Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

“Absolutely. We need you to lead the science team. And Skippy wants you aboard because he says you tell good jokes. I didn’t know that.”

  Friedlander chuckled. “Why did the two blondes freeze to death at the drive-in theater?”

  “I don’t know?”

  “They went to see ‘Closed for the Winter’.”

  “Ha!” I laughed. “That is a good one. Skippy is right.”

  “Someone needed to lighten up our boring science team meetings. Colonel, I discussed the situation with my wife last night, and I will join the mission on two conditions.”

  “Ok, what are those?” Please, please, I said to myself, make it something reasonable.

  “First, this time we are coming back, correct? That is the plan?”

  “I’m the wrong person to answer that question, but, yes. Skippy has promised we will bring the ship back to Earth before the next mission, whatever that is. He wants to hold off contacting the Collective until he has answers about what happened to Newark, and some other things.”

  Friedlander gave an audible sigh of relief. “That is good to hear. My wife will be very pleased to hear that. And I’ve told her that being aboard the Dutchman is safer than going up in that spacecraft NASA is building. Don’t tell NASA I said that.”

  “I won’t. And your second condition?”

  “Promise me that I won’t be killed on some planet by a giant space lizard.”

  That made me laugh. “Doctor, don’t worry. If you are ever about to be eaten by a giant space lizard, I will shoot you first.”

  “That’s close enough, I guess. Colonel, would you like to see the list of people I want on the science team?”

  “It will be your science team, Doctor. The team is your choice; the seven best qualified people you can find.”

  “Whew,” he exhaled. “That’s a lot of pressure on me, then. Seven qualified people who are willing to leave on short notice, for an interstellar mission of unknown danger. Can I promise they won’t be eaten by a giant space lizard?”

  “Let’s not go crazy, Doctor. We may need to throw one of them to the giant space lizard to save ourselves.”

  In Paris, I met the new mission commander, Hans Chotek. We had a cordial and professional meeting, that I almost ruined by calling him ‘Chocula’. Luckily, I caught myself in time and said ‘Chotek’ instead. Skippy had shown me the mission commander’s resume and it was impressive, particularly for a guy in his early 40s. He had been all over the world and handled all kinds of crises for the UN; not all of them successfully of course because it is, you know, the UN. We got off on the wrong foot by him spending the first twenty minutes trying to impress me. Then he must have realized I was bored; my jaw-stretching yawn may have been a clue. So we talked about the mission objectives UNEF Command had given us. Given to him.

  “Sir,” I began, “I do have a problem with our mission objectives. One of them.”

  He looked mildly surprised. Whether he was surprised that I disagreed with the mission objectives established by UNEF Command, or surprised that a comparatively low-ranking sergeant/colonel would express doubts openly, I couldn’t guess. “Our primary objective-”

  I shook my head. “Our primary objective is correct, and I have no problem with it.” We were tasked primarily with determining what the Thuranin knew about the destruction of their surveyor task force, and whether they would be sending another ship to Earth. The primary objective also stated that if we found a way to establish an ongoing intelligence source to proactively warn us about threats to Earth, we should take the opportunity to do so. Fine. All that made sense to me. The only quibble I had about our primary objective was that UNEF Command had been frustratingly vague about what we were supposed to do if we learned another surveyor ship was on its way to Earth. If the Thuranin planned to send a surveyor ship, but that ship was not scheduled to begin its mission until well in the future, we were to take the Dutchman all the way back to Earth for consultation? If there was not enough time to consult with Earth, we were to ‘use our best judgment’. Meaning Chotek’s judgment, since UNEF Command had been clear that they did not trust mine. Were we supposed to prevent a second surveyor from reaching Earth, even at the risk of exposing the fact that humans were flying around in our own pirate starship? If so, what level of exposure risk was acceptable? UNEF Command had provided no guidance on that critical issue. Those damned cowards, who had reamed me a new asshole over the carefully measured and entirely successful risk I took in landing on Newark, were afraid to make any judgment of their own.

