“Through the camera on Joe’s phone. Duh. Also, the dust particles in the air contain ions that, hmm, I'd better not tell you monkeys about that. It’s all very complicated.”
"Monkeys? What-" The Air Force Chief of Staff started to say.
“Very well,” the president said, “Mister Skippy, we have been monitoring the Kristang sites on Earth, can you tell us the status of their ship in orbit?”
“Sure. There are two Kristang still alive aboard the troop carrier. Two more of them survived initially, because they were in compartments they could manually seal. But their oxygen has run out, so they’re dead. The other two were already in spacesuits, preparing to go outside, when their buddies got blown into space. By me. Those two have managed to seal doors, restore atmosphere to part of the ship, and they’re attempting to gain access to the bioweapons storage compartment, so they can launch missiles at you.”
“Bioweapons?” The Navy Chief of Staff exclaimed in alarm. “What kind of bioweapons?”
“Oh, nothing special. Aerosolized modified viruses, genetically engineered weapons based on your common cold, flu, Ebola and Marburg viruses. They’re not very efficient yet, because the Kristang haven’t had long to study your biology. Testing they did at Camp Alpha indicate a lethality within the first week of only twelve percent, but the lethality goes up to sixty two percent within one month. It’s the subject’s immune system being attacked by multiple viruses at the same time that wears people down, and kills them.” Skippy said very matter of factly.
The room was in an uproar, except for me following the Army chief’s advice and keeping my mouth shut. The president held up her hands for quiet again. “Mister Skippy, please tell-“
“I know what you’re going to ask next, so here it is. The testing at Camp Alpha was done on human subjects, captured on Earth and smuggled there, not on the military personnel officially assigned there. Military personnel tend to be younger, more male and more fit than the general human population, so they are not a good representative sample for bioweapons testing. The Kristang kidnapped a cross section of ages, genders and ethnic groups for testing, on the other side of planet Alpha from the military facilities.”
“That is horrifying.” The president said quietly, and no one else spoke.
“The bioweapons aboard the troop ship in orbit contain enough airborne viruses to kill several million humans in the initial wave. There is only a limited supply of the bioweapon stock, but those missiles are targeted at major population centers such as Sao Paolo, Shanghai, Tokyo, Mumbai, New York, all the usual suspects. Use of bioweapons is strictly against The Rules, but the Kristang here figure that Earth is so far from civilization that it's worth the risk, if their situation here got desperate. Like it is now.”
“How can we stop the Kristang up there from launching those weapons? We still have nuclear missiles.” The national security director stated. "That ship is in an orbit too high for-"
"Oh, no need for that.” Skippy said cheerily. “I sterilized all the bioweapon material aboard the ship, and disabled those missiles yesterday. Oh, hey, I probably should have told you that first, huh?" I slapped my forehead when he said that. "Trying to launch those weapons is keeping those two Kristang busy, and as long as they’re happily trying to exterminate your population, they’re not causing any real trouble, so I’ll let them keep going. At some point, you’ll need to send a commando team or something, up there to kill them, because those Kristang may get bored, and try to overload their fusion reactor. Which reminds me, I, huh, Ok, hmm, I just initiated a shut down of their reactor. Takes care of that problem.”
Faces around the room went white, as blood drained into people’s shoes. I hid my face in my hands. "Skippy," I asked, "how can an impossibly intelligent being be so absent-minded?"
“See?” Skippy asked innocently. “This is the kind of stuff you’re supposed to remind me of, Colonel Joe. I can’t think of everything.”
“Space suits.” I mumbled under my breath.
“Oh, shut up, monkey boy.”
“Space suits?” The president asked.
“It’s a long story.” Skippy said.
The president exchanged a glance with her national security director. “M-hmm. Everything seems to be a long story with the two of you.”
“Skippy,” I still felt like an idiot calling him that, in front of the nation’s senior leadership, “can we telefactor the robots aboard the Dutchman, to take care of those two Kristang?” I couldn’t imagine a human commando team, wearing bulky NASA spacesuits, shooting it out with a pair of Kristang warriors aboard a Kristang ship.
