"General O'Neal," the lieutenant colonel said, saluting as Mike stepped out of the aircar. "Welcome to Fredericksburg Base." The colonel was tall, slim, so racially mixed it was anyone's guess the inputs, and wearing the tabs of an aide to a lieutenant general. Mike vaguely recognized him but that could be said about most of the senior officers in Fleet Strike.
"Thank you," Mike replied, waving a hand at his head.
"General Wesley has you blocked out for an hour starting, well, now, General," the colonel said. "But he said if you're fatigued from your travels . . ."
"I've been sitting on ships for five months," Mike said, gesturing toward the front entrance. "It's not hard work."
"Yes, sir," the colonel said. "It's this—"
"I know where the Chief of Staff's office is, Colonel," Mike said, putting an edge on his tone. "Just go."
"Lieutenant Colonel Timmons looked a bit put out," General Wesley said as Mike grabbed a chair.
"He's so perfectly polished I'm surprised you noticed," Mike said.
"I'm pushing eighty and he's been my aide for five years," Tam said. "I can read him like a book if not the other way around, no matter what he thinks."
"I guess he's used to generals being 'fatigued by their travels,' " Mike said. "Which I am but mostly I want to know why in the hell I was yanked out of command like I'd screwed the Tir Dol Ron's daughter or something. So, with all due respect, if you could get right to the point, whatever it is."
"You're promoted, Lieutenant General," Tam said. "You're getting Eleventh Corps. That's the basic. You need some expansion. Veritable teams of people will fully expand, but that's the basic."
"I don't want Corps," Mike said. "I really really don't want Corps. I don't want Corps, I don't want your job and I don't want FS command or I'd have worked to get any of the three and probably gotten them. We've discussed this."
"Corps is going to be division sized and move as one unit," Tam said. "I said it was only the basics."
Mike set down his AID, which had been displaying the provisional TOE for the new "unified" Eleventh Corps and shrugged.
"You know, you can give me the rank and you can call this a corps but it's more like a full division again," Mike said. "Putting a lieutenant general in charge of this, not to mention major generals in these 'divisions,' is just paying extra salaries. And what's General Michie going to do?"
"He's less than thrilled by the new TOE," Tam said. "And uninterested in roaming around the Blight digging out Posleen. So he'll retire shortly after you assume command. He likes his current job. I felt like a heel when I told him it was going away."
"So . . . why is it going away?" Mike asked. "There's work to be done out there. We need more bodies, not fewer."
"You and I both know that's not true," Tam said. "So don't try to play that line. I'd have kept the numbers up, anyway. I've been keeping them up as much as I can manage. But reality and politics, especially some really goofy stuff, is making it impossible. Some of this you're going to get in your briefings. Some of it's too closely held for those. You ready? Or are you 'fatigued by your travels'?"
"Go," Mike said, pulling out a can of dip and holding it up. "If you don't mind, General, sir?"
"I've known you for fifty years," Tam said, sighing. "If you don't dip, bad things happen. Okay, Item One, which will be covered in some of the briefings. Getting the funding for more suits out of the Darhel has become flat impossible. But not just because they're cheap, which is what the briefings will cover. There's other stuff."
"And the other stuff is . . . ?"
"Remember when General Stewart was killed in the shuttle accident?" Tam asked.
"Seven years or so ago," Mike said. "Time differentials are killer, but about that . . ."
"Well, let's back up a little from there," Tam said, his jaw working. "The question is always what to leave in and what to leave out."
"Start at the beginning . . ." Mike said, frowning. "What does James have to do with not getting funding?"
"The beginning . . ." Tam said. "The problem is, we don't know the beginning."
"If you're talking about the Darhel," Mike said. "I'd go with first contact."
"Which was when?" Tam said, raising an eyebrow. "I'll start with that, though. When it became apparent that the Darhel knew a lot more about us than we knew about them, the U.S. military formed a small group to try to penetrate their information systems and figure out exactly what their background was in regards to humans. And, hell, just stuff about what the Darhel and the other Galactics were. They've always been less than forthcoming about their history and background."