  Anyway, the first objective we were given was fine, we could manage any ambiguities when we had to. The decision would not be up to me; it would be Chotek who would make the final call. Except that I, Skippy, the Merry Band of Pirates and even Count Chocula himself fully expected me to mutiny and override Chotek’s decision if I thought it endangered humanity. Great. Whatever. Such is the life of a pirate captain. What I would appreciate is some nice pirate booty to go with the responsibility, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  “The problem is our secondary objective,” I explained.

  “To gather information about the Expeditionary Force on Paradise?” Now he was clearly surprised. “I do not understand. Mr. Bishop. Surely you of all people would want to know the fate of your fellow soldiers in UNEF.”

  “I would like to know; if the answer is they are all living happily ever after on Paradise,” I said with what I hoped came across as sarcasm. “The problem is that I think it extremely unlikely that fairy tale is the truth. It is much more likely that we are going to discover information that is not so favorable; that UNEF on Paradise is struggling or in danger, or being persecuted. And then what? What good does it do for us to have that unpleasant information?”

  “When we have information, we have choices, Mr. Bishop. Without informat-”

  “Choices to do what exactly, Mr. Chotek? I see one choice if we discover the Expeditionary Force on Paradise is endangered. We feel bad about it, and we do absolutely nothing. That is the same effective result as if we discover they are all living happy lives of luxury. In either case, we do absolutely nothing. We can’t do anything useful. We can’t do anything at all. We can’t even send them a message, because that would undoubtedly be intercepted by the Ruhar or Kristang or both. Then the whole galaxy would know that humans escaped from Paradise and are flying around in a pirate ship.”

  “Surely we can-”

  “Looking for trouble on Paradise goes against two principles I have learned in my career, Mr. Chotek. First, never ask a question for which you don’t want to hear the answer. Second, never give an order you know won’t be obeyed.”

  “What does that mean, Colonel?” He asked evenly, but I could see his Adam’s apple bob ever so slightly with anxiety.

  “Mr. Chotek, we have a crew of highly dedicated, highly trained, highly motivated special forces who have what we in the military call a ‘bias for action’. When they see a problem, they want to act, they expect to act. What do you think will happen when they learn our people on Paradise are threatened, or are actively being killed?”

  “I expect they are also highly disciplined, Colonel Bishop.”

  “What would you do?”

  “That would certainly depend on the situation, and-”

  “Great, then let me present you with an example.” I took a breath and plunged ahead. “Let’s say we are in the Paradise system, under stealth or however we get close enough to obtain intel. We learn, we see, that our people are in prison camps, being starved because they have run out of food and the Ruhar have a very limited ability to feed them. Half of the Expeditionary Force has already died of starvation. The Ruhar military force on and around Paradise is weak; weak enough that this ship could take them on easily. We could take the planet back, we could feed some of our people, we could even bring some of them home. What will you order us to do? You are the mission commander; this is your decision.”

  He took a moment to answer. “I see you
r point, Colonel. Any action we take would expose us, and endanger Earth. As difficult as it would be, my decision would have to be that the ship must remain in stealth, and return to Earth without intervening or revealing our presence.”

  “You expect that order to be obeyed? Do you really expect the crew of this pirate ship to stand down and do nothing, while our people, their comrades, are dying?”

  This time he did not answer immediately. “Would you obey such an order, Colonel?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “And if I passed that order on to my subordinates, I am not confident my orders would be obeyed.”

  “I see,” Chotek said thoughtfully.

  “We are all alone out there, Mr. Chotek. During our last mission, I was outside the ship in a spacesuit with a SpecOps team for zero gravity training. One of the special forces asked Skippy whether we could see the Sun from there, and Skippy enhanced the image in our helmet visors, so we could see the faint light of our home star. I remember Skippy reminding us that the light we were seeing then left the sun eighteen hundred years ago. The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean back then. Under that perspective, the authority of Earth begins to seem thin after we pass through a couple wormholes.”

