Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

  “Also,” Skippy cautioned, “don’t call a milkshake a ‘frappe’ for heaven’s sake.”

  “A frappe has ice cream in it, a milkshake doesn’t,” I retorted. “And if you’re in Rhode Island, a frappe is called a ‘cabinet’. Everybody knows that. Right, Adams?”

  “I’m not from New England, sir, so I’m with Skippy on this one. We should have Skippy compose the message, then we can look at it.”

  I had to admit that was a better idea. “Write something up, Skippy, please. Oh,” my shoulders slumped. “We’ll need Chocu- Chotek to approve it. Crap.” This operation was too complicated.

  Skippy composed three messages in like a billionth of a nanosecond, and they all looked good to me. Then the wheels of bureaucracy moved at lightning speed, and Chotek gave us his preferred text with minor annoying revisions, the next morning. Skippy was not happy about the delay, although we didn’t plan to send the message to Adams until that afternoon anyway, when she and the three others were on the train. “I provided a microwormhole, for crying out loud,” Skippy complained. “A true miracle of technology, something no one else in the galaxy has. It allows instantaneous, undetectable communication between us and a starship several lightminutes away. And what does that jerk do with it? He takes fourteen hours to send us back a message, and he insists on changing four words. Four freakin’ words, Joe!”

  “Skippy, I hear you,” I was pissed about it too. “Sometimes managers think they have to change at least something in order to feel useful.”

  “Yeah, well, in that case I am sad to report that the microwormhole is acting up already. We could lose contact with Chocula, I mean the ship, at any moment. If you know what I mean.”

  “Not yet, Skippy,” I told him, and then remembered other people were listening. “That is terrible news about the wormhole, do what you can to keep it open.”

  “Oh, I get it, Joe. Sure, sure, I’m working on it. Just let me know.”

  Skippy was an ancient, super powerful, super intelligent being. He also sucked at lying.

  Once the Ruhar announced that they were being released, Perkins and the others hoped they would be given their zPhones back, but it didn’t happen. Even when they got on the train, no zPhones. Jesse and Dave were going crazy that someone might have stolen or messed with their couch, which Perkins could not understand. What could be so important about a couch?

  The train was nothing special; two passenger cars tacked on the front end of a freight train just behind the engine. Both cars were well-worn, with the seats made of some super tough gel material. The four humans were told to take the front car, which had most of its seats piled high with baggage and equipment. There were no Ruhar in the front car, an arrangement that suited both species. As they walked past the second car, Ruhar crowded the windows, gawking at the strange humans, or glaring at the clients of their enemy the Kristang. One of the Ruhar, a male who had a child in his arms, shook his fist at the four humans.

  Dave Czajka took exception to that. “Hey, screw-”

  “Czajka!” Major Perkins scolded. “Eyes forward. To these Ruhar, we are the enemy. We came here to throw them off this planet that has been their home for generations. If I were them, I would hate us.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Czajka looked at the ground.

  They boarded the car, squeezed between boxes and baggage, and found seats to spread out, enough room for each of them to lay down. Dave walked over to Perkins. “Sorry, Ma’am, I lost my temper.”

  “It happens,” Perkins shrugged. “Czajka, these people,” she used that word instead of ‘Ruhar’ or ‘hamster’, “have lived here long enough that their parents, even grandparents are buried here. They put down roots on this planet. This is their home. Then we showed up, working for the Kristang, to throw them off their world. They have been at war since before humans discovered fire. They have only known this war. Think about that.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. All the Ruhar I have met personally have been nice, just ordinary people,” he used that word intentionally. “I don’t hate them; I hate being here. I hate not being home.”

