The Vixen War Bride Read online

  “There are no detailed maps of the areas you’re going to occupy,” McDowell went on. “In some areas Va’Shen resistance crumbled so fast we were taking territory before we even knew what it looked like. Each of you will have an intel troop who will double as an interpreter, and for those who did not hear the air quotes around that word, they are firmly in place. Our understanding of the Va’Shen language is rudimentary at best, based solely on what we could learn from signals intelligence and some from Va’Shen prisoners, but that has been very, very little. Just to illustrate, our biggest interrogation success during the fighting was when we got a tod to tell us his name.”

  McDowell paused and looked around the room before finishing this thought.

  “That took three months.”

  “Holy crap,” someone muttered from behind Ben.

  “The Va’Shen government has surrendered and pledged its cooperation, but there has been some sporadic insurgent activity. The Koreans in the northwest sector got hit three days ago. The Slovenians in Sector Four just yesterday, so you do need to be on your guard, but I will stress that this is not a combat mission. Your job is to get these communities back on their feet, back to producing whatever it is they produce and participating in a world-wide government that doesn’t come looking for revenge in twenty years.”

  The assembled captains and lieutenants were silent, but some were nodding.

  “Because I don’t know about you,” McDowell said, “but fighting these people once was enough for me.” He paused again to let that sink in. “You won the war. Now we need you to win the peace. Questions so far?”

  An officer on the other side of the room raised his hand, and at McDowell’s invitation, stood up.

  “Sir, Captain Mahoney, 4th ID, Sector Twelve,” the man began. “So, what I’m hearing is that we have no comms, no higher headquarters direction, no significant intelligence support, and no maps. Exactly what advantages do we have here?”

  McDowell regarded the question carefully. “When you find that out,” he finally said, “Let us know what they are.”

  Second Lieutenant Patricia Kim almost yelped as the armored personnel carrier she was riding in hit another bump and bounced her against the restraint harness holding her to her seat. The 22-year-old Korean-American quickly adjusted her ill-fitting helmet for what must have been the thirtieth time in the three hours they had been on the bumpy dirt road leading south to what was to be their new home. She looked at the officer sitting across from her to surreptitiously check to see if he noticed and cursed herself again for not taking the time to adjust the straps on her helmet before setting off. Her new commander, as well as the men and women she was going to be living and working with, were Army Rangers, and the last thing she wanted was to give them the impression that their new intelligence officer couldn’t keep up with them or didn’t take the job seriously.

  Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 5th Ranger Regiment had seen fighting on three different planets during the war. Like every unit after the surrender, it had seen its numbers drop as its soldiers accepted discharge and went home, but the accolades followed the organization even as new members, not all of them Ranger school grads, filled the ranks to make a new, post-war, peace operations-oriented unit unceremoniously named “Occupation Admin Company 13.”

  The new name didn’t bother Patricia, though she had been hoping for a posting at the Va’Shen capital where the real history was being made. Even so, she was one of the first Va’Shen language interpreters to come out of the Defense Language Institute on Earth, and that meant something. She was originally from New Plymouth, Earth’s first colony outside the solar system. The planet was the first to apply and be accepted as a U.S. state, and the first to vote in support of the war against the aliens. On New Plymouth, being first held a lot of meaning. Even if you were the first to serve in a backwater.

  “Hey, so you’re the terp, right?”

  She turned to her right and cursed as she was forced to readjust her helmet again. The soldier sitting in the harness next to her smiled in a friendly way.

  “I’m sorry, what?” she asked, raising her voice to try and be heard over the APC’s engine.

  “You’re the interpreter, right?” he repeated, holding out his hand. She smiled and shook it. “I’m Ramirez.”

  “Oh!” she said. “Yeah! I’m Kim! Lieutenant Kim. I’m your G2, intel and interpreter.”

  Another bump knocked the rim of her helmet over her eyes, and she swore again.