  “Colonel,” he said, “you have given me much to think about. Please understand that I have limited flexibility about our mission objectives. UNEF Command made it very clear that they want to know the situation on Paradise. Unless there is a compelling reason for us not to pursue gathering information about Paradise, I do not see that I have authority to override that objective. Regardless of my personal feelings on the subject.”

  “A compelling reason?” I mused. “How about this? If you judged that pursuing intelligence about Paradise posed a risk of this ship exposing our presence out here, would that be a compelling reason to override our stated objective? Even if such exposure were, let’s say, inadvertent.”

  He pinched his chin. This was deeply troubling him. His entire purpose for being aboard the Flying Dutchman was because UNEF did not trust my judgment about keeping our pirate ship secret. Now he saw that assuring we took zero risk of exposure was a complicated calculation. Virtually anything we did on the other side of Earth’s local wormhole risked exposure. “I will need to think about this,” he said. “We have to achieve our primary objective first, then we will need to reevaluate our next steps. And, Colonel? I do appreciate that our primary objective involves considerable risk of us becoming exposed. None of these decisions will be simple, or easy.”

  I was glad to hear that, even if it was a little late.

  Flying all the way to Paris, except for meeting our new mission commander, was a waste of my time. After three days of me trying to run the ship from the ground, Skippy sent down a dropship, and I went aboard the Flying Dutchman. The ship was a beehive of frantic activity, even more than last time. The difference this time was, UNEF Command expected us to come back, so they cared that we had everything we might need loaded aboard. When Major Simms first saw me, she snapped a quick salute, threw up her hands, and shooed me out of the cargo bay so she could get a mountain of gear stowed away.

  “Sir,” a haggard-looking Major Simms said as she knocked on my office door frame a couple minutes later. “We have two more shipments coming up from Earth, then we’ll be fully loaded. I was able to get all the special items you asked for, except for this ‘Fluff’ thing,” she looked at me with a raised eyebrow. “I was able to get a different kind of marshmallow cream,” she held up a white plastic jar from a warehouse store. It was labelled ‘Marshmallow Cream’.

  I sucked in a breath. “Generic Fluff?” I sputtered in shock. Until that moment, I hadn’t known there was anything but true Fluff. The white jar in her hand emanated pure evil; I could barely look at it. “Major, that is an unholy abomination! You can’t make a Fluffernutter sandwich with, with, that.”

  She looked at the label skeptically. “Sir, it has the same ingredient-”

  “Major, do not mess with someone’s childhood,” I said with all seriousness. “A scoop of Fluff on top of a mug of hot chocolate on a cold day? Yum. Whatever that heinous imposter is in your hand there, we can’t have it aboard this ship. How much did you get?”

  “Four of these jars,” she said with great weariness. “I’ll send it back down when the dropship is unloaded.”

  “Hmm. I don’t want to risk contaminating the planet with that abomination. Could we toss it out an airlock and let it burn up in the atmosphere?” That suggestion was made only half-jokingly. This was all my fault. The list I gave to Simms of items I wanted aboard the Dutchman only had three items on it, but Fluff was one of them. What I should have done was buy a couple jars while I was home, but I couldn’t see myself lugging them around in my suitcase. UNEF Command already thought I was too immature for command. Maybe I could ask my parents to send a care package to Wright-Patterson, or wherever Simms was loading the dropships?

  “I will take care of it, sir,” she turned and left with a wry smile.

  I never did find out if she’d really tossed them out an airlock.

  I also never did get a jar of real Fluff.

  I wandered down to a cargo bay that had been set aside for special forces gear. Major Smythe was there with his SpecOps team leaders, personally checking every single piece of equipment. And making a list of the gear they still needed.

  “Welcome aboard again, Colonel Bishop,” Smythe said while snapping a salute.

