“The one near Earth opened for no reason, Cornpone,” Ski said gently. “That’s what landed us in this mess in the first place.”
“That’s bullshit,” Eric Koblenz said, spitting on the ground for emphasis. Eric was part of another three-man Ag team, a team that Jesse and Dave had partnered with to combine and expand their private plots of land into a significant field of wheat. The other two partners were good guys, but Eric had been a problem from the start. He did his share of the work, that wasn’t the issue. The problem was that Eric was a ‘Keeper’.
Soon after the Ruhar took the planet back, and UNEF HQ ordered all humans to surrender, a movement called ‘Keepers of the Faith’ had sprung up on the zPhone network. Keepers held that UNEF should not have surrendered; that the Kristang were true allies, that the fortune cookie messages from Earth about the Kristang abusing humanity’s home planet and enslaving the population were somehow all Ruhar lies. That UNEF had come out to the stars to fight alongside the Kristang against the species that had attacked Earth, so UNEF should keep doing that; fight the Ruhar. Even if the Expeditionary Force on Paradise was wiped out to the last human, UNEF would demonstrate to our Kristang allies that humans kept their word, and such a demonstration of steadfastness and resolve would benefit humans back on Earth.
To Keepers, everyone else were ‘Traitors’.
“That’s all a lie by the hamsters,” Eric spat again, “and their UNEF HQ lackeys are just selling out again as usual. The wormhole near Earth didn’t just open up recently, that’s a lie the hamsters told us to explain why the Kristang had not been to Earth before they did. And that wormhole is not shut down now; the hamsters want us to give up hope so we’ll be easy to control. And you Traitors are stupid enough to listen to these lies.”
“Oh,” Dave sighed, “not this BS again. Look, man, if you want to talk about your whacko conspiracy theories,” he pointed to the jungle, “go put on your tinfoil hat and tell it to the trees. Because I’m not wasting my time listening.”
“Traitor?” Jesse asked angrily. “You best be careful throwing around words like that, asshole. How exactly are we giving aid and comfort to the enemy?”
“Damn, Jesse, don’t take the bait,” Dave warned but it was too late.
Eric put his arms across his chest. “You give aid and comfort every day, by not resisting them. The Ruhar know that sheep like you will never fight them, so they don’t have to garrison many troops here. You’re growing your own food, so the Ruhar don’t have to manufacture human food and ship it in.”
“Yeah, like you’re not helping to grow food,” Dave said sarcastically while pointing to Eric’s hands, dirty from harvesting tomatoes and peppers from the fields. “And I’ve noticed you haven’t refused to eat this food we grew with the hamsters’ help. See, Jesse, that’s how moronic the Sleepers are,” Dave used the derisive nickname for the Kristang loyalists. “When we eat food we grew here, we’re traitors, but when they do the exact same thing, they’re loyal.”
“Talk all you want. The Ruhar are keeping troops here and ships in orbit, because they know if they don’t, we Keepers will take the planet back. We are assisting the Kristang by making the Ruhar keep combat resources here.”
“Of course you are,” Jesse scoffed. “They’re afraid of what, the hoe you use in the fields? No, it must be the shovel you were using this morning. Hey, genius, the Ruhar hold the high ground. They can sit in orbit and pound the crap out of us down here, and there ain’t squat we can do about it. Unless you weaved together corn stalks to make a railgun.”
“Shut up,” Eric growled. He waved a finger at Dave and Jesse. “Your time will come, you’ll see. You Traitors will be crying then.”
Dave grabbed Jesse’s shoulder and squeezed. “Stay cool, Jesse. This piece of crap isn’t worth it. Don’t do it.” Alarmed about breakdowns in discipline now that soldiers saw themselves as nothing but farmers, UNEF had cracked down on fighting. Anyone who got into a fight, regardless of who started it, spent time in a hard labor camp. The prospect of building roads in the steaming jungle of Lemuria was an effective deterrent to fighting. For now.
