Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

  “Huh? How do you figure that?” Most of the time when the beer can insulted me, I didn’t much care, but this time it bugged me.

  “Joe, ‘cute’ means she likes you, and that she feels comfortable around you. She also said you are funny. For a girl to go to bed with a guy, she needs to get past her inhibitions, let her guard down. If you are cute and you make her comfortable, and especially if you can make her laugh, then dude, you are totally in. Trust me.”

  “Wow, great, I never thought of it like-”

  “Unless she laughs when you take your pants off.”

  “Yeah, I figured that. She said that I’m cute and funny, so-”

  “I’m not telling you anything else she said,” Skippy protested.

  “Oh, yeah, sure, because you’re all about privacy,” I said sarcastically.

  “No, it’s because I like her, and I don’t want you to do some typically stupid Joe thing and screw this up. You’re likely to slip up and mention something I told you.”

  “I have been on dates with girls before, you know.”

  “Shauna seducing you in the back of a truck was not a ‘date’, Joe.”

  “Shauna,” I felt a pang of sadness thinking about her stuck on Paradise, “is not the first girl I have been with.”

  “Oh, yeah, because you were such a stud in high school. Well, you did go out with Melanie Rodgers for almost five months during your senior year. Hey, why did you two break up?" Skippy asked.

  "We were young, and it's complica-"

  "Ooh, ooh! I think I know what the problem was! Can I guess?" He sounded like an over-eager first grade boy, desperate to get the teacher's attention.

  "What?" I foolishly took the bait.

  "Was it her inability to deal with crushing disappointment? Every. Single. Day?”

  "You are such an asshole," I couldn't help laughing, "why do I keep you around?"

  "Most likely it is because of your shockingly poor judgment."

  "Yeah, that must be it."

  Getting ready for my date with Rachel, I took a shower and shaved, then I contemplated what else to do. It had been a while since I’d been a normal civilian date with a woman. Skippy offered to help. “Are you going to put on some of that body spray you bought at the base store?”

  “Uh,” I hesitated. “I don’t know, Skippy, it never seemed to work for me like it does for guys in the TV commercials.”

  “That’s because you weren’t using enough of it, dumdum. You need to spray on at least twice as much to turn girls on.”

  “Oh, thanks, Skippy,” I said as I reached for the can.

  “No!” Skippy shouted. “Damn you are a dumbass! Seriously! Oh, this is hopeless. Hopeless! Girls hate it when a clueless guy uses too much cologne, and you guys always use too much or not at all. Put that can down! Get dressed, wear the blue shirt.”

  “The blue one? Why?”

  “Because it picks up the blue in your eyes. Also because I went back through her Facebook posts and emails and IMs and credit card receipts, and I learned that Rachel purchased blue shirts for two of her previous boyfriends. Her favorite color is blue.”

  “Hmmm. That could be a problem, Skippy. Are you sure my shirt isn’t going to remind her of an ex-boyfriend?”

  “No, it’s a different shade of blue. Trust me on this, Joe.”

  Dinner with Rachel was wonderful. I forget what I ate; Rachel had a salad like women do on first dates. She offered to pay for dinner since she had invited me out. I paid, explaining that I had a lot of back pay coming; there not being anything aboard a Thuranin starship to spend money on anyway. After dinner, we went across the street to a bar with good music, and we had a terrific time. Rachel has a wicked sense of humor, especially after her second or maybe third lemon drop martini. Fourth? I lost track. I stuck to beer and tried to drink slowly. Damn, all I wanted was not to screw this up. I was on a real date, with a real woman, doing things like regular people did. That was all I wanted.

  We ended the night at her place; I don’t remember how it happened. I do remember that I didn’t try using any lame pickup line on her; going to her place just seemed natural. Figuring that we both had a lot to drink, I took it slow, but apparently I was out of practice.

  She ruffled my hair with one hand. "Joe, stop, it's Ok, I drank too many lemon drops. It's not going to happen for me tonight."

