Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

  “The Kristang have become even more divided and distracted?” I asked. “That can only be good for us.”

  “That is my thinking, Joe, but then, I am not a strategic genius like Count Chocula here.”

  Chotek’s face now grew red. He hated that nickname, hated it especially since he knew the entire crew used that nickname when he wasn’t around. Skippy, always being helpful, had hacked into Major Simms’ logistics database before we departed Earth, and somehow four crates of Count Chocula breakfast cereal had been added to the supply list. We had enough Chocula cereal aboard that we simply had to eat it; oddly enough, some people on the French team apparently loved the stuff. Most mornings, Hans Chotek could be fairly certain of seeing his namesake likeness on a box at breakfast, and someone always snickered quietly. It had to be eating away at him. Creating a subtle daily disrespect for our UN bureaucrat was a great way to ensure that, if I ever did have to mutiny and override his orders, the crew would follow me.

  Giving Chotek that nickname proves that Skippy is a freakin’ genius, and not just at physics. Sometimes I worry that he is just as good at manipulating me.

  “Skippy, that is great news about the surveyor ship. Have you found any data about whether the Thuranin will be sending another ship to Earth?” That was my greatest fear. I could not see how we could destroy a second surveyor mission to Earth, without the Thuranin growing very suspicious why someone wanted to prevent ships from going to humanity’s home planet. Two missions to Earth being destroyed, along with the wormhole to Earth mysteriously shutting down, would bring unwanted attention to our little world. Maybe enough attention to get the top species like the Maxolhx and Rindhalu curious, and alarmed, about humans.

  The problem of the Thuranin sending a second ship had been the subject of intense study by UNEF Command before we left, and that brain trust had come up with exactly zero realistic ideas for dealing with it. Many nights, I lay in bed, trying to fall asleep but with my mind racing. Trying to dream up a way of save Earth, again. The only possibility I could see of stopping another surveyor ship, without exposing our secret star travel capability, would be to hit the second surveyor ship at its spacedock before it ever began the mission. We would need to somehow destroy the spacedock and many other ships at the same time, so the Thuranin would never realize the surveyor ship had been the target. To do that, we would need a lot of nukes, and we would need to locate the spacedock, get there on time, and sneak up on the target with our degraded stealth capability. That would certainly be a suicide mission for the Flying Dutchman, so we would never know if our desperate attack was successful in protecting Earth or not.

  Skippy answered my question. “The Thuranin have notified the Fire Dragon clan Kristang that their hired surveyor ship was destroyed in the course of its mission, so the Thuranin are invoking the catastrophic loss clause of the contract, and refunding only a small part of the payment. They also, hee hee, this is funny, they told the Fire Dragons that they should have paid extra for insurance. That wasn’t a joke, by the way. The little green men did actually offer to sell insurance to the Fire Dragons, but the lizards couldn’t afford it.”

  “So, there won’t be a second surveyor ship mission to Earth?” I asked fearfully.

  “No any time soon, no,” Skippy confirmed. “Loss of the surveyor ship has caused the Thuranin to jack up the price of a second mission, above anything the Fire Dragons can afford to pay. There are rumors of the Fire Dragons attempting to create a coalition to raise the money. But if the Fire Dragons are able to create a coalition, then they would be able to avoid the civil war that is the entire purpose of sending a ship to Earth in the first place. There will be a meeting of Kristang clans later this year, that is when the Fire Dragons hope to propose a coalition. There is another factor to consider, Joe.”

  “What’s that?” Good news, I fervently wished. Good news, only good news.

  Skippy read my mind. Although he said he couldn’t do that. “Good news this time. The Thuranin have been hurt badly by the Jeraptha in this sector; they are not eager for the distraction of another long mission to Earth. A recent loss of territory to the Jeraptha means that any mission to Earth would need to detour around a key wormhole cluster, and that would add another seven week roundtrip to an already very long mission. The voyage to Earth was previously near the limit of a surveyor ship’s performance characteristics; the detour makes it almost dangerous. In the relay’s databanks, I found a message from the shipyard that designed the current class of surveyors. That shipyard warned they cannot be held responsible for anyone pushing their ships past their design limits.”

