Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

  “Because, sir, the United States Marine Corps is a forward-thinking organization, and they anticipated Earth would be invaded by aliens, leaving a major force trapped offworld to develop its own independent economy,” Rivera said with a deadpan expression. “My master’s degree is in management; economics was my undergrad major.”

  “And you signed up for the Marine Corps,” Marcellus shook his head in wonderment.

  Rivera grinned. “It turns out there are not a lot of practical applications for a bachelor’s degree in economics.”

  “Did you consider the Coast Guard?”

  “I wanted to see the world, sir. Seeing other worlds is a bonus.”

  “Then use your Harvard training, to explain to me why I shouldn’t discipline a soldier for trading away land that was given to him for the purpose of him growing food.”

  “Because, sir, he is making the best use of the resources available to him, including his skill set. He might be terrible at farming, but he is good at fixing and maintaining equipment. If he used his off-duty time to grow crops, we would only have one more unskilled farmer. With the arrangement he has devised, his plot of land is being put to its best use, and his skills are being used to make people who are farming more productive by providing them with reliable equipment. Specialization of labor is key to an efficient economy; everyone does what they do best. Eventually, sir, we will need to establish a form of currency; this barter economy of people trading corn for tomatoes and so on, is inherently inefficient.”

  Marcellus looked at the sky and muttered to himself. “Somedays, I wish I was still a private carrying a rifle. Life was so simple back then.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rivera said simply, because there wasn’t anything else to say.

  “Back in the hamvees, captain,” Marcellus said, “we have another four of these villages to visit today.” Touring villages might not benefit the residents in any way, but they were opening Marcellus’ eyes. His intel report back to UNEF HQ should open some eyes there. His greatest concern was that, as soldiers became fulltime farmers, people were going to increasingly question what authority UNEF had over them. Eventually, the military command-and-control arrangement would give way to, he shuddered to think, democracy. Elections. Politics.

  What, he asked himself, was this world coming to? This alien world.

  Flying Dutchman

  An idea hit me at 0337 that morning. This time, I literally did dream something up. “Hey, Skippy?”

  “What? Is this important? I’m watching a late-night infomercial about how I can get stains out of fabrics. It’s not helpful, but it sure is funny.”

  “That’s great, Skippy. I have a question for you; can you fake a high-security message from Thuranin military command?”

  “Please, Joe. Easier than you can get a red wine stain out of a white carpet. Now why would anyone install a white carpet in their house? And if they had white carpet, why would they buy red wine? Unless they bought white carpet and red wine just for an infomercial. I smell a conspiracy here, Joe.”

  “That mystery has confounded mankind for centuries, Skippy,” I agreed. “Could you convincingly fake a message that the Dutchman is on a secret mission for the Thuranin high command or whatever, so we can fly dropships right into that relay station’s docking bay?”

  Silence.

  “Skippy? Listen, I’m sure that you could rewind that infomercial if you really-”

  “Holy shit. Holy shit! Why didn’t I think of that? Damn it! Joe, Joe, I hate my life. Oh, this is so humiliating. That is a great idea.”

  “Skippy, I promise that I won’t tell anyone it was my idea-”

  “Why thank you, Joe-”

  “-until breakfast.”

  “Thus reminding me of why I rightfully so very much hate you, Joe.”

  “I love you too, Skippy.”

  “Don’t get too cocky, monkey. Of course I can create a convincing message, with the proper Thuranin multi-level encryption and military authentication codes. I did that while you were saying ‘breakfast’, which because your monkey brain works so slowly I heard as ‘buh-urr-ehh-kkk-fff-ass-”

  “Got it, Skippy. What’s the problem?”

  “We would need that station to receive the message before the Dutchman jumps in on their doorstep. Our modified star carrier would raise way too many suspicions if we just showed up and said ‘trust me’.”

  “Crap. So we need another ship to carry the message for us?”

  “Yup. And we can’t transmit a message directly to that ship, either, because any Thuranin ship is going to look at us with great suspicion.”