“Sure. You’re full of good ideas, Colonel Joe.”
The Army chief of staff turned toward me. “We’ll need to get some Rangers up to the Dutchman, to operate this telefactoring equipment. Telefactoring is remotely controlling Thuranin combat robots?”
“We can provide a SEAL team.” The Navy chief offered, to not be outdone.
“Uh, yes, sirs, but it would be best to send some of our pirates, I mean, some of the Dutchman crew back up there. We have experience controlling those robots in combat. Video game skills are more useful than, um, the kind of things Rangers or SEALs are trained for, sirs.” I was sure that somehow, we were going to have Army Rangers, Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon, and Air Force Special Tactics people aboard the Dutchman when she broke orbit. Probably FBI Hostage Rescue Team, too, since nobody was going to want to get left out of the action. And those were just the Americans. Things were going to get crowded. We needed to pack plenty of air fresheners.
I'd ask Skippy to make a note of that.
The meeting dragged on, with each of the president's advisors giving reports on their areas of responsibility, until we got to the issue on everyone's mind; the Kristang on Earth. They had survived because they were in hardened underground bunkers that couldn't be harmed by the weapons Skippy had selected in our initial strike. The only weapons capable of reaching them were either human-built nukes, or the railgun aboard the Dutchman. A single tactical nuke wouldn't be powerful enough to reach down far enough in Skippy's estimation, we would need to drill a deep hole, drop the nuke in, and detonate it above the lizard bunker. We had plenty of drilling equipment, although it would take months to get the equipment in place and tunnel down that far. Skippy cautioned that using nukes on a habitable world, including Earth, were against The Rules anyway, rules humanity was now bound by, as we had participated in the war. If either side of the war ever reached Earth and discovered that humans had used nukes against the Kristang here, the consequences would be dire, as if we didn't have enough trouble already. That left the Dutchman's railgun as the only option. Which was a problem at two of the sites, one was close to the city of Lyon in France, the other just west of Hangzhou in China. No way could we use nukes so close to those cities anyway. The third site, their main base, was under a mountain northwest of Durango, Colorado.
The president clearly didn't like the idea of recommending the French and Chinese governments evacuate their cities so that Skippy could use railgun penetrators as bug spray. "Mister Skippy, is there any possibility the Kristang will, after a while, surrender? They must know their situation is hopeless."
"No, they don't know that." Skippy explained patiently. "I cut off their communications and shorted out most of their electronics. All they know is a Thuranin star carrier jumped into orbit, their frigate jumped away, and they were attacked by their own missiles and satellites. As far as they know, this is a commercial dispute between the White Wind clan of the Kristang and the Thuranin, which could be as simple as the Thuranin being upset about late payments for shipping services. It's happened before. Not on this scale, but the Kristang wouldn't be entirely shocked. The lizards hiding down in their holes are probably figuring they will stay there a while until the Thuranin have figured they made their point, or get bored, and go away. Then the lizards can come out and resume being bad guests."
"Damnit, that's not going to work." Ge
neral Brenner growled. "Any way we can talk to them, show them how screwed they are?"
"Sure, if you like. Talking to them won't matter, no Kristang would surrender to a primitive species like humans, it would be unimaginably humiliating. The only reason they would surrender would be in the hope that Kristang ships will come back some day, but if that happens, any Kristang who had surrendered to humans would be executed, and their families back home would be severely punished."
"All right," Brenner said, "these railgun rounds, what would be involved in their use?"
"The railgun on the Flying Dutchman was not designed for orbital bombardment, so to punch up the power enough to reach the Kristang deep in their hidey holes would require the railgun to charge up to maximum power, that makes about forty minutes between shots. The Lyon and Hangzhou sites are not very deep, two strikes on each site should penetrate deep enough to kill every Kristang in those two bunkers. The Durango site would take three strikes. At Durango, the rounds would act to collapse the mountain on top of the bunker and seal the lizards in permanently. To get all the way down to the bunker would require a half dozen rounds, removing most of the mountain. Which I think you won't want, and it isn't necessary. Also, too many hypervelocity strikes would throw a considerable amount of dust into your atmosphere and temporarily alter your climate, like a volcano erupting. Three rounds should take care of the problem at Durango. Each impactor yields seventy kilotons in a shaped charge, the blast effect would be mostly focused downward, but there would be substantial debris thrown out in a spray pattern. Lyon would be affected more than Hangzhou."
