Paradise (Expeditionary Force Book 3)

by Craig Alanson

  “Sure. To show you that I’m paying attention.”

  “That was nice of- Wait! Hey, I just played back the data and analyzed your brainwaves. You have been daydreaming the whole freakin’ time!”

  “No I wasn’t,” I protested feebly.

  “All right then, what are the three top reasons why I am fully justified in hating you? They were outlined in Chapter Four.”

  “Oh, wow, Skippy. There are so many to choose from-”

  “Liar! Damn it! Now I have to start all over again,” he sighed. “Chapter One, entitled ‘Why I Hate Your Stupid Ugly Face-”

  “Too late, Skippy.”

  “Why?”

  “Because according to my head-up display, I’m about to hit the atmosphere in like, two minutes, right?”

  “Shit. Yes, you are. This isn’t over, Joe.”

  My head-up display showed a line of fireballs in front of me like a string of pearls stitched across the face of the planet. The planet itself was not a great place for us to be; it also was not the reason that I very much did not like the idea of us going there.

  The planet, which somewhere along the way acquired the nickname ‘Jumbo’, was big. Like Earth, it was rocky, with a liquid core, a density similar to that of our home planet, and a transparent atmosphere. Calling the place Jumbo was appropriate because it was far larger than Earth; so big that gravity at the surface was 42% greater than Earth normal. Let me say that again; forty two percent higher gravity. On Earth, I weighed 185 pounds. On Jumbo, I would weigh 263 pounds. If you are not American, or you are an American nerdnik who thinks in metric, I would weigh- Hmm, let me think. There are 2.2 pounds in a kilogram, so, multiply by 2.2- No, it’s the other way around, you divide by 2.2, so- Oh, forget it. I would weigh 42% more kilograms on Jumbo than I would on Earth. Our Kristang rifles weighed about 12 pounds fully loaded on Earth. On Jumbo, we would be carrying around 17 pound rifles. Plus, we would be carrying all of our other essential gear, which also would weigh 42% more than normal. It was not an ideal situation for a team planning to assault a technologically superior species, on their own ground.

  According to Skippy, Jumbo used to have a breathable atmosphere. In the past, the atmosphere was much thicker than that of Earth, but not so thick that the pressure at the surface would crush a human. Although it had less oxygen in the mix, the density was so much greater it would have been possible for human lungs to take in enough oxygen to breathe almost normally.

  Jumbo used to have a breathable atmosphere in the distant past. It did not have a breathable atmosphere now. Jumbo also used to have abundant surface life, now the native life there was limited mostly to microscopic organisms beneath the surface. Something very bad had happened to Jumbo, and that was why the Thuranin Advanced Research Directorate had a small facility there, basically a monitoring station. A long time ago, the Maxolhx had a colony on Jumbo, and during their war against the Rindhalu, the Maxolhx had used Elder devices as powerful weapons. That use of Elder devices for destructive purposes awakened the Sentinels that the Elders had left behind, and one thing the Sentinels did was cause Jumbo’s star to throw off a portion of its outer layer. Jumbo was scorched, much of its atmosphere blown away by the intense stellar fireball. Trying to figure out how the Sentinels had used a star as a weapon, and investigating the nature of the Sentinels themselves, was the purpose of the ARD station on Jumbo.

  The planet itself was not why I very much did like not Skippy’s plan, although the planet did suck, in my professional opinion. I had been on three alien planets so far; Camp Alpha, Paradise and Newark, and any of them would be have preferable to Jumbo. On Jumbo, we would need to live inside inflatable shelters. Any time we went outside, we would need to wear the helmets on our Kristang powered armor suits, or at least wear a breathing mask. For safety while moving around in the high gravity, we should wear our powered armor all the time, except for when we were sleeping. Simply sleeping was going to be difficult; the extra gravity would make us sore if we stayed in any one position for long, so we would probably be tossing and turning all night.

  Yes, the planet sucked. That was not what I very much did not like about Skippy’s plan.

