Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

  “Are you mobile, Czajka?” Perkins asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dave rotated his ankle. “Tweaked my ankle, it will be better when it’s warmed up.”

  “Good,” Perkins checked her zPhone, and indicated the forest on the other side of the tracks. “Emby says we go that way. We need to hustle, and no using lights until we’re out of sight,” she pointed to the lights of the farmhouse behind them, across the field. “Use the low-light camera of your phone to see. Jarrett, you take the lead.”

  Shauna nearly poked her eyes out by colliding with low-hanging branches in the dark, before remembering to hold a hand up in front of her face. Her other hand held her zPhone with its rear-facing night-vision camera pointed forward. That phone feature was supposed to be used with goggles, here they had to try walking through feet-tangling underbrush while looking at a small screen. The four stumbled slowly and awkwardly through the forest in darkness, made worse because it had begun to drizzle. When Major Perkins in the rear announced she could no longer see the lights of the farmhouse, she allowed the team to use their zPhones as lights on a low setting. Now that they could see, they made rapid progress through the forest, guided by maps on their zPhones. Emby contacted Perkins twice, urging her to move faster. When they came upon a road, they broke into a steady run, and soon Perkins was grateful for the drizzling rain. It soaked her hair, making her short ponytail hang limply against the back of her neck. The rain also cooled her, running through the warm and humid night air. “Hold here,” Perkins said in a harsh whisper as her zPhone beeped with a warning message when they neared a bend in the road. “Truck coming! Off the road!” She shouted.

  They ran through the woods into a stand of bushes and lay flat, phone lights off. The electric motors of Ruhar trucks were quiet, and the gently falling rain muffled sound, so they saw the truck’s headlights eerily casting beams through the trees before they heard the vehicle. It approached from beyond the curve, lights bouncing as it moved fast along the rough dirt road. The truck slowed as it approached, making Perkins fear that the Ruhar had discovered their escape and tracked their location by zPhone. Maybe Emby was not as smart as they said they were?

  The truck slowed to a crawl, and Perkins’ mind raced. If the Ruhar knew where Perkins and her team were, should they run or surrender? Surrender seemed to be the smart play; because if Emby couldn’t even cover their escape from a train, it was unlikely Perkins could complete a complex mission of awakening buried maser cannons. Had she been a fool for believing a Mysterious Benefactor? Was the whole situation some elaborate joke, or a setup to embarrass UNEF?

  No. The truck had slowed only to negotiate the sharp bend in the road and a deep puddle. Even at reduced speed, the truck’s tires threw up a splash as it hit the puddle, briefly obscuring the headlights. Then it cleared the curve and accelerated, speeding onward through the rainy night. Perkins rose to her feet, brushing mud from her uniform top.

  “Ma’am,” Jesse whispered in the utter darkness, echoing Perkins’ own fears. “I thought they knew we were here.”

  “Apparently not. Emby would have warned us,” she said hopefully. “Back to the road, we need to make up time,” she ordered as Emby sent another message urging them to hurry. She turned her zPhone light back on, and they ran fairly hard down the road another two kilometers. Perkins was winded, and she noted the three younger people were also breathing hard. Life as a farmer didn’t leave much opportunity for running. They came over a slight rise in the road and saw the lights of a small village. Just ahead, the forest gave way to fields of crops growing in straight rows. “Stop here,” she ordered, rechecking the message on her zPhone to make sure she hadn’t missed anything. “There’s a village up ahead, Emby says they’re all asleep. There’s a train coming soon,” her phone was counting down from around seven minutes. “It will slow down when it goes through the village; the residents don’t like noisy trains while they’re trying to sleep,” she smiled and Ski almost laughed. “The tracks are about half a kilometer ahead,” although she couldn’t see anything in the rainy night. “We are supposed wait behind a shed next to the tracks, then we climb on as it goes by. The last ten cars are empty; Emby has unlocked the doors. Colter, you go first this time. The rest of us, try to get on the same car. If not, get on top and go forward or back to whatever car Colter gets into.”