  "Hey, Joe," Skippy's distorted voice blared out of my zPhone earpiece, under the bed somewhere, "you should do that thing you did with Shauna. That worked."

  "Oh for-" I frantically fumbled around under the bed with one hand, trying to find the stupid earpiece and kill it.

  "Who," I could feel Rachel stiffen, "is Shauna?" Her voice was icy as the interstellar depths.

  "Uh," the damned earpiece had rolled all the way under the far side of the bed, "nobody. I mean," my brain screamed at me that telling a woman I was with, that a woman I had been with was nobody to me, would not help me case, "not nobody. Nobody recen-"

  "Joe sweated up the sheets with Shauna on Camp Alpha." Skippy said cheerily. "Not sheets, exactly, more like Army issue blankets in the back of a truck-"

  "Skippy! Please, for the love of God, shut the hell up!"

  Rachel slammed her legs together and smacked me in the chin with a knee; she knocked me off the bed onto the floor. "The back of a truck?!”

  "That was her idea, not mine. She wanted to-" I stopped talking, because even I knew a woman doesn't want details of a man's prior sex partners. Sometimes my brain is way smarter than I am. "I'm going to stop talking now."

  "Wise choice." Rachel said, and pulled up the bed covers, shutting me out.

  "Hey, it wasn't my idea to-"

  "This doesn't sound like you not talking, Joe."

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” Feeling like an idiot kneeling naked on the floor, I ducked down to reach under the bed, but I couldn't see the earpiece.

  "How does this Skippy AI know what you did with, her? You made a sex video?"

  "No," I said from under the bed. I saw the stupid thing now; it was almost out of reach. "My zPhone was under a blanket back then. That's the thing about Skippy, he can see and hear almost everything."

  Rachel pulled the covers up higher. "Like now? He sees us? From the ship?”

  Skippy said something that I couldn't hear, because I now had the earpiece and was squeezing the speaker in my fist.

  "Yeah, he can see us. His technology is super advanced. Something about him being able to detect the way dust particles in the air vibrate, I think, he won't explain it to us humans."

  "Uh huh, close enough," Skippy's voice now came out of the speaker in the clock radio. "I am Skippy the Omniscient, I see all, I hear all, I know all."

  Rachel's face was shear white. "Everything?"

  "Pretty much, yeah." Skippy responded. "Not that I pay attention much, you humans are generally not that interesting a species. And monkey mating kind of grosses me out. The last thing I want to watch is Joe's pasty white ass bouncing up and down. Yuck." The speaker began playing the soundtrack to a really bad porn movie, with a heavy bass line and lots of moaning and sighing. Bow-chicka-bow-boom-boom-bow-bow-chicka-bow. Not that I watch bad porn movies, of course, but, you know, I'd heard about them.

  "Skippy! Cut it out!" I shouted. The music stopped.

  "I'm only trying to help, Joe. Clearly, what you were doing wasn't getting the job done. I'd suggest you look in her goodie drawer for assistance, but the batteries in her favorite toy are almost dead." Then he added in a low voice. "Man, she gives that poor thing a workout. You want me to-"

  Rachel's hand flew to her mouth. I thought she was going to pass out.

  "Go away! I want you to go away!" I shouted.

  "Ok, fine. Remember that the next time you need my help."

  "Rachel look, I'm sorry-"

  "If I'd known your AI friend was making this a threesome, I would have said no. He watches everything you do?"

  "He watches everything everyone does. It's not ju
st me."

  "How do you live like that?" She asked in horror.

  I shrugged. "It's like, if you're having sex, and the dog is laying down in the corner of the room. It doesn't matter if it's watching you, because it's just a dog? With Skippy, you get used to it, because he truly doesn't care, he's just not that interested. If he's watching us here, he's watching a lot of other people at the same time. And that's only a tiny part of what's going on in his, uh, mind, at the time."

  She pulled the covers all the way up over her head, only her fingernails were showing. I took that as my cue to leave. If I could find my pants. Where the hell were my pants? With a glance into the hallway, I determined they weren't there either. “I’m sorry, Rachel, I'll get out of your hair. You, uh, have any idea where my pants are?"