  “We all do. My folks must be worried sick,” she said, blinking away a tear. They could be trapped on Paradise, forever. And that was the best scenario. If the Ruhar kept control of Paradise, humans there would be prisoners of war. If the Kristang took over the planet, the humans there would become slaves, if they survived at all. Perkins felt like indulging in a good cry, which would have made her feel better. Under stress, women tended to cry it away. Men tended to get angry and lash out. The way women handled stress, Perkins thought, was healthier. The male-dominated Army generally considered crying to be a weakness. So she swallowed hard and looked Dave in the eye. “We all want to go home. Until then, we all have to do our jobs, and take care of each other.”

  “Yes, Ma’am,” Dave said. “I’m going to check out that water tank,” he pointed to the corner near the car’s single bathroom. If they were going to be on the train all the way to Lemuria, it was going to be a very long trip.

  After a lunch of nutrient mush that the humans had gulped down as quickly as possible, a Ruhar soldier came through the train with a bag, and from it he pulled four zPhones. It was like Christmas and a birthday all at once. Shauna almost shivered with delight, then turned to Perkins. “Is it Ok if we use the phones, Ma’am?”

  “Can we tell people about Bishop?” Jesse asked anxiously.

  “Go ahead, soldier, I plan to use my phone right away,” Perkins said. “No restrictions on talking about Bishop, as little as we know. It’s not a secret to the Ruhar, it shouldn’t be a secret to us either.”

  The other three scattered about the train car for privacy, there were plenty of seats. Perkins first checked her texts and emails, she naturally had thousands of each that had piled up in her absence, so she started with the most recent and intended to work her way backward. Suddenly all of her messages and emails disappeared. Except for one text and one email. The text told her to open the email. So she did.

  And received a shock.

  She instructed the zPhone to call the US Army intel chief directly. Perkins had not been involved in intelligence gathering or analysis for over six months; she had become a farmer like almost all of the humans on Paradise. With UNEF no longer a fighting force, the only useful information was about crop yields and which people had gotten into fights. General Marcellus, she knew, as currently acting as the chief intelligence officer for UNEF HQ. If the message she had received was true, he would surely know something.

  He answered right away, which was surprising. “Who is this?” He sounded annoyed, and there were other voices in the background.

  “Major Perkins, Sir. Third Infantry. I was on your HQ intel staff until recently. Thank you for taking my call.”

  “Oh, yes, Major. My phone picked up by itself somehow. It is darned good to hear from you. Did the Ruhar treat you well? We tried to contact you, but the Ruhar wouldn’t allow it.”

  “Yes, the Ruhar treated us well. They just gave us our phones back. We were released three days ago, and we’re now on a train headed for Lemuria. Sir, I have information that you should hear directly.”

  “Wait a minute.” He went into a quieter area, or closed a door, because the background voices faded. “Go ahead, Major.”

  “The Ruhar brought us in for questioning about Joe Bishop. They say he escaped from that Kristang jail. That, as far as the Ruhar know, he is alive somewhere.”

  “We figured that was why they brought you in. We looked at the list of people they took, and put two and two together. The only thing you all had in common was Bishop. Are the Ruhar still telling the story about him flying away in a stolen Dodo?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, surprised. “You knew about that?”

  “There have been rumors since the Ruhar took the planet back,” he explained. “Then they released other people a couple days ago, including the staff of a logistics base that Bishop supposedly recruited people and supplies from.
Perkins, you know Bishop, you were his contact when that Logellia woman was feeding him info about the wormholes and all that. Do you think he was capable of stealing and flying an alien spacecraft?” No human had been trained to fly a dropship, and those ships surely had security features to prevent theft or mischief.

  “The two members of his original fireteam told me they would be surprised if Bishop could operate an iPad without breaking it. I don’t see it, Sir. Bishop is smart and resourceful, but he’s not that smart.”

  “That’s what we’re thinking also. Bishop supposedly told the people at the logistics base that he was on a mission to hit the Kristang, and at the time, there weren’t any Kristang left on this planet. To hit them, Bishop would have to go into space. After being in that Kristang jail, I can see why he’d look for an opportunity to get some payback. For my money, I’ll bet that dropship was flown by Ruhar, and for some reason they needed humans to come along.”