  Because the whole planet was a laboratory, the Thuranin had extensive sensors coverage on and above the planet. Also there were sensors throughout the star system, so it was difficult for us to sneak up on the research station. Difficult even for us to move around the star system. On the surface, we would have to cover our shelters with stealth camouflage netting, and bring along stealth field generators. Those generators, plus their power sources, were heavy and they were extra heavy on Jumbo. We needed power sources for the stealth generators, for recharging our armor suits, and for the combots. Before the battle, the combots would be used to carry most of our equipment, including the power sources. Of course, the combots would also need power, so some combots would be carrying power for other combots, and we would be dropping combots along the way as their power drained. Skippy had calculated that we needed fourteen combots with us, just to have three combots for the actual assault. The logistics math for this operation was kind of crazy.

  When Skippy mentioned the ARD facility on Jumbo was staffed with only six Thuranin, I figured that this was going to be super easy; that he had found us a truly soft target. My thinking was, we fly down there in a stealthed dropship, Skippy makes the Thuranin go into sleep mode, and all we need to do is go in and take the Elder power tap. Skippy had quickly explained that, unfortunately, it was not going to be so easy after all. “I can’t use my sandman sleepy trick on these Thuranin, Joe. Sorry.”

  “You’re kidding me,” I said, severely disappointed. “Come on, this facility can’t be heavily shielded like the relay station was? It’s just a place for a bunch of science geeks.”

  “The facility is more shielded than you expect, Joe. They use artificial gravity; in this case they use it to decrease the natural gravity of the planet. But the shielding is not the problem. The reason I can’t simply order the Thuranin there to go into sleep mode is that these little green men are not linked to an AI. Thuranin aboard a starship are strongly linked to the ship’s AI, so they can control the ship through that link. When we took the Flying Dutchman, I exploited that link to make the entire crew go into sleep mode. There is no such link with the Thuranin on Jumbo.”

  “Crap.”

  “You’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way, Joe. You know, with advanced powered armor suits, combots and explosive-tipped bullets.”

  The fact that we had to crack open a Thuranin facility, defeat the defenses the hard way, and take the Elder power tap did suck. It was still not why I very much did not like Skippy’s plan.

  The method we would use for exfiltration after the assault was also not the source of my objection. When the action was over, we would signal the Dutchman to jump into orbit and send down a big dropship for us.

  No, my big objection was with Skippy’s infiltration plan; his idea for getting us and our equipment down to the surface. This crazy, impractical, dangerous plan was why we were spacediving straight at the atmosphere of Jumbo. I very much did not like this idea.

  According to Skippy, who of course would be relaxing in his man cave aboard the Dutchman while we attacked the Thuranin, we could not simply fly down to the surface in a dropship. “A Thuranin dropship, with Thuranin stealth capability, would be detected by the Thuranin sensors on this Thuranin planet, Joe,” he had explained. “It’s the same level of technology on both sides. The real problem is that ARD installed an extensive sensor network around Jumbo, because they are basically trying to run back the timeline and see exactly what the Sentinels did to the star. Once you get on the surface, it is possible to conceal your presence, but no way can a dropship fly down without being detected.”

  To implement Skippy’s crazy plan that I very much did not like, we had first gone to our personal relay station, so Skippy could use it to transmit a message that eventually would be received by a par
ticular ARD ship. When we got to the station, all was well. The submind Skippy had left there reported that it was bored, but it was not so completely bored that it wanted to listen to Skippy singing show tunes. I decided right then that I liked that submind. The submind also reported that it did not yet have any information about whether the Thuranin would be sending another surveyor ship to Earth. After we left the relay station, we traveled to the Jumbo system and then we waited. And waited. Finally, only two days later than Skippy had predicted, an ARD ship arrived. It went into orbit around Jumbo, stayed there less than a day, then was gone. We waited another four days at the insistence of Chotek, while I fretted about was happening on Paradise, then Captain Desai got the Dutchman moving again. She maneuvered the ship into an asteroid field, and we used our two big dropships to take small asteroids onto the three docking platforms we still had. When the ship was loaded up with rocks, Desai got us on course toward Jumbo, and she released the rocks in a sequence that Skippy had programmed for her. Right behind the fourth-to-last cluster of rocks was our assault party, spacediving toward the planet in formation with relocated asteroids.

  The essence of Skippy’s plan was to saturate Jumbo with a shower of small meteors. Our assault party and equipment, falling in amongst the meteors, would not be noticed, according to Skippy. That shiny, smug little beer can would be chilling in his escape pod man cave, while we plunged as flaming streaks through the atmosphere of an alien world. I hated Skippy’s plan. I also didn’t have a better idea, and believe me, I had tried to think of a better idea.