The president pursed her lips. "I need to consider this." She turned to her FEMA director. "In any case, begin evacuating anyone within fifty miles-"
Skippy made a convincing coughing sound. "A hundred would be better. And there will be a lot of dust and debris in the air downwind."
"Within one hundred miles of Durango." The president continued.
"Yes ma'am," the director of FEMA nodded, "people have mostly cleared out of that area anyway, after the lizards moved in." The guy looked completely exhausted, I doubted that he'd gotten any sleep the previous night. Or many nights in months. Even the president had dark circles under her eyes, and she looked a lot older than I remembered before Columbus Day. As bad as conditions had gotten on Paradise, life on Earth had been worse.
Now I was feeling guilty about the seven blissful hours of shut-eye I had dreamed away, while everyone else had been working.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN TICKING CLOCK
"Is there anything I can do for you, Sergeant Bishop?" Kendall asked me the next afternoon.
"Oh. Uh, nothing. It's an honor to serve, Staff Sergeant."
She cocked her head. Clearly she wasn't buying my bullshit. "We all serve, in our way. You saved the world. I talked to my parents on the phone last night, and my father broke down crying, he was so relieved that we're not under the thumb of the lizards. My father is the toughest man I know; he was an Army Ranger, lost a leg below the knee in Afghanistan. They said he would never be able to walk right again, he gutted it out and qualified for infantry duty eighteen months later. He qualified, and served, with half a leg. Toughest man I know, and he was crying, talking to me. He told me he thought we humans were never going to be anything but slaves, if we survived. Now we have hope again, and that is not thanks to anything we did down here. It's because of the miracle of you appearing in orbit, and vaporizing those lizard motherfuckers, however the hell you did it. So," she took a deep breath and scowled at me, "Sergeant, is there anything I can do for you?"
I got it. It wasn't about me. I remembered something I'd heard from a guy who was been awarded the Medal of Honor; wearing the Medal isn't something you do for yourself. It makes people awkward around you, and it makes you uncomfortable, and it puts a barrier between the awardee and everyone else.
And it's not only the Medal of Honor, it's any medal awarded for valor in combat. You don't wear a medal for yourself. You wear it for the guys who didn't make it. You wear it for your unit, for your Service, for your country. It's not about you, it's about the people who award the medal to you. It's about their need to express gratitude for your actions in a tangible way. Staff Sergeant Kendall needed a way to feel she'd done something, anything, for me, to give back for whatever I'd done.
It wasn't about me, no matter how uncomfortable I was with attention and ceremonies. I didn't want a medal, and I didn't-
An idea hit me like a cast iron skillet smacking my head "I'd like a cheeseburger." I admitted. "I'm, I can't tell you how bad I want a cheeseburger. I haven't had a friggin' cheeseburger since I was on the space elevator, leaving Earth. The whole time we were in transit, at Camp Alpha, on Paradise, not a single damned cheeseburger in sight. I'm talking about a real honest to God all American cheeseburger, not some fast food thing. A cheeseburger cooked on a charcoal grill in your backyard on the Fourth of July." I realized that I was rambling, drooling, but I couldn't help it. "A beef patty you make yourself, not too big, not too thick, don't pack it too tight so it isn't dense like a hockey puck. Grill it just until it's done, like medium rare, then you put a slice of cheddar on top and it melts a little so the cheese gets little bubbles but doesn't totally melt. The bun needs to be not thick, not one of those Kaiser rolls or brioche things, the bun is just there to hold it all together, it's not the star of the show. Grill the bun lightly, not like toast, just so the bread is slightly crispy. And some grilled onions, and ketchup. That's all a truly good cheeseburger needs."