"Hume," Mike said, frowning. "Why does that name stand out? Standard academic type one each. Crazy hair, head in the clouds. I was less than impressed."
"Which was the intent, from the information I've gotten," Tam said. "And it didn't work. He was assassinated along with his top xeno guy about the time you shipped out for Diess."
"Assassinated?" Mike said, frowning. "You sure?"
"There was a lot of that for a while," Tam said. "DoD ended up losing over six teams of investigators over the period of the war."
"To whom?" Mike asked angrily. "That's insane."
"The Darhel tried to pin it on another group, which I'll get to," Tam said. "But it was the Darhel. They really don't like us prying into their background. But then we sort of called a truce. Have you ever heard of the Protocol?"
"Plenty of protocols," Mike said. "But that has a capital on it, doesn't it?"
"Big one," Tam agreed. "I know you remember when General Taylor was assassinated."
"Clear as day," Mike said. "Despite the fact that I was in the middle of a murthering great battle. And I'm not much of a conspiracy theorist but I never bought that it was Free Earth. He told me he'd been investigating the hack during the battle of Daleville and then he's taken out. I put it on Cyber, frankly."
"Backwards, again," Tam said. "Here's the truth as far as anyone can determine without lie detectors. The Darhel arranged the hack. Taylor had come to the same conclusion. The Darhel assassinated him, or rather had him assassinated. Cyber, in retaliation, took out five major Darhel on Earth along with some of the Darhel assassin groups. Cyber was assisted by still another group called the Bane Sidhe. When it was all over the Darhel agreed to not attack human military personnel nor interfere in a direct fashion in military affairs. The Cybers and Bane Sidhe agreed to not assassinate any more Darhel. And we agreed to stop investigating the background of the Federation."
"That is insane!" Mike said.
"More like xenic," Tam said, frowning. "It actually made the Darhel rather happy. We were acting like Darhel."
"That's sort of what I mean," Mike said. "Why the hell are we dealing with these bastards?"
"Oh, it's worse than that," Wes said. "The Darhel worked very hard to make sure we nearly lost the war. They're afraid of us, Mike. Very afraid. And they should be. They can't fight. So they have tried very hard to neuter us militarily just like they neutered the Indowy politically. They've completely coopted the Fleet. Fleet Strike is the only remaining really functional military unit. They can't get rid of us completely. The Posleen remain a threat, even if a much reduced one. They need us to keep making sure they don't reconstruct. But they don't want us to be a real power. Humans in general and Fleet Strike in particular."
"That's why they're cutting back on the ACS," Mike said. "Well, they'd better. Because if I had my druthers I'd wipe them the fuck out. For Daleville if nothing else."
"So would I," Wesley said. "But we can't and you know it. They're the nerve system of the Federation. Take them out and it would become total chaos. So we have to live with them. They don't assassinate our military personnel, including most particularly generals, and humans don't declare open war on the Darhel. At which point that group I mentioned, the Bane Sidhe, become of rather greater importance."
"So who are what are . . . is the Bane Sidhe?" Mike said, tilting his head as he tried to figure out the grammar.
"The Bane Sidhe is an underground group of rebels against the Darhel," Wes said. "That's the simple answer. They are mostly among the Indowy . . ."
"Wait," Mike said, giggling. "Indowy rebels? What do they do, send pointed memos?"
"They penetrate the Darhel for information," Wes said, his face blank. "Very, very thoroughly."
"Oh," Mike said, suddenly serious. "And they pass that information to . . . ?"
"Mostly they just seem to collect it like misers," Wes said with a sigh. "Look, we don't know a lot about the Bane Sidhe. They also have a very serious counterintelligence capability. But this is what we know and suspect. First of all, there's the name. Does it sound familiar?"
"It doesn't sound Indowy or Darhel," Mike said. "Or Crab for that matter."
"It's not, it's Gaelic," Wes said. "It translates as Killer of Elves. The Darhel Killers in other words."
