Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

  “I will inform UNEF, then. They will be very pleased. I do have one question first; are you sure that bringing that ship back won’t be seen as you caving in to UNEF?”

  “Huh? No, why would they think that? There was no quid pro quo here. Ugh. You don’t understand Latin. I’ll use language you can understand; I did not make a bargain with UNEF. I got everything I wanted, and gave no concessions to them. Me bringing that ship back is a gift from the Benevolent All-Powerful Skippy. Plain and simple.”

  “All right then.” Personally, I was afraid that UNEF would see this as me being able having influence on Skippy, and being able to get him to do other things in the future. UNEF had better not get used to that. “One more thing, then.”

  “Really? I bring you a starship, and you want more? Unbelievable!”

  “This is simple, I promise.”

  “Fine,” he huffed. “What is it?”

  “That troopship has a Kristang name, right, some long-ass poetry thing?”

  “Correct. The Kristang traditionally name their troop carriers after soldiers who died particularly gloriously in battle. This one is called The Ever-Long Remembrance of Khost Vlakranda Who Served With Ultimate Honor.”

  “Wow. This Khost guy, what did he do?

  “Uh, well, his family is well connected in their clan, so naming the ship after him was partly political. He was a first son, and he died when his dropship got shot down. This was after he led a raid on another Kristang clan, a raid that resulted in the deaths of almost three thousand, including females and children. Also, there is suspicion he was drunk the day of that raid.”

  My mouth opened to remark that Khost was no hero, when I remembered the Ruhar Whales that I had shot down. Almost a thousand Ruhar had died then. For that action, the Kristang had insisted that I be promoted to wear the colonel’s silver eagles that now adorned my uniform. I am certain the Ruhar did not think I am any kind of hero. “Skippy, I want you to rename that ship as the Yu Qishan.”

  “Oh. Joe, it is not often that I say this, but in this case I completely agree with your suggestion.” Sergeant Yu Qishan of the Chinese Army had sacrificed himself to prevent a Kristang crewman from self-destructing the Flower when we boarded that frigate near Paradise. Everything we had accomplished since then we owed to Yu Qishan. “Done. The official designation of the ship is now The Ever-Long Remembrance of Yu Qishan Who Served With Ultimate Honor.”

  My intention had been to rename it as simply ‘Yu Qishan’, but what Skippy did was better. Everyone was going to call it the Yu anyway. “Thank you, Skippy.”

  UNEF Command was indeed thrilled when I told them the Yu would soon be back in Earth orbit. They also congratulated me for persuading Skippy to cooperate, even though I told them several times that I had nothing to do with it. And I’m sure that somewhere, Chuckles the Clown was patting himself on the back for getting Skippy to do what UNEF wanted.

  Maybe, in some way, he was right about that. Maybe he hadn’t manipulated Skippy into doing what UNEF wanted; maybe Chuckles had manipulated me into getting Skippy to do UNEF’s bidding.

  I didn’t like that idea at all.

  What I did enjoy was telling Lt. Colonel Chang about renaming the troopship; we had talked about honoring Sergeant Yu in some way, but hadn’t done anything about it until now. Truthfully, we had been kind of, you know, busy. Chang was visibly affected by my gesture of renaming the ship; I thought I saw a tear in his eye. He later told me that he had called Yu’s family personally to inform them of how UNEF was honoring their son. He did that before I told UNEF of the renaming, so that some idiot desk-bound bureaucrat at UNEF Command wouldn’t be able to order me not to do it. One thing that being in the military had taught me, is that it is better to act and ask forgiveness, than to hesitate and ask permission.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Flying Dutchman

  We finally jumped away from Earth orbit after only one or two minor delays. Before we initiated the jump sequence, Mr. Chotek wanted to give some sort of undoubtedly long-winded speech to the crew. He needed to assert himself as the mission commander, or mark the momentous occasion in his special way or something. So, I asked Skippy to open the intercom and a channel to UNEF Command on Earth.

  Sure, maybe I should have warned Chotek what was likely to happen. On the other hand, the best way to learn is through experience, and he was never going to forget this. So, I actually did him a favor.