  “Ma’am,” Jesse asked, “in the dark, how do we know which are the last ten cars?”

  Dave looked through his zPhone’s night-vision feature. “I can see good enough.” The train cars were big, about eighty feet long. “I’ll count off for you.”

  “You better be right about it, Ski,” Jesse

  Jesse grabbed a handrail beside a door, and hanging on with one hand, he slid the door open and tossed his satchel in. Running alongside, the other three threw their satchels in the open door, then Jesse helped Perkins up into the doorway. Shauna stumbled over a rock but caught the handrail, then Jesse got hold of her arm and swung her inside. Dave almost made it, running on a gimpy ankle, but he tripped and fell flat. Jesse almost jumped out to help his friend before Dave got to his feet and caught the handrail of the next car, waving Jesse off. Making up for falling in the dirt, Dave shimmied up the handrail to the roof of the car, then crawled on hands and knees to the car ahead. Awkwardly, he slid down feet first until Jesse and Shauna grasped his legs, then he let go of the roof and the three fell to sprawl inside the empty car. The train was beginning to pick up speed as Perkins closed the door, making sure it was closed all the way. Snapping on her light, she looked around the inside. There was some trash such as straps, packing material and busted cardboard boxes, otherwise it was just empty, scuffed and well-used composite material. “Czajka, your ankle is worse than you told me?”

  “No ma’am,” Dave said defensively. “I tripped on a rock or something. I’m squared away.”

  Perkins was not entirely convinced. “Take your boot off and I’ll look at it. Emby says we’ll be here until about midmorning.”

  Dave untied his boot, and laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Shauna asked. She didn’t see much humor in their situation.

  “We hopped aboard a freight car, we’ve got no jobs and no money,” Dave reached in his satchel and pulled out a can of nutrient mush. “And all we have to eat is beans. We’re hobos.”

  “Hey,” Jesse offered a fist bump and Ski accepted. “Brother,” Jesse said with a wry smile, “first hobos on an alien planet. That’s got to count for something.”

  Around midmorning, the train slowed suddenly. Emby had told Perkins the train’s locomotive would experience a temporary ‘mechanical difficulty’ while going around a curve. When the train slowed enough, Perkins and her team were to get off on the outside of the curve, where the engineer in the locomotive couldn’t look back and see them. When the train was down to a slow walking pace, the four humans bailed out, being careful not to injure themselves as the area was thickly forested. They dashed in to the woods and lay down. As soon as they were hidden, whatever Emby had done to the locomotive fixed itself, and the train picked up speed again.

  Once the train had gone out of sight and could barely be heard, Shauna stood up carefully. “Ma’am,” she asked Major Perkins, “who is this Mysterious Benefactor? The engineer of that train is one of them? Or they can remotely control anything on this planet?”

  “Yeah,” Jesse added. “And how did Emby know that truck was coming down the road last night? Or that everyone in the village where we hopped that train,” he pointed down the tracks, “was asleep?”

  “People, I worked intel, and not knowing the identity of our Mysterious Benefactor is bugging the shit out of me,” Perkins admitted. “If we’re successful, we may find out someday. If this mission isn’t successful, I have a feeling Emby will bail on us real fast. I’m not doing this for Emby, whoever they are. I’m doing this to give UNEF a chance, even a tiny chance to avoid being slaves of the lizards. You still in?”

  “Oh, hell yes, ma�
��am,” Jesse nodded. “I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a bad feeling about a mission.

  They walked off and on, taking short breaks until late afternoon, then Perkins declared a rest. Emby insisted they were safe, but Perkins ordered everyone to take forty five minute shifts as sentry to be sure. She took the first shift, and her own eyelids were heavy when Czajka took over. It felt like she had just gotten semi comfortable on the ground, when Jarrett shook her awake. “It’s time, ma’am,” Shauna said quietly.

  With long practice from her military career, Perkins came to alertness. The sun had set so it was dark with clouds covering the sky; at least it wasn’t raining. Rubbing her eyes to make them focus, she immediately checked her zPhone. There were no new messages from Emby, but as she turned her eyes away from the screen, a new message appeared.