  “If that was a Ruhar mission,” Perkins asked, “why would the Ruhar be asking us about it now?”

  “Major, I am sure that humanity is not the only species where the right hand sometimes doesn’t know what the left hand is doing,” he explained. “If this was a secret Ruhar mission, the Ruhar in charge here on Paradise may not know anything about it. Or it was a rogue operation, and the Ruhar command is keeping it quiet out of embarrassment.” Marcellus knew he was assigning human emotions and motivations to an alien species, but his extensive contact with the Ruhar told him that he wouldn’t be far off the truth. “I’m glad to hear you are safe and well. I have a meeting in five min-”

  “Bishop wasn’t my only information, sir, or the most important.”

  “Go ahead, Major.”

  “Sir, I heard a rumor from the Ruhar. The Ruhar federal government has been negotiating to give this planet back to the Kristang. They’re trading it for more valuable territory.”

  The half-second lag before General Marcellus answered told Emily Perkins everything she needed to know. The message she had received was the truth. And UNEF HQ knew. Son of a bitch! “Major, that is one hell of a rumor,” he lied. “I can’t see the Ruhar doing that, they have fought to retake this place, and now to keep it. I wouldn’t put any credence in rumors like that. We have enough bad news that is true.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Wherever this train takes us, the Ruhar told us we would eventually be going back to where we were living when they picked us up, but I think all they care is about is that we’re in Lemuria.” So that the humans would no longer be the responsibility of the Ruhar.

  “Probably by boat, then. Contact my staff when you’re ashore, and I’ll arrange to have you brought to HQ. We’ll need to debrief you.”

  I’ll bet you do, Perkins thought. You want me someplace where you can be sure that I won’t repeat what I heard about the Ruhar selling the planet out from under us. “Thank you, sir.”

  Of course, all of Perkins’ calls now went through the SkippyTel network, so we heard her conversation with General Marcellus. When she made the call, we were all inside the dropship, because it was absolutely pouring down rain outside and had been all morning. Also, it had been my turn to cook and I had made blueberry muffins, which we were leisurely munching on while drinking coffee. There wasn’t much else for us to do at the moment. When Perkins ended the call, Desai tapped me on the shoulder. “Sir, we could use what Marcellus said.”

  “Huh?” Maybe my brain was extra slow that morning.

  “He thinks us flying away in a Ruhar Dodo was a Ruhar operation, that we were along for the ride. We should use that. Play it up. Skippy,” Desai asked, “do the Ruhar have an intelligence service that is separate from the military?”

  “You mean like the American CIA and NSA? Yes, they do. The Ruhar have two rival intelligence agencies; one is nominally civilian and one is sort of part of the military. They both run clandestine operations that the other agency doesn’t know about, and the military spy agency is notorious for acting without the military leadership’s knowledge. The Ruhar military spy people are referred to by the Ruhar equivalent of ‘cowboys’. In this case, ‘cowboy’ does not mean a rugged outdoorsman, it means amateurs who shoot first and think later.”

  “How would that help us?” I asked Desai, wondering if this was how Skippy felt when I was explaining one of my ideas.

  “Sir, the Ruhar know we flew away in a Ruhar dropship, and by now the Kristang have probably heard about it also-”

  “They have,” Skippy confirmed.

  “The Kristang may be putting two and two together,” Desai explained. “They now know that a Ruhar dropship left Paradise with humans on it. Back then, Skippy told the Kristang that the Dodo had been stolen by Kristang, which is why the Kristang sent ships in to pick us up. Then the frigate that picked us up disappeared, and the star carrier that was the frigate’s mothership also disappeared. If the Kristang ever begin to suspect that humans were involved in that, we would be in deep trouble.”

  “Aha,” Adams agreed. “We need the Kristang to think the whole thing; stealing a Dodo and flying away, was a secret Ruhar operation to capture a Kristang ship?”

  “Exactly,” Desai smiled.

  And now I did know how Skippy felt. Damn it, I’m the commander, I should have thought of that. It was freakin’ brilliant.