  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

  What we on the bridge and in the CIC saw was Hans Chotek, wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie. Why he felt the need to wear a suit was a mystery; my order for the uniform of the day was not formal, but the military personnel were all wearing uniforms and I guess Chotek’s work uniform was a suit. What we heard was Chotek clearing his throat and saying “I would like to address the crew.” Then he launched into a prepared speech about the importance of this mission, and reminding people of our objectives. He was about halfway through the first objective when a Chinese pilot in the CIC snorted with laughter while she looked at a display screen, then she stood up straight, trying to be serious.

  What the rest of the crew, and people at UNEF Command on Earth saw and heard was not Hans Chotek in a suit. Through the video feed, they saw and heard Count Chocula, beginning with him saying “I would like to address the crew” in an exaggerated movie vampire accent. The Count then proceeded to explain the importance of our mission to bring delicious chocolaty breakfast cereal to the children of the world, and how much Franken Berry cereal sucked by comparison. While talking, the Count picked a booger from his nose, tried to flick it away, then smeared it on his jacket lapel. Without even seeing the video, I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing while Chotek continued his speech. Two minutes in, with him glaring at the crew in the CIC as they tried to suppress laughter, he was interrupted by Chang.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Chotek, there is a,” Chang had to pause to collect himself. “There is a problem with the video and audio feed.”

  “Problem?” Chotek asked, annoyed to being interrupted while giving the speech of his life.

  “Yup,” Skippy said. “Seems to be a glitch somewhere. I’m working on it.” Just then, every screen on the bridge and CIC began playing the video from the beginning. Chotek saw his image altered to appear as a vampire, saying “I would like to address the crew”.

  He was not amused. His face red, he glared at me. “Colonel Bishop, I would like to speak with you privately.”

  Crap. Now he was pissed at me. We still had half an hour before the ship would jump, so I gave the command chair to Chang, and Chotek came into my office around the corner. The door was barely closed when he started haranguing me. “Colonel Bishop, I will not tolerate a display of disrespect like that. I am a senior United Nations official-”

  “Pbbbbbbt!” Skippy made a raspberry sound. “Please, Chocky, you’re a senior bureaucrat, or a senior blowhard for sure, but what qualifies you to be part of this elite crew?”

  “My most recent assignment was in the Middle East. It took me five weeks, but I was able to negotiate a very difficult cease fire between the Israelis and Palestinians,” he said proudly.

  “Sure,” Skippy scoffed. “Except that nobody actually ceased firing during that ‘cease fire’. Basically, they stopped shooting just long enough to eat lunch and reload. Then your cease fire was over. What really happened is, the two sides strung you along for five weeks while they shot at each other all they wanted. Then, when they each needed a break, they agreed to your cease fire agreement, and ignored it. What else you got on your resume?”

  “The peace accords in Sudan.”

  “Uh huh. You mean one side in Sudan agreeing to peace, only after they had already killed or driven away seventy percent of the other side. Man, that must have been one tough agreement to negotiate.”

  Chotek stiffened. “Not every agreement is what we wish it could-”

  “None of your negotiated agreements have accom
plished anything useful, Chocky. You couldn’t even do disaster aid right. When you were in charge of the tsunami relief in the Philippines, more than half of your supplies were stolen by terrorist groups. The emergency shelter housing units you brought in were contaminated with toxic mold. And your UN relief troops infected the native population with cholera. The Philippines would have been better off if you had never quote, helped them, unquote.”

  “It is easy to criticize in retrospect what should have been done-”

  “It is even easier to claim you are a big shot UN official helping the world, when the truth is, you have never accomplished one damned thing of substance in your worthless career, Chocula.” Skippy was pissed. “Now you come aboard our ship when you are in no way qualified to join the Merry Band of Pirates, and you think your experience gives you the authority to tell us what we can and can’t do? Screw that. Where was your lazy ass the last two times we saved your miserable planet?”

  Chotek didn’t have an answer to that. Although, to be fair, there wasn’t a reasonable answer to that.

