Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

  Humans on Paradise, in short, were totally screwed, unless we could do something to help them. Without anyone ever knowing that we helped. Or that we even existed.

  No problem, right?

  “Joe, that is all the information I can get from here,” Skippy complained, sounding frustrated. “We need to go to Paradise. All I can do from so far away out here is decrypt signal traffic that leaks.” Most of the top secret message traffic that we needed was sent by tightbeam laserlink transmission, and Skippy could only pick up those messages from faint scatter when the laser beam hit the atmosphere or dust particles in orbit. It was a true Skippy miracle that he was able to intercept any messages at all, and I gave him props for it.

  “I know, Skippy. I’ll talk to Chocula about it.”

  Paradise

  General Marcellus had to break the bad news to his boss; he was able to get five minutes on General Nivelle’s calendar between meetings. As the acting UNEF chief of intelligence, it was Marcellus’ job to know everything that was happening on Paradise. It was also his job to keep his boss informed of anything important. Marcellus didn’t bother to sit down; hopefully the discussion wouldn’t last long. “Sir, there was another incident last night. A British woman was assaulted.”

  “Not again,” Nivelle sighed heavily. “That’s the second time this week. Where? What happened?”

  “Near the village of Churchill. She was, assaulted,” he used a polite term.

  “Who did it?” Nivelle asked angrily. Marcellus could see a vein throbbing in the French general’s forehead.

  “It appears to have been men in her own unit, Sir.”

  “Sacre bleu.”

  “Other soldiers in the same village heard her screams, and dealt with the situation before she could be seriously harmed,” Marcellus reported. Although knowing that men in her own unit had assaulted her, had to have caused serious emotional and psychological damage.

  Violence within the Expeditionary Force, while not widespread, was increasing. There were fights simply because people were bored and working too hard and morale was low, there were fights over food, and there were sexual assaults. To protect against the latter, UNEF HQ had set up ‘Safe Villages’ that only allowed women. That initiative had been a bad idea right from the start. It made the women of UNEF feel like second-class citizens, it made them question whether they could trust the men they served with. And as women who had been victims of violence or simply feared assault moved to the Safe Villages, the women outside such designated zones felt more and more isolated and vulnerable. The truth was, no one at UNEF HQ knew how to deal with the issue of sexual assault. Or how to deal with many, if not most, of the critical problems that faced the force every day. Not knowing whether the Ruhar or the Kristang would control the planet long-term prevented UNEF HQ from effectively making future plans. With the military situation still very much in flux, the force commanders understandably did not know what to do.

  General Marcellus had decided to deal with problems one day at a time. “There is a complication we need to address, General Nivelle. The men who broke up the assault killed the three attackers. However, it looks as if the attackers were killed some time after the assault, not in the process of stopping the attack.”

  “How long after?”

  “One, perhaps two hours,” Marcellus reported.

  Nivelle’s face was grim. “General Marcellus, I want there to be a swift investigation of this assault. I do not think, however, that it is necessary for there to be a deep inquiry into the subsequent events. Agreed?”

  “Agreed, Sir.”

  Flying Dutchman

  Hans Chotek approved us going to Paradise, only because Skippy was going to bring one end of a microwormhole with us in the shuttle, so we could be in constant, instantaneous communication. “Joe, I can tell you,” Skippy said privately, “that microwormholes can be rather complicated, delicate things, and they can suddenly shut down for no reason. If you know what I mean.”

  I figured I would keep that in my back pocket, for use in an emergency. When I say ‘us’ going to Paradise, I mean Skippy and me. No way was I going to miss out on this mission, it was way too important. I needed to be right there, seeing what was going on, making decisions in real time. To my surprise, Chotek quickly agreed, as long as all major decisions were reviewed by him. That left me suspicious that he just wanted me off the ship, but by then I was past caring.

  Going on the mission would be me, Skippy, Adams and Captain Desai as our pilot. Just the four of us; three humans and a beer can, in one of our smaller type of dropships. We would not be bringing along any of the SpecOps troops, and on that issue Chotek and I agreed, although for different reasons. My reasoning was that if a situation required combat troops, we were in way over our heads and needed to get away from Paradise. Chotek’s reasoning was that if I had SpecOps troops on Paradise with me, I would be tempted to use them in some risky mission. He didn’t trust my judgement. That is why UNEF Command sent him to the stars with us, so he was only doing his job. Anyway, it worked out well for both of us.

  Adams came along on the mission, I forget who suggested her first; me or Chotek. Count Chocula probably figured that Adams’ level-headed practical nature would keep me out of trouble. My reason for including her was that she had been on Paradise, that she had been with the Merry Band of Pirates since the beginning, and she knew me and knew how I think. Also, I wanted someone to talk with because we might be on Paradise for a while.

  During the flight down to Paradise, Captain Desai would fly the dropship in a maximum stealth flight profile. Since I was technically qualified to fly that type of dropship, my job was to sit in the copilot seat. Skippy joked that Adams’ job would be to shoot me if I tried to touch any of the controls.

  I hoped that Skippy was joking about that.