  She peeked out from under the covers. "Your pants? No, I don't. Your friend Skippy is gone?"

  I was too tired to care. "Think so, yeah. Look, my pants must be under the cov-"

  She flung the covers aside and looked at me with one eye open. "I'm probably going to regret this, but can we sleep on this, and talk in the morning? I'm too tired and I drank too much to think straight right now."

  That sounded good. Being in bed with her, simply being in bed, I was tired and all I wanted to do was sleep.

  I slept like a log. She said she slept well also. In the morning, after I made coffee, we took a shower together, and we hit the reset button. It was great. Sex is so much better when you're not drunk. And when you're awake.

  Later that morning, I walked down the street to a bakery to get breakfast. Strolling back with a bag of baked goodies, I was feeling on top of the world. The weather was beautiful; sunny with a few clouds here and there, it was a cool morning but the afternoon promised to be pleasantly warm. There was a half-dressed woman waiting for me in her apartment, and since she had the day off, we had the whole day to ourselves. Friends of hers were having a cookout that evening, and we were invited. It felt great having no responsibilities. Let someone else save the world for a change, I was on leave.

  And, of course, the main reason for my super ultra great mood is that I got laid. Never underestimate that.

  Skippy called me, I held the zPhone to my ear as if it were a regular cellphone. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. “Good morning, Joe!” Skippy said with a cheery voice. “Were you and Rachel all right last night?"

  "You weren't watching us, were you?"

  "Not as far as you know."

  "Ok good,” I stopped to let a car pull into a driveway. “I really think that's a situation where you shouldn't- hey, wait a minute! Not as far as I know?"

  "Gosh, will you look at the time, I should be go-"

  "Not so fast, Skippy, you have some ‘splain-, oh, what the hell, why would it matter?" I'd gotten so used to his watching everything I did, that I didn't care. "Hey, Skippy, you're the smartest being in the galaxy, right?"

  "Yup, as far as both of us know."

  "Great, because I do not understand women. Human women. Can you give me some insight? Help a brother out?"

  Skippy sighed. Or imitated a sigh, it was convincing. "Joe, I have studied all the literature about human female psychology, read all the books written by and for women, downloaded every blog, every Instagram or Pinterest post, watched every program on the Lifetime channel, listened in on conversations between women, and have chatted online with billions of your females. With all of my processing power, over the equivalent of millions of years of analysis, I have come to one simple conclusion about human females."

  "And what's that?" I asked eagerly.

  "Bitches be crazy."

  "Skippy!" I managed to say after I stopped laughing. "That's not nice."

  "Oh, was that inappropriate? I can never tell."

  "Decidedly inappropriate. Also wickedly funny. But don't do it again, huh?"

  "No problem. Seriously, Joe, women have just as much trouble understanding men, as men have trouble understanding women. The difference is, women generally want to understand men in order to be better relationship partners. Men mostly are looking to get women into bed."

  "Well, get them into bed first," I felt a need to defend my gender.

  "Uh huh. Anyway, trying to understand women is a futile exercise, you may as well say you are trying to understand people, all people. My suggestion is you find one woman, and do your best to understand her. I hear that is quite rewarding."

  "Someday, yeah. For now, me going off into deep space on an alien pirate ship, makes it difficult to get a relationship started, you know?”

  “Do you regret traveling around the galaxy with me?” He sounded a little bit hurt.

  “No! Not at all, Skippy. Hey, come on, we saved the world together. Twice.” That remark got a strange look from a woman walking a dog past me. I lowered my voice. “I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything. And, as much of a gargantuan asshole you are most of the time, I got to meet you. That’s an incredible honor for a monkey like me.”

  “Same here. Well, probably more of an honor for you to meet me, to be honest. It’s not even close, to tell the truth.”

  “Asshole,” I said under my breath. “I’m enjoying being on leave; it’s great not to think about aliens destroying Earth for a few days.”