  “Skippy,” I interrupted before the argument got totally out of control. Damn it, we hadn’t even left orbit yet. “This ship is under the authority of UNEF Command; I am also under that authority. Mr. Chotek has been appointed as the mission commander, and I have agreed to implement his commands as the captain of this ship.” I did not say ‘whether I like it or not’ because everyone knew that is what I meant. “Mr. Chotek, I had nothing to do with altering that video, I have been a victim of Skippy’s pranks before. In my case, my image was replaced by Barney the idiotic purple dinosaur.”

  “And a monkey, Joe, don’t forget about the monkey,” Skippy said gleefully.

  “Believe me, I have not forgotten about the monkey. My point, Mr. Chotek, is that you will need to reach some agreement with Skippy. You are an expert negotiator? Then find some way to reach an accommodation with him. Because Skippy is one hundred percent essential to operating this ship. No one else onboard, including myself, are that vital to the mission.”

  Chotek had his arms folded across his chest, which I took as a bad sign. “Mr. Skippy has made it clear that he has no need to negotiate with anyone. Therefore, I do not see any basis for reaching an agreement of any kind.”

  “You don’t need to reach a formal agreement,” I suggested. “You just need to find a way to live together on this ship. It would help, sir, if you would develop a sense of humor about your interactions with our super powerful alien being.” I described Skippy that way to remind Chotek of exactly who he was dealing with.

  Given what I’d seen of Chotek so far, I was not optimistic about him growing a sense of humor. Skippy and Chotek were going to argue, and I was going to be caught in the middle.

  This could be a very long trip.

  Fort Rakovsky, Lemuria, Paradise

  “Damn, I’m hungry,” Dave said quietly. “Sorry, man, I know you’re hungry too, I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

  “Hey,” Jesse offered a hand, and he and Dave bumped fists. “Don’t worry about, it, Ski. If you can’t talk about it with me, you can’t talk about it with anyone.” Being part of a fireteam meant taking care of each other, and not just in combat. It meant making sure the other guys changed their socks so they didn’t get blisters. It meant checking they were staying hydrated, and eating nutritious food instead of junk. Although there wasn’t any junk food on Paradise now, so that last one was easy. And it meant listening when a fireteam member needed to talk about something. “Yeah, I’m hungry too. And we’re better off than most.” Because they worked on a dedicated Ag team, as chicken ranchers, Dave and Jesse were allotted extra calories each day. That allotment had been cut, three times, so that now their daily bounty was a mere 300 additional calories. Part of the reason for the cuts was that, with most of UNEF now settled in villages that had been carved out of Paradise’s southern continent, the majority of humans were now involved in farming and raising animals. Most people were on Ag teams by default, it was no longer a special assignment. The other reason was that even though UNEF had cleared thousands of acres and planted crops, the food supply was still tight. UNEF had quickly found that, in addition to growing crops for the general supply, each Ag worker needed to be allotted a certain number of acres just for themselves, as an incentive. People worked for incentives; that was why communism had been such a miserable and obvious failure. While soldiers could be ordered by headquarters to grow food for the general population, most people worked just a little bit harder on land they knew was their own. On their own plot of land, they grew whatever crops they wanted, assuming seeds were available.

  A new, informal human economy was being built on Paradise, based on trading food products. One village may grow a field of sugarcane on their private allotment; after harvest and processing, the resulting raw sugar could be traded for just about anything. A dairy needed a large amount of grain to feed the cattle; incoming grain was traded for fresh milk. And not just milk was traded; there was a booming business in butter and cheese. One village, located right on the equator of Paradise, grew nothing but peppers, and traded dried pepper flakes to spice up the mostly bland diet people were eating.

  “You know what I miss?” Dave asked while staring off into the corn field. Two thirds of the field was laying fallow in between harvests; waiting for more fertilizer to be delivered. Corn kernels were harvested, mostly to feed the chickens, and the upper parts of the corn stalks were shipped out as feed for cattle. Cows shouldn’t eat the lower part of a corn stalk, Dave had been told; it contained too much nitrates or something like that. That was yet another thing he hadn’t expected to learn in the US Army. He also had learned how to select and prepare corn to be used as seeds for the next harvest. None of this had been covered in basic training.

