners were shot, or tortured and hung, by our allies the lizards. Former allies. Now, you have comms," I pointed to his zPhone, "what have you heard?"

  "Nothing, sir, comms are down, even the GPS location system is down. All we get is a recorded message from the Ruhar, for us to stand down, cooperate with the Ruhar, and await further instructions. Nothing from UNEF Command, no emails or texts, but the translation function is working."

  "How are you fixed for supplies?"

  "Lean, sir." Now that he knew who I was, he kept looking at me in a way that suggested he wanted to ask for my autograph. "Plenty of water, everyone has a standard load of ammo, but we don't even have enough food for one meal for everyone. Most of us were on our way to a French FOB when the Ruhar came back. We saw smoke in the direction of the base," he pointed to a thin column of smoke off to the south, "and the bridge over the river in that direction is out. I pulled together everyone I could find, and assembled here. We've got two French, three Indians and four Chinese with us. I figured this bridge is a traffic chokepoint, sir."

  It was decent thinking, of a sort. I leaned close to talk quietly. "We have about a dozen MRE packs. The two women with me were starved and tortured by the lizards, they were going to be hanged tomorrow morning."

  Roger's eyes showed his shock. "What the fuck have we gotten into, sir?"

  "We're in over our heads, that's for certain. Let's load up and-"

  "Dropships!" A soldier called out.

  "Theirs or ours?" Lt Rogers asked. I didn't bother to point out that nothing in the sky was 'ours' anymore.

  "Can't tell yet, sir." Replied the soldier with the binoculars. "Wait, they're hamsters! Three, no, four Vultures and a pair of Dodos, looks like."

  I was about to order people to take cover, when the lead pair of Vultures split to flank us east and west, and their weapons pods opened. Clearly, they had seen us, and were interested. Maybe hostile. "Everyone, weapons down, hands in the air."

  "Sir?" Rogers asked suspiciously. I had, after all, killed Kristang, and now intended to surrender to the Ruhar.

  "Lieutenant, maybe, if we're very lucky, we can take out one of those Vultures, if the pilot is stupid enough to get that close. The others will wipe us out like sitting ducks. Place your weapon on the ground, back away from it, and hold your hands in the air." I could see he wasn't convinced. We were out in the galaxy to fight the Ruhar so people on Earth didn't have to. Surrendering without firing a shot went against a soldier's instincts. "The Ruhar hit us here before, and the Kristang knocked them back," I reminded him, although this time, I would rather deal with the Ruhar than the Kristang. "Live to fight another day," I said, "which ever side we end up fighting."

  Rogers accepted the facts. The Vulture pilots were not at all stupid, the four of them flew high cover, safely out of Javelin range. A Dodo landed, dropped a dozen troops, and immediately dusted off to circle to the south. As the hamster troops approached, Rogers' zPhone came to life. He touched his earpiece. "Sir, we're being ordered to leave our weapons, and assemble south of the road."

  We complied. I didn't see we had any choice. I ordered a private to give me his zPhone, and walked slowly forward, hands in the air, to talk to the enemy soldiers. Or alien soldiers, I didn't know who was our enemy right then. Maybe both sides. "I am Colonel Joe Bishop, United States Army," I announced. This apparently didn't mean shit to the Ruhar, who confiscated my zPhone and herded me into the group with everyone else. Twenty minutes of sitting on the ground in the sun later, a Ruhar soldier approached us, and tossed a zPhone to me. "Are you the Colonel Joe Bishop who was honored to speak with," the translator buzzed, "Bahturnah Lohgellia?"

  Who the hell was, oh, right. I'd forgotten she had a real name. "The burgermeister?" That didn't translate well for him, because he tapped his earpiece, so I tried again. "The regional governor. I met with her in Teskor. I was Sergeant Joe Bishop back then."

  "Yes. You are that same Joe Bishop?"

  "Ta." I nodded.

  This evoked some animated conversation among the Ruhar, I couldn't tell if it was good or bad, some of the looks I got were distinctly unfriendly. Maybe some of them had friends aboard the two Whales we shot down at the Launcher. That was war, yes, but, I'd be pissed at me if I was them. The soldier who had asked my name held his earpiece, like someone was talking to him. "You were held prisoner by the Kristang. How are you now free, and how did you have Kristang weapons?" He asked.

  I pointed to the sky. "Your ships hit the Kristang base where I was being kept as a prisoner, I escaped because the explosion damaged the building, and I was able to get out through a broken wall." Tapping my bloody uniform top, I added "I killed a Kristang by bashing its skull into a bloody pulp with its rifle," I pantomimed the action, in case my words didn't translate well, "then I shot three more lizards with that rifle. Three other humans escaped with me. We killed only four lizards, because that's all we could find," that came out with way more bravado than I inte
nded. "Did that answer your question?"

  It was a contest whose eyes were open wider, the Ruhar soldier, or Lieutenant Rogers. Rogers stayed silent. "You killed Kristang?" The Ruhar asked.

  "The Kristang executed humans, and were going to execute us," I indicated my three former prison companions, "because we refused orders to kill Ruhar civilians. The lizards abused and tortured our females, the women," I added, to emphasize that women were people, which is not the way the lizards thought of them.

  The Ruhar soldier had an animated conversation with whoever was talking into his earpiece, then with two other soldiers. It was an argument of some kind, likely the Ruhar here on the ground arguing with some dumb-ass Ruhar fobbit who was sitting safely in orbit. I could sympathize. Finally, the Ruhar soldier who had been talking to me gestured at me. "You, and the others who were being held by the Kristang, will come with me." He must have called the Dodo, for it was rapidly approaching and descending.

  "Whoa, whoa, wait." I held out my hand, palm forward, in what I hoped was another universal body language thing. "I'm not going anywhere, until I know what will happen to my people here." Rogers and I exchanged a glance. As the ranking officer, they were my responsibility, even though I'd barely met them. As a hodge-podge unit, it wasn't as if they had served with Rogers for long either.

  Irritation briefly flashed across the soldier's face, that was surely a universal body language, then he nodded. One soldier to another, he could understand my concern. "They will be escorted to an assembly point to the west, where we are distributing human food. What happens after that depends on discussions between my leaders and yours."

  And whether the Kristang come back, I thought, but didn't say it aloud.

  Riding in a Ruhar Dodo wasn't much different from riding in a Kristang dropship, except this time I was a prisoner of war. Now that I think about it, maybe we were all POWs of the Kristang before, and just didn't know it yet. The Ruhar had taken our weapons, but I'd insisted that Desai and Adams each bring two MREs each with them, to recover their strength. They had both attempted to protest, that they didn't want special treatment, until I made it an order that they eat. Chang and I were getting hungry, but we'd had at least a skimpy breakfast that morning. A few minutes after the Dodo roared back into the sky, a Ruhar crewman walked back to my seat, and handed me a Ruhar zPhone. I put the earpiece in. "Hello?"