Kendall gave me a look I couldn't interpret. Maybe I'd gotten a bit carried away with my burger enthusiasm. Then she nodded, smiled and I swear her knees buckled just a bit. "Ohhh, I know exactly that you mean. I love a good cheeseburger. Tonight, we skip dinner at the DFAC, and you come over to our quarters, we're behind the Commandant's house. We have a grill and I'll set you up with a real cheeseburger." One of the guards with her cleared his throat and Kendall shot him a look. "Yeah, real beef is hard to come by these days, but for you, Sergeant, the United States Air Force is going to make an exception, that's for damned sure. It's the least we can do."
True to her word, Sergeant Kendall brought me over to the building she was quartered in, and out back was a grill. It was mildly chilly in the high altitude Colorado Springs night, which only mean we wore jackets. None of us were going to kiss a chance for a cookout. I held the cheeseburger in both hands and inhaled deeply. It was nearly perfect. If it had been cooked by my Dad on a grill in my parents' backyard, that would have made it the all-time 100% perfect cheeseburger of all time, but a family connection was the only thing missing. I took a tentative bite. "Ohhh. Ohhh, man, that is good. You have no idea how I've dreamed about this."
Kendall held up her own cheeseburger as a salute. "It's been a while for us, too, so thank you for this." Her team nodded, while chewing ecstatically.
I was about halfway done eating when I frowned.
"What is it?" Kendall asked.
"Well, I was just thinking, the Expeditionary Force on Paradise may never eat another cheeseburger again. Ever. They should be able to grow enough food, but, they're going to be strict vegetarians. Even before the Ruhar took the place back, shipments of supplies from Earth had stopped." That meant no medicines, either. I hoped the Ruhar were better about sharing their advanced medical technology than the Kristang were.
"Yeah," Kendall nodded grimly, "the lizards didn't tell us anything, but the space elevator stopped working a couple months after you left, it was obvious they weren't shipping supplies out to you. Until you came back, we had no idea what was going on with UNEF. The fucking lizards didn't tell us anything. My brother serves with UNEF, he's with the 3rd Infantry. You think they're going to be all right?"
I thought about the burgermeister, and her promises about taking care of the humans on Paradise. "I don't know about all right, but, yeah, I think they'll be Ok with the hamsters in charge. Your brother better get used to being a farmer. Hey," I held up the
last half of my cheeseburger, "here's to UNEF. I'm eating this for them."
"Hooah!" Everyone shouted, and we silently enjoyed our burgers.
"Damn, that was good." Kendall said. "Another?" She looked toward the grill.
"Oh yeah." I grinned. Saving the world has its perks.
"Rise and shine, sleepyhead!" Skippy announced, waking me from a sound sleep the next morning.
"Ugh. What time is it?" I asked groggily.
"Fifteen minutes before Staff Sergeant Kendall plans to wake you up."
"Then I have time for ten more minutes of shut-eye." I pulled the pillow over my head to shut him out.
"No way, Joe, this is our private time. You want to snuggle?"
"Not even if you were a real beer can."
"That hurts. Hey, you want to know what I did last night, while you were sleeping?"
Oh shit. I sat upright and flung the pillow across the room. "What the fuck did you do this time, Skippy? Did you get bored, and break into the files of other governments' secret agencies?"
"Huh? No, I did that last night, when I was reading the NSA's files. Don't worry, none of the other governments around your world have secrets worth keeping either."
"I thought you were busy chatting with people, like, all people?"
"Yeah, thank you for that, I'm still doing it, and most of them still think I'm an asshole."
"Imagine that. Do you now have a large enough sample size to determine that you are, in fact, and asshole?"
"The jury's still out on that one. Considering that it's a jury full of monkeys, I'm going to ignore it. Anyway, fascinating as chatting with several billion monkeys is, I got bored again, and did something useful. I finished downloading all data-"
"What do you mean, all data?"
"All the data stored in accessible databanks on Earth. Duh. It's only a couple exabytes, I can store that in a toenail, so to speak."
"Holy shit." I had no idea what an exabyte is. It sounded impressive.
Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force Book 1) Page 46