  Ramirez grinned. “So, can you teach me a few Va’Shen words?” he asked.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  “How do I say, ‘You have the most beautiful tail in the universe?’”

  She gave him the side-eye, suddenly more wary of the muscular young man. “You want to pick up Va’Shen girls? You have any idea how inappropriate that is?”

  “Strictly in the name of human-Va’Shen relations,” he assured her.

  “Yeah, it’s the ‘relations’ part that worries me,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

  “Come on! A little flattery goes a long way!”

  “Fine,” she relented. “But only because I want to be there to see what the girl does.” She turned her head to him and spoke in the Va’Shen language, enunciating each word carefully.

  Ramirez repeated the phrase until he was sure he had it down. “And that means ‘most beautiful tail,’ right?” he asked, suddenly suspecting a trap.

  “Well,” she said, “Sort of. Closest I know is ‘your tail, eyes acceptable.’”

  The Ranger stared at her for a moment. “Wow,” he said. “That’s just plain Shakespearean right there.”

  Patricia felt the need to defend herself, though in fairness to her it wasn’t like it was her fault. “All we know is what we get from intercepts,” she said. “It’s not like you can translate it off the internet, you know.”

  “Well… I guess you never know until you try, right?” Ramirez asked. “One more time?”

  Sitting across from the two, Ben, for his part, didn’t notice the impromptu lesson. He was reading through the print-outs in his binder. The EM interference on Va’Sh made computer tablets useless as anything but paperweights. Everything headquarters could tell him about Sector 13 was put on paper and divided into sections. His biggest problem was finding out what was useful and what wasn’t.

  The heart of Sector 13 was a farming community named Pelle, centered on a town of the same name in a valley surrounded by forested mountains that separated it from the coast. It was three hundred miles from the capital and a good 150 miles from Jamieson. It didn’t seem to have any military value at all except for its location astride the main road between the capital and Jamieson and two larger cities to the south that was going to act as the ground convoy route between them. Pelle, and his unit there, would be in charge of running a FARP, a Forward Air Refueling Point for helicopters and convoys moving around in the south.

  The total population was unknown, but the Coalition intelligence directorate estimated less than one thousand. They also weren’t sure if there was a militia. Their exact form of government was “in line with other Va’Shen agricultural communities,” whatever that meant. The only good news Ben could see was that the Navy construction engineers, the SeaBees, had been there for a week, building up their camp, so by the time they got there there should at least be some place to sleep.

  They hit another bump, and he heard his intel officer swear again. He bit his lip in thought. The Army gave him only 153 troops, only half of them were combat arms and only half of that number were from the 5th like him. The rest were support. A hundred and fifty troops against a thousand Va’Shen who couldn’t be feeling too good about their presence. If things went bad, those odds weren’t good. Especially since communications lines hadn’t been established yet, and the radio only seemed to work once in a blue moon, and then only on the very low frequency bands. Which meant that although Jamieson was technically there to provide h
elicopter, medical evacuation and quick response forces, reaching them to let them know support was needed was going to be hit or miss.

  He supposed the silver lining was that HQ wasn’t going to be leaning over his shoulder trying to micromanage everything. Ben could get behind that. In the age of instant communications everywhere, generals loved running every detail of every operation from their Joint Operations Centers, thoroughly aggravating every company and field grade officer in the Coalition. Guess he wouldn’t have that problem.

  He was MacArthur. Pelle was his Tokyo.

  “Jeez, this is boring,” Ramirez remarked. “I think this is the longest ride we’ve ever had in one of these things.”

  “You should have brought a book,” Patricia replied with a smirk.

  “Tablets don’t work here,” he sulked.

  “You could have brought a real book,” she argued.

  “What? Like with paper?” he asked incredulously. “What am I? A caveman?” He turned to his right and looked up through the gunner’s hatch at the African American man sitting at the gun. “Hey, Burgers!” he called. “What’s the view like up there?”