  The reason most of the field was not growing corn at the moment was simple, and frightening. Large fields of crops were big, easy targets for Kristang maser beams. The raider ships that were still regularly popping into orbit were hitting the human food supply as often as they targeted Ruhar infrastructure. In response, UNEF had ordered creation of smaller, widely scattered fields, to avoid providing tempting targets for the Kristang raiders. Creating those fields took time, and intense labor, and that took effort away from tending the fields that were already planted. The acres now under cultivation were supposedly enough to feed all of UNEF, with a safety margin for bad weather, crop failures and fields burned by Kristang masers. An adequate supply of food was mere months away, according to UNEF HQ. Whether that was true, or BS propaganda to boost sagging morale, depended on which rumors you believed.

  “What you miss?” Jesse asked. “Like getting enough to eat?”

  “That too,” Dave nodded. “I miss food from home.”

  “You don’t eat corn and eggs in Milwaukee?” Jesse had eaten plenty of corn in Arkansas, mostly in the form of cornmeal, cornbread, corn in a lot of things. Like his nickname, Cornpone. He’d eaten a lot of eggs, too. And now he was heartily sick of both corn and eggs. Ski had cooked up a deal to trade some of their private crops like sun dried tomatoes for sugar, spices and even a tiny hunk of cheese made right on Paradise. In their little spare time, they had cleared a field together and planted a type of wheat as an experiment; if it worked they were hoping to have wheat flour and possibly even wheat bread to trade.

  “You know what I mean. I miss the kind of food we don’t have here. Like beer brats.”

  “Beer brats? Like bratwurst? That’s German food, right? You’re Polish, I though you guys ate kielbasa.”

  “We do, I, my father’s family is Polish. My mother comes from French Canadian and Swedish people. And I’m like fourth generation American, they came over from Poland a long time ago. Beer brats are a Wisconsin thing.”

  “How do you cook them?” Jesse didn’t actually care how bratwursts were cooked, he knew Ski wanted to talk about it.

  Dave’s eyes lit up. “What my folks do it you get a pan, like an aluminum pan
, the thin disposable kind like they sell lasagna in? You know what I mean? You’ll probably throw the pan away, because it will get sooty from the grill. Ok, you got the pan, you slice up onions, and you add the brats and pour beer in to cover the brats.”

  Jesse looked skeptical. “Sounds like a waste of good beer.”

  “It doesn’t take a whole lot of beer, and you don’t have to use the good stuff. A dark beer is best; it adds more flavor. You cover the pan with foil and let it kind of poach or steam for a while.”

  “You kind of boil the brats? Why not do it on a stove instead of a grill?”

  “Because before you serve the brats, you take them out of the pan and grill them up for a few minutes. It gets the skin nice and crispy, so that when you bite into them, the juice bursts in your mouth oh,” Ski closed his eyes and licked his lips, almost tasting a delicious brat. “Put them on a bun, add the onions on top, man that tastes like-” Dave paused, lost for a moment as a shadow fell across his face. “It tastes like home, man.”

  “I know what you mean. That sounds good, I’d like to try that.”

  “Except we don’t have brats, or beer.”

  “We have onions.”

  “Yum!” Dave said with disgust. “What food do you miss the most?”

  “Oh, dang, there’s so much. Ch-” Jesse caught himself before saying ‘chicken and dumplings’ while he stood over the pen of tiny, peeping chicks. That would have been very bad luck. “Ribs. I miss babyback ribs.”

  “Memphis style?”

  “Of course. Or a dry rub, that’s good too.”

  “Mmm,” Dave smacked his lips, “I can taste it now.”

  “Me too. We’ve served together a long time, how come back when Bishop named you ‘Ski’, you didn’t tell him that you’re half Swedish?”

  “Like that would have made a difference?”

  “With Joe? No, I guess not. Sucks what happened to him.”