  “Wow,” Skippy said admiringly. “That is devious. Keep both sides guessing who did it, and neither of them will ever consider that lowly humans could have run the operation. Joe, you are not the only devious mind here. If you like, I can plant hints in Ruhar databases that the four of you escaping from jail and stealing a Dodo was a secret Ruhar operation.”

  “That would be great, Skippy. Desai, that was good thinking. Wait,” I had an unpleasant thought. “Skippy, before you do anything, you need to clear this with Chotek.”

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Skippy complained. “I heard a great idea, it wasn’t yours, but it did come from a monkey, uh. No offense, Major Desai.”

  “No offense taken, Mr. Skippy,” Desai beamed. “I am proud to be what you consider a monkey. Especially since your definition of ‘monkey’ seems to be primates who think of ideas that your brain can’t handle.”

  “What? Oooooh, that’s it, Captain Desai, your name has been added to my list,” Skippy warned. “You filthy monkeys think you are so smart,” he grumbled.

  “Apparently,” I offered Desai a high five and she accepted, “we are so smart. Anyway, back to my point, Skippy. We need to run this by Chotek. This is why he came out here. Desai thought of a way to prevent both the Ruhar and Kristang from ever suspecting humans could be involved in how the Flower and the Flying Dutchman disappeared. Chotek should be thrilled to hear it, and that should demonstrate to him and to UNEF Command how valuable is it to have the Merry Band of Pirates out here.”

  “Oh, fine. What a pain in the ass,” Skippy muttered. “I’ll wait for the Count to make the obvious decision, which seems to be what human managers do.”

  “Sir?” Adams spoke up. “I agree with what you said, except for one thing.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “This pirate is not very merry right now,” she pointed to the table in front of me. “You ate the last muffin.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  After Perkins ended the call with Marcellus, she read the message again twice before she sending a reply. She asked who the message had come from, and why she should trust them.

  Another message came almost immediately. Think of us as your Mysterious Benefactor, the message read. You can trust us because we’re the only ones telling you the truth. And we are your only hope of freeing this planet from the Kristang. You are our first choice, but we have other options. You need us.

  Emily Perkins could not find fault with that argument. She and the Mysterious Benefactor, who she decided to call ‘Emby’ for short, went back and forth for ten minutes, until she had no more questions to ask. Emby had answere
d some of her questions, and declined to answer others. The intelligence officer in her suspected that Emby was a group of Ruhar native to Paradise, who wanted to prevent their own government from selling the planet out from under them. They couldn’t take action by themselves, and they couldn’t trust their own military. So they were using humans, who were even more desperate to prevent the Kristang from permanently regaining control of the planet. It was one hell of a story Emby had told; if she agreed to go along, they would tell her more. They would tell her, at each point during the mission, only what she needed to know. Perkins liked that, it gave her some confidence that Emby knew what they were doing.

  I’m in, she sent back. What is the next step?

  We will get you off the train and secure the transport and equipment you need, Emby replied. You will be leaving the train tonight, after you are supposed to be asleep. Your next step is to persuade your team to join you.

  Sure, thought Perkins. No problem. Before I can persuade Jarrett, Czajka and Colter to join me, I will need to convince them that I’m not crazy. And that this isn’t a joke.

  “A secret mission?” Jesse cocked his head skeptically. “What? Are we going offworld to find Bishop, something like that?”

  “No, this has nothing to do with Bishop,” Perkins said, surprised. She hadn’t thought of Bishop at all. “I don’t know where he went, where he is, or whether he’s still alive. I don’t even know if the Ruhar told us the truth. Maybe he did escape from that jail and the Ruhar are looking for him. The story of him stealing a dropship and flying away on a secret mission? That I find hard to believe,” Perkins frowned. “I have to warn you; this mission is not authorized by UNEF. They don’t know about it, and they likely wouldn’t authorize it if they knew. Does anyone have a problem with that?”