  And that was why I was in a Kristang powered armor suit, encased in an aeroshell that Skippy had fabricated aboard the Dutchman, with the atmosphere of Jumbo fast approaching. The meteors ahead of us were already burning their way down to impact the surface, we were right behind them. “How are the Thuranin reacting to the unscheduled meteor shower, Skippy?”

  “They are mildly curious, Joe. We are in luck because the Thuranin are in the midst of testing a sort of stellar ultrasound satellite that they put into orbit two months ago. Also, the Thuranin are super distracted, because they recently received an Elder power tap that none of them were expecting.”

  “What an incredible coincidence,” I said with a dry mouth, as the planet loomed in front of my eyes.

  “Yeah, that’s weird, huh? As Dr. Friedlander predicted, none of the researchers here were able to pass us the opportunity to inspect an Elder power tap, so most of them are either attempting to run tests on it, or arguing about which tests to run next. Anyway, nobody is paying much attention to meteors now. After the first cluster of meteors hit, the Thuranin analyzed the remaining ones coming in, and determined that none of the meteors pose a threat to their facility or the sensor equipment.”

  “Excellent aiming there, Skippy.”

  “Thank you, Joe. And now, I am sorry to say that we are going to lose communications for a short time. This microwormhole that I’m using needs to stay outside the atmosphere.”

  “Ok,” I said breathlessly. “Great. Talk to you later.”

  “Are you scared, Joe?”

  “Of course I’m scared, Skippy.” I almost bit my tongue, because my teeth were chattering with fear. “I’m afraid of heights, you know. This is about as high as you can get. I’m about to fall into the atmosphere of an alien planet, in an untested aeroshell that, as far as I know, you made out of pasta left over from the galley. And my parachute was packed by an absent-minded beer can. Other than that, I’m great!”

  “Don’t worry, Joe, I’m sure that I remembered to pack your parachute. Pretty sure. Well, fairly sure, anyway. To be safe, can you reach behind you and-”

  “Not funny, Skippy!”

  “Oh, come on, Joe,” the shiny beer can said in a teasing tone. “Admit it, the thought of spacediving down to the surface of a planet isn’t exciting to you?”

  “Combat is exciting too, Skippy. I very much do not like getting shot at either.”

  “Maybe you just haven’t been shot at by the right people yet, Joe.” His voice was distorted by interference, as I fell deep into the atmosphere, and the aeroshell became a hotly glowing meteor.

  “Talk to you later, Skippy,” I said, and I concentrated on keeping as calm as I could. Prayer helped.

  There isn’t much I can say about plunging through the atmosphere of Jumbo. I didn’t hear much of the hypersonic then supersonic then just plain sonic roaring noise as the aeroshell I was encased in burned through increasingly think air. The surface of the aeroshell was designed to heat up and peel away layer by layer. As pieces were torn off, the aeroshell shuddered and my stomach went along with it. As I said, I didn’t hear much, because my helmet cancelled out the ambient sounds. As for what I saw, that wasn’t anything to wrote home about either, mostly because I had my eyes closed in sheer terror part of the way down. The other reason is that I was encased in a thick aeroshell made of leftover pasta, or something like that. It sure had felt flimsy when I was lowered into it aboard the Flying Dutchman, and the thing was sealed closed around me. On the spacedive to Jumbo, my helmet visor had a view from a tiny camera in the nose of the aeroshell. After we hit the atmosphere and the air around us turned to red-hot plasma, the view in my helmet faceplate was a representation of what the suit’s computer thought was out there. The suit could have showed me pink dancing hippos and I would not have been able to disprove it.