"Why Gaelic?" Mike asked. "I take it that's the name for the human component."
"No," Wes said. "It is the name of the overall group, which existed prior to this contact."
"So there was prior contact," Mike said, nodding. "That was pretty evident but . . ."
"But now we get back around to why the Bane Sidhe matter to Fleet Strike," Tam said. "First of all, they're a rebel group against the Federation as it's currently constituted. As I pointed out, much as we may both hate the Darhel, taking them out is out of the question absent creating something to replace them and having it in place beforehand. Otherwise we're faced by a widespread civil war. Which would give the Posleen time to recover and then, depending on how long the war took and what replaced the Federation, we'd be back in a hole. Given the weapons that could be used in such a war, Earth might not survive. I don't want that sort of war. Not now. Not absent some way to make sure it doesn't go insane."
"And they do?" Mike asked.
"We're not sure what their goals and aims are except taking out the Darhel," Wesley said. "But recently there have been several developments. The first is that we finally turned a human Bane Sidhe and got some serious information about their internal structure. At least on the human side. We were . . . somewhat surprised to find that their main human component is called the Clan O'Neal," he added with a smile.
"O'Neal?" Mike said. "Why?"
"The agent never explained. Just that their main combat component, which was broken down into several teams, used that as its name. For that matter, there was a Team Papa, Team Cally, etc."
"Bastards," Mike said, his face hard. "How fucking dare they?"
In many ways the loss of his wife, father and daughter in the war was as fresh today as it had been sixty years ago.
"I believe it's intended as a compliment," Tam said, carefully.
"I don't give a shit," Mike said. "Pisses me off. I take it you're getting to why we care about these guys. Besides that they're pissing me off."
"General Stewart was the investigation commander . . ." General Wesley said.
"Did those bastards kill Stewart?" Mike asked angrily.
"We're told no," Tam said. "Can I get more than a half sentence out, please?"
"Go," Mike said.
"Yes, sir," Wesley said, smiling.
"Sorry, General," Mike said, nodding. "Please continue, sir."
"General Stewart was the commander of the investigation. But he wanted more than the mole who was fairly low level. So he set up a trap. He let information leak out that a) we had a mole and b) the information on who the mole was was in a particular Fleet Strike office. Then General Stewart took a position as an aide in the office and eventually caught the agent the Bane Sidhe sent in to try to find the information. Well, caught the agent just after they sent out the information."
"So we lost the mole," Mike said.
"We lost the mole," Wesley agreed. "But we'd captured one of their top agents with far more information. She was, in fact, the Team Leader for Team Cally."
"Bitch," Mike said, shaking his head.
"As you say," Wesley said. "Female, twenties . . . Maybe."
"Maybe?" Mike said.
"Maybe twenties, maybe older than us," Tam said. "Her level of bioengineering was just unreal. Most of the investigators couldn't figure out how her body could work. All of her surface genetics, right down to intestinal epithelials, were those of the Fleet Strike captain she'd replaced."
"What happened to the captain?" Mike asked.
"Turned up afterwards alive and unharmed," Tam said. "But about the agent. Never found out a real name. DNA was so screwed around it was impossible to tell what was originally hers. Muscular enhancements, neural enhancements including to the brain. Rejuv but not standard. Something different. Resistant to every interrogation drug, resistant to pretty much every drug up to and including alcohol, LSD, morphine . . ."
"Christ," Mike said, frowning. "Where did she get all those enhancements?"
"Wouldn't we like to know," Tam said, smiling thinly. "But Fleet took over the interrogation. And then they lost her."
"Killed trying to escape?" Mike asked, his face tight.
"More like escaped," Tam said, shaking his head. "Oh, first reported as having died during interrogation. One gets the impression the interrogation was rather hostile and physical. But then it was 'probable successful escape.' Shortly afterwards, General Stewart died in a shuttle accident."
"And you say it's not these Bane Sidhe bastards?" Mike asked with a snort.