Jesse relaxed slightly, still ready if Eric threw a punch. “You’re right, Ski, thanks for reminding me.” To Eric he said “If y’all want to fight the hamsters, you Sleepers best get at it, then. Leave us out of it,” Jesse smirked, “we don’t want to be within ten kilometers when the Ruhar turn where you’re standing into a smoking crater.”
“We do want a good view,” Ski added.
“Oh, yeah, man, I wouldn’t miss that,” Jesse said with a laugh.
Eric flipped them off with both hands and stomped off without another word.
“You’d think those Sleeper idiots would have woke the hell up when the lizards burned out that big field last month,” Jesse mused. A Kristang destroyer had popped into orbit and used its masers on a broad sweep to burn out several fields that were growing human food on Lemuria. There were several villages on Lemuria now almost entirely populated by Keepers; it wasn’t an official designation but most non-Keepers had asked for transfer out. The biggest field that had been targeted was a Keeper village; the masers had scorched an entire season of crops and killed thirty one people. ‘Keeping the Faith’ hadn’t spared the village from the Kristang’s predations. That destroyer had not targeted any Ruhar areas before it jumped away; it had focused entirely on damaging the human food supply.
“Jesse, save your breath, you can’t reason with idiots like him. They’ll tell you that Keeper village got hit because the Kristang see all humans as traitors. Their answer is we all need to be Keepers; then the Kristang will come back like Santa Claus down the chimney to reward all the good little girls and boys,” Dave said in disgust.
“Yeah,” Jesse nodded. “Like the school board in my home county. The answer to every problem is always they need more money. Whatever they were trying would have worked if only they had more money. They never stop think to maybe it’s what they’re doing that’s the problem.”
“Amen to that, brother,” Dave held out a fist, and Jesse bumped it. “They’re like my aunt Claire,” Dave went on. “When something bad happens to someone else, she says God is punishing them. When something bad happens to her, God is testing her faith. It’s the perfect system; no matter what happens, she’s right and everyone else is wrong.”
“She must be a lot of fun at the Thanksgiving table,” Jesse said.
Dave shook his head. “Aunt Claire doesn’t get invited to Thanksgiving anymore. That’s mostly because her new husband drinks too much and says stupid stuff. Last time they were there, he knocked the gravy boat onto the floor. The only one in the whole family who misses him is the dog.”
Jesse laughed. “That must have been the best dog Thanksgiving ever!” Then he looked at the sky, and his good humor faded. “We’re never going home, are we? Never. We can’t. This just can’t be real. Can it?”
“All I can say for sure is, if we really have no hope of ever going home again,” Dave glanced around warily. Eric had walked out of earshot, but he was talking with another Keeper, and shooting hostile looks in Dave’s direction. “Discipline will be going to hell in a hurry around here.”
Flying Dutchman
We had found the derelict Thuranin relay station right where Skippy said it would be. Before boarding, we checked out the interior with combots, in case the Thuranin had left any booby traps. The little green men had not bothered to booby trap the place; they had stripped it of anything useful before they left. That left a perfect training environment for us.
Major Smythe wasted no time in putting his SpecOps team through practice runs, and I joined them. Not because I fantasized about being a bad-ass special forces soldier; I was realistic about that. I joined the practice runs because I wanted to see first-hand what Smythe’s team would be facing.
After a walk through, we get into our two dropships to practice an assault for the first time. The dropship was crammed with people, we’d removed
the seats to get in as many people as we could. The only thing holding us in place was webbing, that was also our only cushioning when the dropship was maneuvering. Strapped in, I was putting my helmet on, and banged it into the helmet of the person next to me. “Sorry,” I said.
“No problem, Sir,” she replied. Her name was Lauren Poole, she was one of the US Army Rangers who was new to the Merry Band of Pirates. I suspected that Smythe had assigned her to babysit me, she kept popping up next to me in training.
“It doesn’t bother you to be upside down like that?” I asked. In order to cram people in, some people were hanging upside down from the dropship’s ceiling. To get loose, we all had to cut the webbing, and I was concerned that would create snag hazards. That was one thing we would discover in practice.