  The other reason our mission included only three humans and a beer can, was that we flew down to Paradise in one of our smaller dropships. Even the ‘small’ Thuranin dropship was the size of a Boeing 767, and it could accommodate sixteen people after we tore out the original Thuranin seats and replaced them with something that could fit a human. Sixteen people could fit; they couldn’t be comfortable. In order to get to Paradise, we had to fly most of the way there in the dropship; we couldn’t risk the Flying Dutchman jumping in anywhere close to the planet. That meant the travel time after leaving the Dutchman was eight days. Eight days in a dropship with two other people, and one bathroom that was sized for little green men.

  We jumped out of the star system entirely, and then spent nearly an hour with the star carrier accelerating to the proper velocity and direction. Then we jumped the Dutchman back in still far away from Paradise, our dropship quickly launched and the Dutchman was away again, accelerating at maximum thrust in normal space. Our pirate ship could not jump again, because that would break the microwormhole we relied on for communications. The speed boost we’d gotten from the ship meant that our dropship didn’t need to use any fuel to get to Paradise, only to slow down once we got there. Our dropship was wrapped in a stealth field, plus Skippy showed us a new trick wherein he warped spacetime between us and the planet, which helped mask the energy of the dropship’s engines as we decelerated before hitting the atmosphere. One reason we needed to preserve fuel is that our entry could not be the usual burning streak through the atmosphere of most descents; we needed our presence to be secret. Skippy was of course able to mask the dropship from the sensors of both Ruhar and Kristang, but anyone simply looking out a viewport of a ship would see the superheated light of us plunging down through the atmosphere. Our stealth field was on and operating perfectly, as perfectly as it could in an atmosphere. So we came in slow, using engine power to slow down and then lower us gradually; that burned up a whole lot of fuel.

  It worked, plus we came in at night, over the ocean far to the west of any inhabited land, and there was heavy cloud cover from twelve kilometers almost all the way to the deck. Almost skimming the wave tops, and
flying subsonic so the turbulence of our passage through the air could not be detected, we came over land. Skippy selected a spot in the mountains near the equator, the lush rainforest jungle there provided good cover to supplement the stealth field, and the location was not under any regular flight paths. The first thing I did after we landed was go behind a tree and pee, without having to kneel and bump my head in the tiny Thuranin bathroom of the dropship. Then we set up a tent; whoever was on duty could be in the tent sheltered from the daily rain showers, while we would use the climate-controlled dropship for sleeping, cooking and eating.

  “It’s strange to be back here,” Adams said, staring off into the distance after we got the tent set up.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. It was strange to be back. When I closed my eyes, the scent of the tropics was exactly the same as what I had experienced when I was stationed at the Launcher. That made sense; we were only 500 kilometers from the Launcher base complex. For a moment, I just stood there and let the memories wash over me.

  Adams sighed wistfully. “We both have a lot of people we know on Paradise, and we can’t contact any of them. I feel like I went back for my high school reunion, but I’m hiding in the bushes, looking through the window.”

  “Sergeant, I feel the same way. We can’t contact anyone, in any way that might reveal our presence here.” I said that to remind myself more than her. What would I do if I learned that someone I knew was in trouble, and I could help? I couldn’t help, period. We were back on Paradise for a specific mission, and after that mission was complete, we were leaving without any of our old friends knowing we had ever been there. That sucked, but, so did the whole situation for UNEF. If our mission was successful, we could help improve things for UNEF.

  Then I called Chotek to check in, and get his approval for the next phase of the operation.

  Skippy began marauding through computer systems of the Ruhar and the Kristang even before we landed, and as I finished setting up the tent, Adams told me Skippy had found important information.

  “First, of course, both sides detected the Dutchman jumping in and then not jumping out again. Neither side has been able to identify the type of ship, and speculation is running that it is a rival Kristang clan monitoring the situation on Paradise, in case there is an opportunity to screw the Swift Arrow clan out of the planet. Anyway, the good news is that no one suspects our pirate ship is involved, and no one is interested in chasing after it. They also have no idea we landed. As to what has been going on here, well, this is odd,” Skippy reported. “As you requested, Joe, I checked on people you know first. You will be happy to hear that everyone on your list is alive and well. It was a short list, still, every one of them have survived. What is odd is that they all are or were being held by the Ruhar.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I am sure you will be surprised to learn that at one particular facility are Emily Perkins, Shauna Jarrett, Dave Czajka and Jesse Colter.”

  “Shauna is with Cornpone and Ski?” He was correct, I was completely surprised by that. “Emily Perkins? Do you mean Major Perkins, the intel officer?” Her first name had never come up in conversation. But then, our conversations had been limited to me passing on very bad news from the Burgermeister.

  “Correct, Major Emily Perkins,” Skippy confirmed. “The four of them have been held by the Ruhar for months. At another facility were Sergeant Greg Koch and the three members of the fireteam you lead at the village of Teskor; Baker, Chen and Sanchez. Also with them are three people who were with you on the day that the Ruhar attacked Fort Arrow; Amaro, Pope and Rogen.”