  Everything is on schedule, the message read. You have fifty six minutes to travel the last kilometer.

  How did you know that I just woke up, Perkins typed suspiciously, and even before she hit the ‘Send’ button, there was a reply.

  Your phone moved, and you activated it to check messages, Major Perkins, the message read. You and your team should eat now; this is going to be a long night.

  Giving up on Emby revealing any more information about their sources and methods, Perkins sat on a log. “Eat up, people. We need to get moving soon and this is going to be a busy night.”

  Dave reached into his satchel and pulled out one of his dwindling supply of nutrient mush cans. “I hope Emby gets us more food along with transport and a drill rig, ma’am.”

  Perkins nodded. “Emby says they’ve got it covered. They know we can’t eat the native life, or Ruhar food.”

  Shauna popped open her can of mush and looked at it without interest. She tipped her head back and swallowed it as quickly as she could. Running a finger around the bottom to get every last drop, she made face. “Sure, Emby will get us food. Enough to carry out the mission. Then they won’t need us.”

  “We have to take that risk,” Perkins agreed grimly.

  “Ha,” Jesse laughed. “We’re sneaking around between two advanced species that can blast us from orbit. Maybe we’ll get lucky and we’ll take a railgun dart before we starve.”

  “Amen to that, brother,” Dave popped open a can of mush. “Maybe I’ll shoot myself, if I have to survive on this crap much longer.”

  According to Emby, their mission that night was simple. Inside a warehouse on the outskirts of a village was a truck loaded with the portable drilling rig, and boxes containing human food. Real food, from Earth. Mostly canned or MREs. All Perkins and her team needed to do was get into the warehouse, which was unlocked. Then they would start the truck, roll aside the big door, drive the truck out and slide the door closed behind them. To cover the sound of the truck, Emby would create a distraction; a ventilation fan in a barn on the other side of the village would overheat and begin making a terrible screeching racket. Then the fan’s motor would catch on fire. That would keep the hamsters busy while the humans drove away with their prize. And they would keep driving, all night.

  It will be suspicious for a truck loaded with human food to go missing, Perkins typed. The remaining supply of human food from Earth had to be a small, carefully guarded item. How could such a valuable thing be sitting unguarded in a warehouse? Again, before she hit the ‘Send’ button there was a reply.

  The boxes of human food are mislabeled, Emby said, no one knows they are in that truck. We only took a small amount of your food, it will not be missed. And no one will be going into that warehouse for weeks.

  How did you arrange that, Perkins asked.

  Humanity is not the only species with a cumbersome bureaucracy, Major Perkins. It is easy for things to get lost, this is a big planet. You need to get moving.

  Perkins explained the plan to her skeptical team.

  “Just like that, ma’am?” Jesse asked. “This Emby gift-wrapped a truck for us?”

  “Just like that,” Perkins confirmed. “Emby has done right by us so far. I’m going to trust them, whoever they are.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  It was as easy as Emby said it would be. The side door of the warehouse faced the village, so they slipped in one at a time, with Shauna going first. She got inside, closed the door behind her and scanned the inside first with night-vision, then risked using her zPhone’s light. It was a barn that had been turned into a warehouse, it still smelled like wet dirt and grain. In the center was a large truck with an extended cab and six wheels. The back was covered with a sort of tarp; she carefully swung the tailgate down and peeked inside. The back was fairly crammed with large pieces of equipment, boxes and extra fuel cells. Emby had told the truth so far. To be certain, she climbed into the truck bed and slowly opened one of the boxes.

  Food. Real honest-to-God human food from Earth. The box contained cans, tins, pouches and MREs all with French writing. Shauna felt a pang of hunger just glancing at food, real food. She dropped to the ground and called Perkins. “It’s as Emby said, ma’am. Everything is here.”

  When all four of them were inside, Perkins climbed into the cab and turned the truck’s main power on. It showed ready to start. “Jarrett, you drive first. Colter, Czajka, get ready to slide that door open. Jarrett, make sure the headlights are switched off.”