  “This is good news.”

  “It is most certainly good news, Colonel Joe,” Skippy said happily.

  With such news, I wanted to plan a celebration for the crew. Given the people we lost in taking the relay station, a memorial service was more appropriate. “Did you learn anything else?”

  “My priority was searching for data about the surveyor task force, I am combing through the rest of the databanks now. The data is poorly organized, the Thuranin should be ashamed of themselves. It’s going to take a while, Joe, even for me. We did get what we came here for, so, mission accomplished.”

  “Sir?” I turned to Chotek, who still managed to look unhappy despite the very welcome good news. “We have secured the relay station, and a Thuranin relief crew is not scheduled to arrive for eleven months. I suggest we clean up exterior damage to maintain the ruse that the station is operating normally. Then we should back the Dutchman away and remain in the area, until we receive confirmation the Thuranin will not send a second mission to Earth.” Hanging near the relay station, with the Dutchman drifting stealthily in interstellar space for months, was going to be extremely dull for the crew.

  “I agree for now, Colonel,” Chotek said stiffly. “Please assure the self-destruct mechanism is installed aboard the relay station.” The self-destruct mechanism he referred to was a pair of our own self-destruct nukes.

  “Right away, sir. Colonel Chang, please inform the crew they can stand down from battle stations. And assign a party to bring our party favors,” I meant the nukes, “to the station.” I was going to our sickbay to see how Dr. Skippy was caring for our wounded.

  On the way to sickbay, Skippy called my zPhone. “Good news about the relay station, Joe,” Skippy reported. “Their sickbay has a full supply of medical nanomachines, so we can replenish our supply. A relay station does not carry a large a quantity of medical supplies compared to a star carrier, so we will still have only 28% of what we started with. The station unfortunately has almost none of the more useful multipurpose engineering nanomachines. There are some station components that we could use as spare parts aboard the Dutchman. The components need to remain in place for now for the station to function properly, we can remove them later. Oh, also, there are two dropships in the docking bay, of the same two types we have.”

  That news excited me. “Two more dropships? That’s great, Skippy. Can we bring them aboard now?”

  “Ah, I need to check them out thoroughly first. Their maintenance records indicate they work fine, but you know that you should never buy a used dropship without having it inspected first. We don’t want to fall for that dipstick trick like your cousin Jimmy did.”

  “Oh, yeah.” When my cousin Jimmy got his first job, he bought an old pickup truck. It was beat up and looked like a piece of junk, but Jimmy pulled the dipstick and it had plenty of clean, new oil. The next morning, there was a puddle of nasty black oil in his driveway, and three days later, the engine seized. The guy he bought it from had put a plug at the bottom of the dipstick tube, put in just enough fresh oil to make it look good. Since then, whenever poor Jimmy bought anything, we always asked whether he had checked the dipstick. “How did you hear about that?”

  “Your cousins were talking about it at the party when you came home this time. You need to go home more often; I hear the best stories when you’re there.”

&nbs
p; “I’m working on it, Skippy. Need to save the world again first.”

  There were only three people in the sickbay when I arrived. The power of advanced weaponry and the extreme violence of future combat left few lucky enough to be wounded. Four injury cases had already been tended to by Dr. Skippy; two of those were in recovery tanks with serious internal injuries that Skippy was hopeful could be cured. The other two were resting in their own quarters, Lt. Kwan was missing an arm, the other soldier had lost most of her right leg. Skippy was one hundred percent confident that they both would make a full recovery, although he told me privately that the dwindling supply of nanomachines for Thuranin medicine were running low. To repair the Dutchman on our last mission, Skippy had used up 90% of the medical nano, repurposing the tiny devices to repair the ship instead of body parts. We should, he said hopefully, be able to partly replenish our nanomachine supply from the relay station. Still, we needed to be careful with the supply of these critical medical miracles. Human injuries that could heal naturally or with mere drugs and surgery, would skip the advantage of nanomachines.