  At around three kilometers altitude, the aeroshell deployed a drogue parachute that was only designed to slow down my descent. I still couldn’t see anything real because the aeroshell’s camera had burned away with the outer layer of the shell. There was a sudden jerk when the drogue chute deployed, and when it was shredded as intended, it snapped loose and was replaced by another one. And then by a third. At that point, I was less than one kilometer from the ground, and the aeroshell cracked open, both sides exploding away from me and out of my way. I was falling, feet first, toward ground that I could see was covered by dirt, mud and rocks. My freefall lasted only maybe half a second, to clear the aeroshell pieces, then my own parachute deployed. This was at first a triangular paraglider, although I didn’t steer the thing. A computer in my suit scanned the ground, selected a good landing spot, and aimed me for it. Less than fifty meters up, the parachute changed shape to become a big, round, billowing thing that lowered me gently to the ground. Just as my suit boots touched dirt, the parachute snapped loose from my back, and rolled itself into a sphere the size of a tennis ball, cords and all. That, I had to admit, was a soft landing, especially in 1.42 Gee conditions. Speaking of the high gravity, I fell down twice in my first five steps. The suit compensated for the additional strain of gravity, it wasn’t immediately able to compensate for a clumsy user. Walking slowly and carefully, I strode over to where my tennis ball size former parachute was, used my powered suit to scoop a hole in the dirt, and buried the parachute. Around me, I could see others doing the same, and I could see equipment including combots drifting to the ground on parachutes. The ground shook as a real meteor hit the ground to the north of us, throwing up a tall pillar of dirt. Skippy had planned for the two meteors just ahead and behind us to be extra large, so the dirt thrown up by their impact craters would obscure Thuranin sensors. I hoped that worked.

  “Lt. Poole, are you all right?” I asked the closest person to me. On the surface, we could use low-powered helmet to helmet lasers for communications, without being detected. That only worked if we were line of sight to the other person, although suits could also be used as relays. The image in my visor said ‘Poole, USA’, so I asked her first.

  “Yes, Colonel, I’m fine. That was awesome! We have to do that again sometime.”

  I did not share her adrenaline-seeking US Army Ranger enthusiasm. “You can do it for me next time. Major Smythe, this is Colonel Bishop. Status check.” While I couldn’t see Smythe from my position, I was hoping there were enough suits with line of sight between us that my message would be relayed to him by laser link.

  “
Down and safe, Sir,” came Smythe’s reply. “Everyone is accounted for.”

  “Confirmed,” I agreed, checking the display on my wrist. We hadn’t lost anyone during the drop. I counted that least as a victory, and possibly a minor miracle. “Collect the equipment, bury our trash and let’s get moving.” We had timed our landing for mid-morning on that part of Jumbo, so we would have plenty of time to travel before nightfall. Our suits had excellent night-vision capability, because Skippy had swapped the original crappy Kristang gear for advanced Thuranin equipment. We could have walked through the night, but I vetoed that idea. With the additional gravity, a fall could be fatal, and we had plenty of time, there was no reason to take an unnecessary risk. We would walk that day, set up shelters with camo netting for the night, then walk part of the next day until we were close to the perimeter of the Thuranin facility. Because the Thuranin did not want their instrument readings contaminated by electromagnetic radiation and airborne chemicals from their facility, the area around their base had very few sensors, which worked great for us. Our plan was to get a couple hours of rest the next night, and launch our assault around the middle of the night local time. We wanted the advantage of surprise by catching the Thuranin off guard. The six little green men and women there were not armed personally. They did have combots and automated defenses that Skippy knew about, and he warned us that ARD facilities may have nasty hidden defenses that he didn’t know about. That was why we planned to hit the place with three combots and two dozen high-speed special forces troops. Plus me, although I would be bringing up the rear and trying my best to stay out of the way. Smythe wanted to assign one person to essentially babysit me, I had vetoed that idea also. He probably did it anyway.

  After our spacedive and freefall down to the surface, walking across the high-gravity dirt and mud of Jumbo, and one and a half mostly sleepless nights huddled inside cramped shelters, the actual assault on the ARD facility was almost anticlimactic. Most of the facility’s defenses were designed to protect it from air assault, and the designers had anticipated being attacked by technology-stealing Kristang. They did not anticipate the attackers would have Thuranin-level or better technology. With Skippy’s help, we were able to evade the perimeter defenses entirely. The inner ring of defenses reacted to us, but stood down when we supplied the proper authentication codes. Skippy was totally disdainful of the Thuranin computer that handled security while the little green men and women were sound asleep. Yes, we had the proper codes to gain entrance to the facility. The computer still should have been smart enough to wonder who was out wandering around in the dark of night, while the computer surely knew that the six occupants were sleeping in their bunks.