  “But you do have a plan, right?” I asked, dreading the answer.

  “Certainly, and well, heh, heh, you are very much not going to like it.”

  Damn. Whenever I heard Skippy’s nervous ‘well heh heh’ it set off my Spidey senses.

  I very, very much did not like Skippy’s plan to get a message loaded into a Thuranin ship, but Smythe very much did like my plan for his SpecOps team to gain access to a relay station docking bay without fighting for it. We changed the simulations so that our two dropships were invited into the docking bay by the Thuranin, and we then only needed to breach the inner doors. Twelve practice runs resulted in much improved results; most times we took the station quickly, and even the practices that went comparatively badly achieved our goal. Casualties were still unacceptable to my mind, even Smythe was bothered. My guess is that SpecOps people are so used to being elite that they had a difficult time contemplating any sort of failure. Smythe reminded the special forces of three very important facts. First, the people aboard the Flying Dutchman were indeed very special forces; the absolute most elite and capable combat forces humanity had ever developed. Second, we would be operating on the enemy’s territory, against well-prepared defenses in which the enemy had every advantage. And third, the enemy were genetically-enhanced cyborgs with lightning-quick reactions and an instinctive link with their deadly combots. The fact that humans had any chance to capture a Thuranin relay station was an enormous tribute to the dedication and training of the SpecOps team.

  The twelfth and last practice run resulted in ‘only’ two dozen casualties and a successful seizure of the station. Smythe told me he did not think further practices would yield better results; we now had a precise plan. Execution of the plan would be up to Smythe’s team. It sucked for me to think of sitting safely aboard the Flying Dutchman while my crew took the risks.

  Paradise

  Jesse walked wearily from their private allotment up the hill to the village that had sprung up. Fort Rakovsky now boasted actual buildings, made of wood logged from the jungle around them. Jesse and Dave were constructing their own dwelling, that they called a ‘hooch’, out of timber and a sort of canvas. Eventually, they hoped to replace the canvas. It was only half finished, but already beat the cramped tent they’d been living in for what seemed like forever now.

  As he came around the corner of a large tent and was startled. “Ah!” He pulled up short like he’d seen a snake. “What the hell is that?”

  In front of the hooch they’d been constructing off and on, Dave Czajka was sitting in the sunshine, with a huge grin on his face. Sitting on a couch. The ugliest, most awful couch Jesse had ever seen in his entire life. He’d never even imagined a piece of furniture could be so ugly. It was covered in a wild, garish pattern of some flowers the hamsters liked.

  “It’s a couch,” Dave explained. “Our couch. The supply wagon came through, they had some furniture the hamsters discarded. I traded for it. Didn’t cost us much.”

  “You bought that horrible thing? Damn, Ski, I’ve seen couches on the side of a highway that looked better. That’s after they got run over a few times, and sat out in the sun and rain for years. Damn!” He shielded his eyes. “I can’t even look directly at that thing.”

  Ski looked at where he was sitting. In truth, the couch had seen better days. “You’re exaggerating, it’s not that bad.”

/>   “Bad? It’s heinous, man! We’ve got to get rid of it, pronto. That thing is a crime against humanity.”

  “Come on, ‘Pone,” Ski used the shortened version of Jesse’s nickname, “it’s not that bad.”

  “Bad? It’s hideous. Damn! My Ma brought home a couch like that, it used to be her mother’s, and I think it belonged to her mother’s aunt before that. That couch was evil, Man, I tell you. It sat in the living room, my father wouldn’t even go in there. One night my Ma comes home, my Pa and I were trying to perform an exorcism like in that old movie, you seen it, right? Ma walks in, we’re standing there in the living room with a Bible and a cross, shouting ‘The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!’” Jesse broke up laughing while telling his own story, remembering his mother’s expression.

  Looking at Jesse, Ski couldn’t help laughing too. “What happened?”