  I greeted the three less seriously injured people awaiting treatment in the sickbay, including Ranger Lauren Poole. She had a black eye, several cuts on her face, and an ugly purple bruise from her right hip to her ribs. “Colonel,” she said as she saluted me; I could tell raising her right arm was painful.

  “Lieutenant Poole,” I looked at the deep bruise. “That looks bad.”

  “It’s fine, sir,” she replied. “I’m here for my ankle.” She lifted her right leg and I could see that her ankle was hanging oddly. “I feel stupid, sir. All those years in gymnastics, practicing landings, and I sprain my ankle now.”

  “She took three Thuranin rounds to her suit leg, and her ankle is broken, not sprained,” Major Smythe explained. “You are lucky to be alive, Lieutenant,” he said with obvious pride about the toughness of his SpecOps team.

  “Ricochets, sir,” she said with a shrug. “The only direct hit was to my torso,” she pointed to the ugly bruise. “Those Kristang armored suits are tough. The black eye,” she indicated her face and I noticed she used her left hand, “is because a tiny piece of shrapnel punctured my visor. It sealed right away, or I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Correct,” Dr. Skippy’s voice said from a wall speaker. “Your injuries are not serious enough to require extensive use of nanomachines, so you will have surgery shortly, and regular injections of healing drugs.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mr. Skippy,” she said with a grimace. “I don’t need surgery if someone else is in greater need of it. Ankle injuries are nothing new-”

  “Lieutenant,” I interrupted. “If Dr. Skippy says you need surgery, then you will cooperate to the best of your ability. Then you are going to follow the letter and spirit of the rehab routine that Dr. Skippy sets up for you,” I declared. “I expect nothing less than perfection when you are performing rehabilitation exercises; all the judges had better be holding up cards with ‘10’ on them, is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” Poole said with a grin. I had given her a challenge, and there is nothing special forces people like more than a challenge. “I’ll be up and around soon, you’ll see.”

  Skippy and Smythe politely shooed me out of sickbay as soon as they could; the last thing they wanted was the commanding officer hanging around and making everyone uncomfortable. Taking the unsubtle hint to go away, I headed to the galley for a snack. A cup of coffee and half of a blueberry muffin took the edge off, and I was sitting at a table reading reports on my tablet when Skippy called me through the ceiling speaker. “Hey, Colonel Joe. I, uh, heh heh, found something interesting in the relay station’s databanks. It seems there is trouble in Paradise. Or should I say trouble on Paradise?”

  “Skippy,” I stood up abruptly, alarmed. “We should talk about this in my office-”

  “Sir?” Adams had been pouring herself a cup of coffee, that woman had the worst sense of timing. Or maybe the best. The ten other people in the galley all looked at her expectantly. “Is there a reason we can’t hear information about the situation on Paradise?”

  “Adams,” I was annoyed, and embarrassed. “If this is bad news for UNEF, and we aren’t able to do anything about it, I do not see the point of everyone bearing that burden.”

  She set her coffee cup down and crossed her arms. That was not a good sign for me. “When my aunt found out she had cancer, she didn’t tell the family, because she said she didn’t want to worry anyone. She was wrong about that. If you shut us out, you’re wrong also. Sir.”

  Her message was loud and clear. The Merry Band of Pirates may not always be merry, but they were adults. They deserved to know. What pissed me off is that Skippy knew how I felt about keeping information about Paradise quiet, yet he had blurted it out while I was in a room with people. That irritating little beer can had done it deliberately. “Skippy,” I said as I sat back down, “let’s hear it.”

  “I found something unexpected. Two things, actually. First, the Ruhar federal government has been negotiating to give Paradise back to the Kristang-” His voice was drowned out by a chorus of shouts from everyone in the galley, including me.