  “Man, you would not believe it!” the gunner called back. “If the rest of the planet is like this, I might retire here.”

  Patricia looked at Ramirez with an arched eyebrow. “Burgers?’”

  “Dude loves hamburgers,” the sergeant explained. He turned back to the gunner. “Hey! Switch places with me, man! I’m going nuts down here!”

  Up in the turret, Staff Sergeant Jared “Burgers” Baird looked out to the left and whistled in admiration. The twenty-vehicle convoy was driving down a road just above a cliff that overlooked a massive lake. A series of waterfalls poured down the far side, perhaps a half-mile away. Whichever Va’Shen god had painted this world had been a big fan of purple and used its many shades, mixed with a few blues and reds to give the trees on the bank life. The violet sky reflected off the water of the lake, giving it a darker complexion. The sun was slightly dimmer than Earth’s, but not terribly so, and gave the world a seemingly cooler look.

  “Thanks, I’ll pass,” Burgers called back, mesmerized by the view.

  “Come on! Switch with me!” Ramirez complained. “It sucks down here!”

  “Uh oh!” Burgers called down to him theatrically. “I think I see movement! Could be anything! Not a good time to try switching! If I take my eyes off these possible threats, even for a moment, we will surely all die!”

  “Dude, that’s garbage!”

  “Don’t worry,” Burgers assured him. “As soon as it’s safe, I’ll let you know!”

  Down in the bowels of the APC, Ramirez shook his head and bit his bottom lip in anger. “I’ll get you for this, Burgers,” he promised under his breath.

  Patricia grinned and patted his shoulder. “Only a few more hours to go,” she said consolingly.

  They hit another bump, and she swore as her helmet came down over her eyes again.

  They could see the village as they entered their new camp which sat just off to the left of the main road perhaps a half-mile from the town’s gates. Someone had taken time from constructing the half-finished camp to place a sign at the entrance that said “Welcome to Forward Operating Base Leonard – 100% ID Checks.”

  A single dirt road, one surprisingly free of bumps, ran through the center of the small camp which backed up to a thicket of purple-leaved trees. The buildings were a collection of grayish, pre-fabricated “Insta-Settlement” polymer temporary structures, the kind made to be easily brought down from colony ships and quickly assembled to meet a variety of different needs. Most of what the military had been using for this war, everything from the drop ships to the troop transports, had been originally designed to move colonists, not soldiers. And here, once again, the designers had shown how flexible their products were.

  Several men and women in camouflage uniforms and yellow hard-hats were working around the camp, moving equipment with forklifts and putting pre-fabs together. One of them, an older man holding a clipboard, broke off from a conversation he was having with another hard-hatted troop and strode confidently toward them as Ben and Patricia climbed out of the back of the APC. Seeing the two vertical bars on the front of his uniform, the man saluted Ben.

  “Good afternoon, Sir,” he began. “Welcome to FOB Leonard.” He dropped the salute as Ben dropped his and offered his hand. “Senior Chief Petty Officer Chase Warren, Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 15.”

  “Ben Gibson,” Ben returned, shaking his hand. “5th Rangers.” He gestured to Patricia. “This is Lieutenant Kim, our terp.”

  Warren shook Patricia’s hand and gave her a quick “Ma’am.”

  “So, what’s it look like, Chief?” Ben asked, getting a good look at his new home.

  “Almost got you completely set up, Sir,” the SeaBee told him. “Barracks, mess hall, head, showers…”

  “Showers,” Ben repeated, his tone betraying a sense of amazed gratitude. He offered Warren a fist-bump. “You’re our new hero.”

  Warren, almost a foot taller than Ben, smiled down at him as he bumped Ben’s fist with his own. “It’s the small things in life, Sir. Water’s hot too, and clean. We tapped into the main aquifer and set up filters. It’s cleaner than the water on Earth.”

  Ben turned south and tried to make out the village through the trees. “What about the locals? What have your dealings with them been like?”