  “I don’t understand. Why is Sergeant Koch with them? And what is Shauna doing with Dave and Jesse?”

  “The grouping of people was random, according to records of the Ruhar. They picked people up wherever they were, and brought them to the closest Ruhar military base.”

  “Picked them up why?”

  “The Ruhar interrogated everyone who knew you personally on Paradise, Joe. They know that you broke out of prison and flew away in a stolen Dodo. It is not surprising that the Ruhar are intensely curious about how you managed to do that. It would be very surprising if the Ruhar had not investigated the incident. The first thing they did was interrogate all the people at Major Simms’ logistics base. After that proved fruitless, they moved on to other potential sources. No one told the Ruhar anything, because no one on Paradise knows anything. The Ruhar have concluded that the humans they interrogated likely do not have any useful information. Sergeant Koch and his group were released already; they are on a train bound for Lemuria now. Major Perkins and the other three were officially released three days ago; they are currently waiting for transportation. A train will be stopping for them tomorrow morning.”

  “Were they treated well by the Ruhar?” I asked anxiously.

  “Yes, Joe. Except for a bland diet, they were not harmed in any way. The Ruhar kept them safer than they would have been on Lemuria. Your old friend the Burgermeister took a personal interest in them.”

  “She is still here? As the deputy, uh, administrator or something?”

  “Indeed she is. Joe, she knows the Ruhar government is negotiating to give the planet back to the Kristang. She is personally opposed to the idea; because she sees it as a betrayal of the native population who have built homes and lives there. She is also powerless to do much about it, other than to scold her government for selling out their own people. Based on conversations she had with the Ruhar Commodore who commands the small task force here, she does appreciate why the Ruhar fleet does not want the responsibility of defending such a relatively isolated and unimportant planet.”

  “Good. She always was straight with me. They’re going to be on a train, huh? That complicates things. I want to give our message about the projectors to Czajka and Colter.” Sergeant Koch was with too many people who I didn’t know as well. “We served in combat together. I know them, and I trust them.”

  “That’s no good, sir,” Adams declared. “You said that whoever we contact can’t ever know that you are involved. Anyone else but you would logically contact Major Perkins first. She’s an officer, and an intel expert. The other three may be your friends, but they are low-ranking soldiers, they wouldn’t be the first to receive an important communication like this. The only reason someone would contact Czajka or Colter instead of Perkins, would be a personal relationship with those two. They know that you, me, Chang and Desai survived the hit on our jail, and they know the four of us flew away in a stolen Dodo. We can’t do anything that may make them guess that any of us are involved. We need to contact Perkins first.”

  “Yeah, Joe, what do you think of that?” Skippy asked gleefully. “You’re not so smart after all, huh? Sarge Marge is right; this message needs to come from an unnamed source.”

  “Skippy, come on, we can’t do the trick again where we pretend you are some top secret UNEF cyber unit. Perkins knows that there aren’t any humans on Paradise with the technology-”

  “Not humans.” Adams said. “Ruhar. We hint to Perkins that the source of the message about hidden projectors is a group of native Ruhar. Ruhar who know their government is pulling the rug out from under them, and they can’t go to their own military for action. The natives want to knock out that Kristang battlegroup, so they get a group of humans to do it for them. That way, if the operation goes south, they can deny the whole thing.”

  I was stunned. “Holy shit, Adams, that is a genius idea. How did you think of that?”

  She cocked her head at me. “I didn’t, it’s an old idea. What do you do if you’re weak and you want to defeat a superior force?”

  That was an easy one, I didn’t even need to consult the Army field manual. “You engage in guerilla warfare.”

  “That, or you do it the easy way,” Adams explained. “You get a bunch of lobbyists and celebrities to persuade our government to send in the US Army to do the fighting for you.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” I offered Adams a
fist bump and she took it. “That is a good idea, Perkins will certainly be ready to believe it. She was in Nigeria, and a couple other trouble spots before that. Damn,” I said admiringly, “that is a good idea, Sergeant. Of course the native Ruhar would want to disrupt negotiations, and surely some rumors have gotten out. Agreed, we contact Major Perkins.” I thought for a moment what the message should say. “Hmm,” I bit my lip. “I can compose a message, but I need to make sure I don’t write it in language that people will recognize as mine.”

  “No problem Joe,” Skippy said cheerily, “no one will know the message is from you. Unless the message starts with ‘duh how about this’. Or if it has terrible grammar and it rambles on and on forever before finally getting to the freakin’ point.”

  “I ramble on and on? What about-”

  “We’re not talking about me here, Joe,” Skippy said hastily. “Don’t try to change the subject. Just don’t write the message like a fourth grader. And don’t use any of your horrible Maine Yankee slang. Like,” and he changed his voice, “by golly bejeeesuz I mowed down that lobstah at dinnah, it was a Gotdamn feast, I tell ya.”

  “Oh my God, Skippy, you sounded just like my father’s uncle Virgil,” I laughed. He had even correctly pronounced ‘God’ with a T sound on the end, the way God intended.