“No,” she replied with a twinkle in her eyes. “I started gymnastics when I was eight years old. Sometimes it feels like I’ve spent half my life upside down, Sir.”
“All right,” I shook my head, and pulled down the faceplate of my helmet. “Let’s do this.”
“This is still going to be bloody hard,” Smythe said as he took off his helmet. His short hair was plastered to his scalp by sweat.
I nodded, trying to catch my breath. We had just finished the sixth practice assault; the sixth time we had run through the final plan. This was after we tested five other plans multiple times. After the fourth exhausting day, I had lost count of how many times we had practiced various plans. I was worn out, and I wouldn’t even be participating in the actual assault, so my role in practice was as an observer.
What I had observed was not encouraging. Skippy acted as the Red team, our opponent, and he assured us that he was dumbing down his reactions to match the Thuranin cyborgs assisted by their AI. The combots that Skippy controlled were still lightning fast and deadly accurate. We had to use surprise, sheer numbers and maximum firepower to accomplish the objective. On the first practice run, we had failed; the last of our special forces died before getting into the core of the station from which Skippy could access and shut down the station’s AI. The second practice run was worse; we failed to breach the docking bay on our first attempt, and everyone died before they could leave the dropships. Having only two dropships was a serious limitation; both had to act as transports, each crammed tight with SpecOps people and combots. The interiors of both dropships had been stripped, no chairs remained; people were held in place by webbing to be cut away when they wanted release.
After our failure to breach the docking bay on the second attempt, we tried the Dutchman making a microjump to position the ship in front of the docking day, so the ship could hammer the doors open with her powerful masers. That third practice attempt ended with what at first seemed like a victory. Three of our special forces survived to penetrate the station’s core and Skippy was able to shut down the Thuranin AI. Unfortunately, the Dutchman got blown up in the practice run, so it was a failure. Skippy warned us that his calculations showed we would lose the ship 92% of the time; our beat-up star carrier could not survive combat at close range. So we went back to the original plan; as soon as our stealthed dropships opened fire on the docking bay doors, the Dutchman would jump away and await an ‘all clear’ signal.
The fourth, fifth and sixth practice assaults were successful, in that at least one person survived to reach the station’s core. The fifth assault had the best result, because in the end there were five special forces and three combots left combat effective.
This wasn’t working. “It’s too difficult, Major,” I agreed with Smythe when we had finished stowing our gear back aboard the Dutchman. Any operation that incurs 90% casualties is unacceptable, even if the survival of humanity might be at stake.
“The problem is that we lose too many people and combots while breaching the docking bay,” Smythe observed, “and then getting from the docking bay into the station proper. After that, we don’t have the massed firepower to overwhelm the enemy defenses. It becomes a short war of attrition; do we lose people and combots faster than we can advance.”
“I know.” I did. I’d been there, I’d seen combots go offline and people’s armored suits go stiff as Skippy declared them ‘dead’.
“Maybe there’s another way to breach that docking bay. Fly troops in just with suits, ahead of the dropships,” Smythe mused. “You’ve done an extensive spacedive, sir.”
“Yes, and I wouldn’t recommend it. Major, let’s get some rest tonight, and try it fresh again in the morning.”
“I would rather have another go at it today, sir,” Smythe’s tone indicated that I wanted a break because I was not special forces.
“Yes you do, because you SpecOps types are always go-go-go. When we conduct the actual assault, we’ll do it with freshly rested soldiers. We’ll rest tonight, then add fresh troops to the simulation tomorrow.”
Smythe nodded curtly, unconvinced. “I will get up early tomorrow,” said Smythe, who got up early every morning. “I want to get the equipment checked out early, that will save us time that we can use for practice.”
“I’ll join you,” I responded.
“Joe gets going a lot quicker in the mornings,” Skippy chimed in cheerily, “since he stopped shaving down there. It saves a lot of time.”
"Damn it, Skippy, I don't shave down there!"
