Paradise by Craig Alanson

Author:Craig Alanson [Alanson, Craig]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2016-10-21T06:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Flying Dutchman

We jumped the Flying Dutchman into the far outskirts of the Paradise system, an area sparely populated by chunks of dead-cold dirty balls of ice and rock. From that distance, the star that shone on Paradise was a dim, fuzzy dot; a star rather than a sun. Skippy reported we had emerged in a region with an ordinary density of hydrogen atoms, it was nothing to write home about.

From our position, Paradise was five hours away, so the sensor data we had to work with was that old. In four hours, we would jump again, as the gamma ray burst of our jump in would be visible from Paradise and we didn’t want anyone coming out to investigate. We performed six jumps, with the last coming in barely above the cloud tops on the far side of the system’s only gas giant. By then, Skippy had determined that the only ships in the area were the Kristang in orbit around Paradise, and a handful of Ruhar ships were several lightminutes away from the planet.

By listening to message traffic both on the planet and between ships, Skippy was able to determine the situation had not changed significantly from what he had learned at the data relay station. The Kristang had over twenty warships, plus support ships, in orbit and complete supremacy in the space around Paradise. The remnants of the Ruhar defense task force were licking their wounds. A truce had been offered by the Kristang commander and accepted by the Ruhar, there had not been any violations of the cease-fire, which surprised me. The Kristang had landed thousands of troops and heavy equipment including aircraft, in a relatively uninhabited area of the northern continent. Humans isolated on Lemuria so far had been ignored by both sides, although Skippy had intercepted messages from the Kristang warning UNEF to cease any and all cooperation with the Ruhar. And the Ruhar had removed or disabled farming equipment they had provided to UNEF. Without any assistance from the Ruhar, humans were reduced to plowing fields behind hamvees, and by dragging plows behind teams of soldiers. UNEF appeared to be on the verge of a split between those who favored loyalty to the Kristang and those who wished to be neutral or align with the Ruhar. Discipline was breaking down as UNEF became scattered groups of farm villages rather than a military force. Negotiations were still ongoing between the Ruhar and the Kristang, although the Kristang now had the upper hand and were pushing the Ruhar to finish the details quickly. According to message traffic between the Ruhar commodore and the planetary government, the Ruhar Navy had contingency plans to send a major battlegroup to Paradise, but the commodore advised that was highly unlikely. The Jeraptha were concentrating on consolidating spectacular gains from their recent, highly successful offensive, and did not want to divert a substantial force for a planet their client species wanted to get rid of.

Humans on Paradise, in short, were totally screwed, unless we could do something to help them.

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