  “People, quiet, plea- Oh my God.” I was completely stunned. Until that moment, my greatest fear had been that the Ruhar might not be able to supply enough food for UNEF. I had not thought the Ruhar would actively abuse the humans on their planet. And it had never for one second crossed my mind that the Ruhar would sell the planet out from under UNEF’ feet! “Skippy, why the hell would the hamsters do that? They fought for Paradise!” Right then, I thought of all the Ruhar who died when I shot down the two Whale transports they were in. And the Ruhar had planned that operation, and risked all those lives, as a feint to lure in a Thuranin task force so the Jeraptha could destroy it. Now all those lives would truly be wasted.

  Skippy explained the Ruhar’s reasons for not wishing to keep Paradise. That is was not conveniently located following the recent wormhole shift. That the Kristang were offering more valuable territory in exchange for Paradise. That securing Paradise would require a major commitment of fleet resources that were needed elsewhere; an expense the Ruhar were not willing to bear. That the Ruhar had not wanted or intended to take the planet back recently, and now it was merely a bargaining chip for them. “Not all of the Ruhar agree with giving Paradise away, Joe,” Skippy tried to assure us. “The native population, and of course UNEF, know nothing about negotiations with the Kristang. Your old friend Baturnah Logellia, the Burgermeister, is personally opposed to trading away her home.”

  Hearing that name brought back a flood of memories. Sitting in Lester Cornhut’s home, on the Cornhut family couch, sipping tea with the Burgermeister. Listening while she told me horror stories of how humanity had been betrayed by the species we considered saviors and allies. Listening while she destroyed the last of my innocence. Innocence was a luxury I couldn’t afford. The days sitting on that couch seemed a lifetime ago now, like those events had happened to a different person.

  They had. I was a different person back then. A brand new buck sergeant, learning to lead a new fireteam on an alien planet, constantly scared of screwing up. Now I was a colonel, with the blood of thousands of aliens on my hands, and a homeworld that had been saved twice. And I was still constantly scared of screwing up. “Can she do anything to help UNEF? The Burgermeister, I mean.”

  “Nothing substantial that I can see now, Joe. I am sorry. She is still the deputy administrator of the planet; however the decisions are being made offworld. She has petitioned the Ruhar federal government to include the humans on Paradise in the evacuation, when the planet is formally returned to the Kristang. The government has formally, and very strongly rejected that idea. Humans, the government stated, are legally enemies of the Ruhar and therefore their fate is not a problem for the Ruhar.”

  “Shit,” I breathed slowly. “Just when I thought things were going well.”

  “Darn. Uh, then this is a par
ticularly bad time for me to mention that I have more bad news?”

  Somehow I resisted the temptation to pound the table. “Sure, Skippy, go ahead, why the hell not?”

  “Ooookay, I sense some irritation in your voice, Joe.”

  “Ya think?”

  Skippy ignored me. “The stalled negotiations between the Ruhar and Kristang were recently disrupted, by a Kristang battlegroup that jumped into orbit three weeks ago. One of their ships were destroyed by the Ruhar, but the Kristang have now established space supremacy around Paradise. Their ships have complete control of the skies. After the brief initial battle, a truce has been arranged. The Kristang have landed almost four thousand troops, with aircraft and heavy equipment. So far, according to the data available, the Kristang have not directly engaged UNEF. That is good, for UNEF is totally disarmed and defenseless. I must warn that the data I have is fourteen days old at this point.”

  “How the hell did this happen? The last intel you provided, you said the Thuranin were pulling away from Paradise; that they would not support future Kristang efforts to keep the place!”

  “That intelligence was and still is accurate. The Thuranin do not see any value in a primarily agricultural planet; therefore if the Kristang wish to pursue recapture of Paradise, they will do so on their own. The Kristang Swift Arrow clan strongly desires to retake the planet, so they have paid full price plus combat bonuses for the Thuranin to provide transport to the Paradise system. Going to Paradise was a one-way trip for the Swift Arrow battlegroup, Joe, they can’t afford to have all their ships transported back home. The crews of those ships are very committed, they know they can’t go home.”