"That's what I just said, you dumdum. Man, open your ears and listen once in a while," he grumbled. "Anyway, aren't those hairs already curly? Do you really need a curling iron down there?"
"Wha, I, don't, it's not-" I sputtered, while the team laughed uncontrollably.
"Fine, whatever. Don't complain to me the next time you burn your thighs with that iron."
I protested, feeling my face growing red already. Most of the special forces with us were new to the Merry Band of Pirates; they didn’t know how Skippy loved to make jokes at my expense. Shaking my head and holding up my hands, I walked out with what little dignity I had left. “I’ll see you at 0500, Major Smythe.”
Paradise
As a special treat, the residents of Fort Rakovsky, population nineteen, learned there would be a US Army general visiting them the next day. They learned this information not from UNEF HQ or the general’s staff, but from the grapevine of villages the general had already visited on the tour. Since the general was traveling by hamvee and there were few roads in the formerly impenetrable jungles of Lemuria, it was easy to predict where the general would be going next. While it would have been nice for the general’s staff to announce visits ahead of time, his staff expected the zPhone network to do the announcing for them. Any village that was caught off guard had to be either not paying attention, or was very much disliked by their surrounding villagers. Either way, such an incident would tell the general and his staff that something was seriously amiss.
So, the residents of Fort Rakovsky had the joy of spending a day of their off-duty time straightening up the village. Uncompleted hooches were worked on through the night, and all the buildings were cleaned. The already minimal amount of trash was consolidated. Personal garden plots were weeded once again, and selected ripe fruits and vegetables were picked a day ahead of the normal schedule. Someone found paint, and used the back of a crate to make ‘Fort Rakovsky’ signs to post on the roads coming into the village from east and west.
“This is the best it’s going to get,” Dave Czajka said while looking around the village’s only street with a frown.
“It’s good enough,” Jesse Colter assured his buddy. “Here they come.”
Around a corner of the road came three hamvees and a large truck, with lead vehicle flying both the UNEF and American flag. National flags were not encouraged, but this was the American sector of Lemuria, and a US flag flew from a pole in the center of Fort Rakovsky. To avoid excess wear and tear on the priceless and irreplaceable fabric, the flag was normally kept wrapped in plastic in a box, and only taken out for special occasions. Like the rare times when people from another village came to Fort Rakovsky to trade, a
nd there was a woman with them. In those cases, the village was scrubbed top to bottom with far more vigor than was given to any visiting general.
The general made a cursory inspection of the village, then walked over to check the fields, his chief interest on the tour. Mostly, he wanted to see what soldiers were growing on their personal plots of land. After an hour, he came to the extensive plot that Jesse and Dave shared with three other guys. “Impressive,” General Marcellus observed. “This land belongs to the five of you?”
“The five of us work this land, sir, we get more done when we work together. But the land belongs to six people,” Dave said. The ‘Keeper’ who had been a problem had arranged a transfer to another village, and his replacement got along well with everyone.
“Six?” Marcellus looked at the five men who were proudly showing their healthy personal crops. “The other guy doesn’t work?”
“He doesn’t work the land, sir,” Jesse explained. “He’s good at fixing things, so he lets us work his land in exchange for a cut of the crops. He repairs and maintains equipment for us and other villages around here, and they trade stuff in exchange for his labor. We get a cut of whatever he gets in trade.”
“I see. Captain Rivera, a word, please.” Marcellus walked a short distance with his staffer, and frowned. “This is a problem. This mechanic is trading away land that UNEF provided to him, instead of using it to increase the food supply. He is not performing his assigned tasks,” General Marcellus declared.
“Excuse me, sir, but I believe he is performing his assigned tasks during his duty hours,” Captain Rivera said. “His personal activities are performed during his off-duty time.”
“We gave people personal plots of land so they could grow food, Captain, not to use it as an excuse to slack off. Remind me again why I have an economist on my staff? And why the Marines sent an officer to Harvard to study economics in the first place.”
Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3) Page 15