  On her zPhone Perkins typed Ready.

  Commencing distraction now. Drive slowly until you get over the bridge, Emby replied.

  Muffled by the walls of the barn, a screeching sound began. Faintly, then growing louder, it was a high-pitched grinding sound of metal on metal. With the side door of the barn only cracked open, Perkins saw lights come on in the village’s dozen homes. Within five minutes, hamsters were running toward the barn with the faulty ventilation fan, which had now burst into flames.

  This would be a good time to go, Emby sent.

  “Czajka, Colter, get that door open, quietly.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Jesse replied. While they were waiting, Jesse had found a can of oil or some kind of lubricant, and he and Dave had liberally applied it to the door’s wheels and tracks. It slid aside almost silently, and Shauna hit the truck’s starter. With only a faint whine from its electric motors, the truck came to life. The big truck was a tight fit through the door, Perkins walked backwards in front of her, guiding Shauna to squeeze the truck through the door. Perkins kept glancing nervously toward the other end of town, where the fan fire had been extinguished and the screeching noise was winding down. Once the truck cleared the big door, she motioned for it to be closed, and they climbed into the cab. Shauna drove slowly, with the lights off across a bridge, Perkins holding a zPhone in front of Shauna’s eyes so the driver could use the night-vision feature. Fortunately, within half a kilometer of crossing the bridge, the road took a sharp turn, and Perkins allowed Shauna to turn the headlights on the lowest setting. After another kilometer and an All Clear message from Emby, Shauna increased the headlight brightness, and stepped on the accelerator pedal. According to Emby, they had about 600 kilometers to cover within the next seven hours before dawn. Emby directed them on a slightly roundabout route to miss driving through villages, although they could not avoid passing an isolated house here and there. Perkins debated whether to turn the headlights off when passing inhabited houses, then decided that would look suspicious. A truck driving through the night was, after all, nothing unusual. They were just an ordinary truck, she reminded herself, there should be nothing interesting about it.

  As they drove, the sky cleared, and Perkins saw the eastern sky becoming pink almost an hour before dawn. With only forty minutes until the sun cleared the horizon, Emby directed them to pull off the main road onto an overgrown track. They bumped along the rough road, with overhanging tree branches scraping the top of the truck, until they came to a halt under two large trees. Jesse and Dave went back to cover their tracks, while Perkins and Shauna cut branches to drape over the truck.

  You should rest now, Emby
messaged, we will alert you if anyone approaches your position. You will be moving again in nine hours.

  We will be driving during daylight, she asked.

  Yes. This area is sparsely populated and air traffic is minimal; you are on the edge of a no-fly zone agreed by the Ruhar and the Kristang, Emby stated. You must remain hidden now because a road convoy is scheduled to pass by a crossroads roughly ten kilometers ahead of you in five hours, and the road will be busy.

  Understood.

  “Emby wants us moving again in nine hours, so I want us to get sleep and be ready to go in seven hours,” Perkins said. They had taken turns driving through the night, giving two people at a time the ability to catch sleep in the back seat.

  “Can we eat first, ma’am?” Shauna asked. The thought of the real food in the back of the truck had been in the back of her mind all night.

  “Good idea, we should check out the sumptuous buffet Emby set up for us. We will all split one item this morning,” Perkins warned. “Our stomachs aren’t used to real food after eating mush for too long.”

  Dave was the first to look in the box that Shauna had opened. “This is all in French. I think ‘boeuf’ means ‘beef’, ma’am?”

  “Don’t ask me, Czajka, I learned Mandarin Chinese, not French,” Perkins replied. “That sounds right to me.”

  “Does everyone want to try beef stew? I think that’s what this is,” Dave held up a can.

  “Anything but chicken, man,” Jesse replied. “That would be way too tempting if we ever get back to Fort Rakovsky.”

  They split one ‘beouf stew’ and three cans of nutrient mush, everyone agreed the stew was awesome.