  “You need a break. You deserve it. Ok, Joe, I’ll leave you alone for a while, unless you contact me. Hey, heads up, Joe. Rachel is on her phone, talking with one of her friends about you.”

  “Oh, crap. Am I in trouble?”

  “Quite the contrary, Joe, she is saying only good things about you. Damn, girls tell each other everything.”

  “Everything?” I did not like the sound of that.

  “You men would be shocked. Again, she is saying good things about you. Um, this is not my area of expertise, but you may get lucky again today.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Paradise

  To Seek Glory in Battle is Glorious emerged high above the planet’s southern continent, almost two thirds of the way to the pole. Jumping in there had caught the Ruhar defenders badly out of position; they had been deployed to protect the northern continent where all the important Ruhar facilities were. That was also where the Ruhar population was concentrated; only a handful of Ruhar were stationed on the southern continent to monitor the humans there.

  The Ruhar task force commander acted quickly, ordering three of his ships to climb up to jump distance so they could surround the enemy vessel. This took less than a minute, during which time the other Ruhar ships fired masers and missiles at the enemy. The masers would very likely miss, and the missiles would likely be intercepted by the enemy frigate’s defensive masers, but the Ruhar action would keep the enemy busy.

  The Ruhar commander was puzzled when, instead of proceeding north at high speed to attack Ruhar facilities on the surface, the enemy ship suddenly fired a maser beam at the southern continent. The maser beam’s focus had been tuned to broaden its area of impact; rather than an intense pencil-thin beam, it covered a wider area.

  The enemy was, for some unknown reason, targeting the humans’ food supply. The maser beam was scorching fields of healthy crops and killing humans who had been caught in the open. Why were the Kristang expending resources to hit the humans, a species who had no combat power to threaten the Kristang?

  No matter, the Ruhar commander decided, that was a question that could be addressed later. The three ships he had assigned to deal with the enemy frigate reached jump distance and disappeared, only to reemerge above the southern continent in three bursts of gamma radiation. The lightly-armored Kristang frigate would soon be forced to withdraw, then the Ruhar could assess the damage it had inflicted.

  No! A Kristang destroyer suddenly jumped in above the northern continent and immediately fired at several targets. To his shame, the Ruhar commander saw that the actions of the frigate had been intended to lure part of his force away from their normal patrol area, and he had rashly fallen for the enemy trick. Alarmed, he scramble
d to redeploy his other ships, and recalled two of the ships he had sent to deal with the frigate.

  Before the two enemy ships had been chased away, the destroyer was able to successfully hit four targets on the surface. Thirty eight Ruhar died in the attack, and a weapons depot was also damaged. Next time, the Ruhar commander told himself with grim determination, he would not be fooled into dividing his forces.

  That there would be a next time was one thing of which he was certain.

  Earth

  The cookout with Rachel’s friends was great, except they had chicken and hot dogs, no cheeseburgers. And everyone wanted to ask me about my experience with ExFor, what it was like on Paradise, would the Kristang be coming back, and a thousand other questions. In every answer, I was careful to stick to the script of UNEF’s cover story, and was as vague as possible with my answers. Rachel saw the pained look on my face after a while, and we bailed early.

  The next morning, it was going to be another nice day, and she suggested we go on a trail ride with horses. Rachel said she had always been into horses; her family had a horse when she was in high school, and she rode in some competitions. Jumping, stuff like that.

  A long ride on the back of a horse wasn’t my idea of a great time. “We can go ride dirt bikes instead?” It had been a while since I’d ridden a motorcycle; I expected it wouldn’t take me long to get used to it again. When I was living at home, riding trails on a dirt bike or a snowmobile was regularly great fun on weekends.

  She tilted her head at me. “Joe, you’re not afraid of horses, are you?”

  “No, it’s just that I-” Damn. The last time I’d been on a horse had to be when I was ten years old. That was only sitting on a horse while it slowly walked around a ring at the county fair. All I remember of that experience was thinking how far off the ground I was. And that, if the horse wanted to go somewhere, I wouldn’t be able to control it.