  “That evil thing defeated us, or we got the words wrong or something. My Ma was not amused, and that damned couch was still there the next morning. Ma did compromise by putting a cover over the couch, so maybe we did chase that couch’s evil spirit out of my Ma. My Pa still refused to sit on it.”

  “How about we get a priest or someone to perform an exorcism on this thing?” Ski offered. He hated to give up the couch entirely; furniture was on very tight supply on Paradise.

  “A human exorcism won’t work on an alien couch, Ski,” Jesse explained the obvious, although he was taking a second look at the couch. It was so amazingly ugly that it was kind of cool. “You know why the hamsters gave it up, don’t you? It was ugly even to them.”

  “Maybe we can throw a coat of paint over it, or fabric dye?”

  “I don’t know.” Hesitantly, Jesse touched the fabric. “This alien stuff probably has some high-tech stain blocker. That isn’t going to work.”

  “Pone,” Ski lowered his voice. “We need real furniture, we can’t keep living on old packing crates and busted up containers.”

  “That’s been good enough for-”

  “Girls,” Dave emphasized, “expect guys to have at least a couch, you know?”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh.”

  Jesse’s eyes grew wide as he imagined the possibilities. “You are a freakin’ genius, Ski. Hey, you know what, that couch is so ugly that it’s a, what do you call it? A conversation piece.”

  “There’s only one other real couch in all of Fort Rakovsky,” Dave pointed out.

  “Hmm. You know what we need now?” Jesses asked, suddenly looking at the couch in a new light.

  “What?”

  “A real coffee table.”

  “We don’t have coffee, there’s none left on Paradise.”

  “One thing at a time. Couch first, then coffee table. Then we invite girls over, after we get the hooch finished.”

  Dave gave a big thumbs up to that. Neither he nor Jesse mentioned that there were exactly zero women in Fort Rakovsky, population nineteen. The closest women were in Camp Toffler, a half hour walk away. Women sometimes came to trade goods, and they saw women when they made the weekly drive into the ‘big’ town of Fort Cherokee.

  “What are you waiting for?” Jesse asked, suddenly no longer tired. “Let’s get this couch under cover before it rains, and then we get working on finishing the hooch.”

  Flying Dutchman

  Dinner that night was cooked by the American SpecOps team, and I had been thinking about it all day. They were serving steaks! Although the galley had a grill, these steaks were prepared steakhouse style. Seared on one side, then the steaks go into an oven to bake so they stay juicy. When they were put on a plate, the seared side goes up because it looks nicer. Anyway, we were having steak! Everything we ate aboard the Flying Dutchman was good; each national team wanted to outdo the others, and Major Simms had loaded a wide variety of food into our cargo holds. Much of it was frozen or irradiated, of course. We also had fresh herbs and vegetables from the hydroponics lab, which had begun as an experiment and now regularly provided fresh food.

  Skippy disapproved when he saw me skip the vegetable tray, after my plate was weighed down by a juicy steak. “Joe, you need to eat your veggies,” he scolded me from the speaker.

  “Duh,” I responded. “Do you know how many veggies this cow ate? Tons! I’m getting my veggies in concentrated form.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, sir,” Sergeant Adams said as she scooped some green thing onto my plate. I should have known better than to get in line behind her.

  “What is that?” I asked suspiciously.

  “Brussel sprouts. Don’t worry, they’re not boiled to mush like school lunch Brussel sprouts. These are cooked in a pan with olive oil, salt and pepper, and then they put a little bit of maple syrup on it for you. They’re good. Get some salad too.”

  “Is that an order, Staff Sergeant?”

  She looked at my collar. “Not when you’re wearing that uniform, Colonel. It’s a suggestion, not an order.”

  I put salad on my plate. And, damn it, she was right, it turns out that Brussel sprouts are good. Especially with real maple syrup.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Flying Dutchman

  Chotek called a meeting to discuss how we were going to get the data we needed, and how Skippy could load a message aboard a Thuranin ship. A message that would be delivered to a Thuranin relay station, stating that a funny-looking shrunken star carrier would be arriving on a top secret mission, and that the relay station should open the docking bay doors for a pair of dropships. The message would also state that the crew of the station had won a free cruise, and all we needed was their credit card numbers.