  The senior chief grunted and paused. “They’re a mixed bag,” he confessed. “Met with the honcho a couple of times when we first got here, but usually he waves us away and lets us be. Some of the locals come out and watch us work, but always from a distance. Only exception was when we started cutting down some trees that were too close to the perimeter. That woke them up. The big man was out here, gesturing and gyrating. His message was pretty clear.”

  “Did you stop cutting the trees?” Patricia asked.

  “Hell no!” Warren replied. “You don’t give Tod a place to hide in stabbing range of where you sleep. They’re too damn sneaky and quiet to let that go.”

  Patricia arched an eyebrow at him. “So how did you address the problem?”

  Warren shrugged. “We cut down the trees.” At her appalled look, he grunted. “Next time, don’t start wars.”

  Ben sighed. “I don’t quite disagree with the argument, Chief,” he said. “But the war’s over, and we’re all good friends now, right?”

  “Good perimeters make good neighbors, Sir,” Warren responded gruffly.

  “I guess we’ll see,” Ben relented. He saw an NCO passing and waved him over. “Ramirez! Start moving us in. LT and I are going to go meet the neighbors.”

  “You got it, Sir!”

  “Chief, think you can break away and give us the grand tour?” Ben asked.

  “No worries, Sir,” Warren assured him. “I’ll get us a vehicle and meet you back here in ten minutes.”

  “Sounds good.” Ben turned to Patricia. “Good with you?”

  “Yes, Sir!” Patricia replied. “Um… weapon? Armor? Mission brief?”

  Warren gave Ben a knowing smile. “Little advice, LT,” he said. “Throw your armor in the corner of your quarters and forget about it. You won’t need it.”

  She smiled. “That peaceful, huh?” she asked, relieved.

  “No,” the chief replied. “Tod weapons go through armor like it’s tissue paper.”

  Patricia paled and turned to Ben to see if the sailor was joking. Instead he nodded. “Through the front plate and out the back one. Doesn’t even throw off the round’s trajectory. If you need cover, find three-feet of solid dirt to hide behind. That might help.”

  “Might?!”

  “What do you want?” Ben asked with a chuckle. “They’re aliens. If they didn’t have ray guns it’d be almost disappointing.”

  Warren left in search of a vehicle, but Patricia fell into step with Ben. “Then why are we dragging armor around with us?!” she complained. “It weighs a ton!”


  “Because,” Ben told her as if speaking to a child. “A U.S. Army reg says body armor will be worn whenever you go outside the wire, and all troops deploying in support of Operation Unified Resolve will be issued body armor and plates, which you are responsible for.”

  “But they know it doesn’t work, right?” she asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said as he came to a stop at the portable latrine. “But that’s not the point.”

  “Then what is?!” she asked, exasperated.

  Ben opened the door to the latrine and turned back to her. “Look, you have to understand how the government works. If you get killed, and you’re not wearing your body armor, it’s your fault for not wearing your armor. If you’re killed while wearing your body armor, it’s the Army’s fault for not giving you better armor. Then a Congressman complains because it’s election season and everyone downrange gets an order to wear more armor even though the additional armor doesn’t help and actually makes things worse since now you’re trying to haul another twenty-something pounds around with you. It’s better if you try not to think about it,” he told her. With that, he entered the latrine and closed the door, leaving Patricia standing there dumbfounded.

  “Jeez, how did we ever win this war in the first place?” she asked.

  It didn’t take long for Warren to find a Light Tactical Vehicle for them to ride in. Pulling up alongside, he gestured for them to get in. A Ranger private, Private First Class Jenkins, was manning the turret-mounted light machine gun on top. Another troop, Specialist Johannes, was armed up and ready in the back seat.

  “Moved in already, Johannes?” Ben asked as he got into the passenger side of the vehicle.

  The specialist shrugged. “Never saw a tod who wasn’t shooting at me, Sir. Kinda wanted to see what they’re like.”