  I returned the salute, and that was the end of the saluting that would be required aboard the ship, except for formal ceremonies. “Major Smythe,” I pointed to his new rank insignia. “Maybe I’m not saying this the right way, but I’m sorry that your special forces did not see much action on the last mission.”

  “Colonel, that is not a problem for us. We are here to provide an elite capability, whenever that capability is needed. Special forces are used to a lot of hurry up and wait, and clandestine missions when we are only needed if something goes very wrong. Most of the time, if the enemy knows that special forces have been in the area, we have failed our mission. On these missions, the enemy can’t even know that we exist. We understand that the need to avoid exposure severely limits our ability to engage in combat operations.”

  “It severely limits our ability to do pretty much anything out here,” I agreed.

  “We will be,” he ejected a clip from a Kristang rifle, then set the rifle carefully on a rack, “seeing substantially more action on this mission?”

  I nodded. “According to Skippy, there is no alternative. Do you feel up to combat against the Thuranin?”

  “Against genetically enhanced cyborgs with superior technology? My people will be ready, sir. Hopefully Skippy can give us some sort of advantage.”

  “He doesn’t think so,” I said glumly. “But I’ll talk with him.”

  I was in my cabin to change out of my formal uniform, when Adams called me from the CIC. “Colonel, we just received a message from UNEF Command.”

  “Go ahead,” I answered, spitting out a mouthful of toothpaste. Why did people always call when I was in the bathroom? Talking while kneeling on the floor of a cramped Thuranin bathroom seemed undignified, so I carefully stood up, wary of the low ceiling.

  “NASA has telescopes watching that Kristang troopship, and they’ve picked up an increased infrared signature. Something out there is heating up, sir.”

  “Uh huh. Thank you, Sergeant. I’m going to ask a certain shiny beer can what he knows about that.” I ended the call on my zPhone and looked at the speaker in the ceiling, knowing Skippy was always listening. “Hey, Skippy. Do you know anything about activity on that troopship?”

  “You monkeys noticed that, huh?”

  “Apparently, yes. You’re not trying to blow it up, are you? Please, please say no.”

  “Not blowing it up, Joe. I’m restarting the reactor temporarily, to get a partial charge for the ship’s jump drive coils.”

  “You are planning to j
ump it somewhere?” I asked hopefully.

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “I’ve been looking at the plans for the spacecraft you monkeys are building; it’s like a can made from newspaper and cow manure, only less flight worthy. I can’t stand the idea of brave but idiotic astronauts making a long journey in that flimsy piece of crap. But I still don’t want you monkeys whacking each other with sticks over that ship, so I’m jumping it halfway to your moon. Your nations will still need to cooperate to get above low Earth orbit.”

  “That is a nice surprise. Thank you, Skippy.”

  “Ah, don’t mention it. The socks I bought for your birthday are on backorder, so I had to get you something else.”

  “A starship beats socks any day.”

  “But these were very nice socks, Joe. And I got you a card and everything.”

  I laughed. “That is very much appreciated. How about this; for my next birthday, I’ll set up a gift registry, and you can select something from the list.”

  “Ooh, ooh, that’s a good idea. I saw this in a movie!”

  Considering that Skippy had probably seen every movie ever made, that was not surprising. I tried to think of how many romantic comedies had a gift registry as part of the plot. “What movie?”

  “It was the Wizard of Oz. For your gift, you want a brain, right?”

  Crap. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah you did. If it had been a tree, you would have broken your nose.”

  “Thanks for keeping me alert, I guess. When do you plan to jump that ship?”

  “We jump out of here in three days, so I’ll do it in two days. In case UNEF gets too excited, as soon as the jump drive coils are charged sufficiently, I am shutting the reactor down again. they’ll need to figure that out by themselves. And tell your NASA that Dr. Friedlander is not available to get that troopship’s reactor restarted. He started telling me a joke this morning, and he got interrupted. That rocket scientist weasel isn’t going anywhere until he tells me the freakin’ punchline,” Skippy grumbled.