  Ok, that last part I made up.

  When Skippy had said ‘well, heh, heh, you are very much not going to like it’ about his plan for us to plant a message in the computers of a Thuranin warship, I knew that I would not like his plan. What I did not know is that the thing I wouldn’t like was, Skippy not having a workable plan. “Skippy,” I groaned in frustration, “you said I would very much not like your plan.”

  “Uh huh. I don’t have a plan that will work, and you very much don’t like that, right? I’m just trying to keep you on your toes, Joe. There are many, many possible plans, however none of them will actually work. Unless I’m missing something.”

  “You’ve done this sort of thing before, Mr. Skippy,” Chotek observed, sounding annoyed. He looked down at his tablet, consulting notes about our mission reports. “On your first mission, you used a series of microjumps to remain in proximity to a Thuranin battlegroup, in order to download data about the military situation in the sector. On your second mission, you flew by a Thuranin tanker ship, and obtained the rendezvous coordinates for the surveyor ship. You were also able to alter the tanker ship’s computer, so that it dropped flight recorder drones before each jump.”

  “Bing bing bing bing!” Skippy rang a bell. “Winner, winner, chicken dinner! You are correct, Chocky, I did do those things, because I am Skippy the Magnificent. Doing those two things was much, much, oh so much easier than what we have to do next. Or what I have to do next, since you are not going to do anything useful, while I do all the work. Whatever that is.”

  “Why?” Chotek asked. It was a reasonable question. “Why is this significantly more difficult? The task appears to be no different from actions you have already performed very successfully.”

  “Ugh,” Skippy groaned. “Colonel Joe, do I truly have to waste my time explaining simple facts to the cereal mascot?”

  “Skippy,” I replied trying to be tactful, “you do need to explain the situation to the mission commander,” I nodded toward Hans Chotek. “I think the rest of us, me included, would appreciate a more complete understanding of the difficulty involved.” In this case, I did have to agree with Chotek; the task sounded relatively straightforward to me. Hopefully, this time I could avoid an extended spacedive that ended with me almost plunging into the atmosphere of a gas giant planet. And peeing in my pants.

 
“Fine,” Skippy huffed. “The first time was easy, because all I did was randomly skim data from the memory of a Thuranin command ship. It didn’t matter what data I got, because I knew I would be able to piece together a very rough overview of the military situation in the sector. A command ship would have basic data on battlegroup deployments, right in the command ship’s navigation system. I knew where to get the data I wanted, so I was able to reach in and scoop up whatever was on top. The second time, we approached a tanker, a ship with a much lower level of security than a warship. The data security and sensor acuity of a tanker is an order of magnitude more crude than a Thuranin warship. In that case, again, I knew the data we needed would be in the ship’s navigation system, and I knew that data would be queued up in a recent update. Easy in, easy out. Planting a virus in the tanker’s computer was also easy, because the ship’s cybersecurity was laughably crude. Like, their password was ‘password’.”

  He paused to make a sound like taking a deep breath. “This task will be, as I said, much more difficult. We need detailed fleet deployment plans, plus the crew rotation schedules for data relay stations across the sector. Only a warship will have that data, and I have to download the full dataset; we can’t afford to miss anything important. Then, I will need to plant a message in the ship’s databank. Thuranin warship AIs are not stupid. Back when we microjumped around and I pulled data from the command ship, that ship’s AI knew I was downloading data, and it actively resisted me. After we left, that AI would have thoroughly inspected the integrity of its databanks. If I had left a virus, or planted a message, the AI would have found it. With the tanker, that ship’s AI never knew I was there, so it never ran a diagnostic of its systems. What we need to do now is approach closely to a Thuranin warship, and maintain close contact for an extended time, like at least three to five minutes. So, we can’t just fly by. And whatever we do, the ship’s AI can never suspect we were there.”