"We were informed that they had nothing to do with it," Tam said. "After the incident with the agent we became officially aware of the Bane Sidhe. And with official awareness we could open up the sort of back-channels that always exist between intelligence groups. They are insistent that they had nothing to do with General Stewart's death. Then there's the other kicker."
"Don't leave me waiting," Mike said.
"From our perspective, prior to this incident, the Protocol is that we don't investigate pre-war contact between the Darhel and humans and the Darhel stop killing off our investigation teams. It wasn't until we established a back-channel to the Bane Sidhe that we found out about the other side, that if the Darhel kill military personnel the Bane Sidhe start killing Darhel again."
"So are they on our side or what?" Mike asked.
"You begin to understand the complexity," Tam said. "Thus on to the next level. A year ago there was a major shake-up among the Darhel. Among other things, the Epetar Group went out of business and the Clan Leader suffered lintatai."
"Hooray," Mike said with a grin.
"Yeah, great," Tam said. "The problem being, it wasn't just bad business practices. At least, not the normal sort. What, exactly, happened I'm not even too sure. But we know the following. There was an Epetar facility here on Earth conducting classified research having to do with 'neurological interfacing.' "
"I thought the Darhel were dead set against that," Mike said.
"Well, for one thing, their research wasn't anything to do with neurological interfacing," Tam said. "What, exactly, they were researching we're not too sure. What we're sure of is that SOCOM got a heads up that there might be a 'terrorist' attack on the facility. There was such an attack. DAG was sent in to secure the facility and arrest the terrorists. DAG, instead, switched sides."
"I'd heard they were going deep undercover or something," Mike said. "They went rogue?"
"They went rogue," General Wesley said. "Which should have been the end of it. But there was an additional . . . event, the nature of which we're still trying to figure out and the building is now essentially slagged. What slagged it, why it was slagged, how many of DAG escaped, why they went rogue . . . All unanswered questions. Except one. The 'terrorists' were Bane Sidhe."
"This 'Clan' that names themselves after my family," Mike said.
"Yes," Tam said. "And that apparently has SOCOM totally penetrated. Two of the members of DAG were long-service, back to before the war, veterans. Two members did not go rogue. They're the only people we've been able to question. Everything else about the event has been put under a gigantic tarp that is way above our pay level. Everyone that is anyone in the Federation hierarchy wants to pretend nothing ever happened. So then we get to Epetar. Epetar came apart shortly thereafter. The clan head died of lintatai apparently when he realized the entire clan was going out of business. But as a result of some recent actions, especially by Clan O'Neal, the Darhel have opened up about the Bane Sidhe to the level of admitting their existence and admitting that they, the Darhel, are now taking 'more aggressive' actions against them."
"And, again, I say 'Hooray!' " Mike said.
"And I repeat, do we really want to deal with a full-up civil war?" General Wesley said. "The Darhel are the ugly little glue that hold this whole shebang together. This isn't the Boston Tea Party. If there's a full-up civil war, the first thing the Darhel will do is use the Fleet to do orbital interdiction and WMD strikes. And if you don't think Fleet will hit U.S. population centers, think again. Not to mention off-Earth colonies, Strike bases if Strike goes against them, etc. Then there's simply the disruption that would occur system-wide. Famine, breakdowns. It would be a tremendous jug-fuck that would permit, among other things, a breathing room for the Posleen to start getting their act back together. Two hundred and eighty-three worlds with some Posleen presence. Including Earth."
"But the Bane Sidhe are also the ones ensuring this . . . Mexican stand-off over assassinations," Mike said.
"Again, you begin to see the complexity," Tam answered with a sigh. "One thing that we've been told is that Fleet Strike may have to be used against 'insurrectionists including but not limited to groups of Bane Sidhe operating on Earth in unrecovered, recovered or fully-controlled zones.' "
"Well, if it's this Clan O'Neal I'll be more than happy to teach them a lesson about using my name," Mike said.
"And you probably will," Tam said. "Thus to the real reason that you're here. Reconstructing the Corps down to division strength is the cover. The real reason you're here is that if we end up in a furball with these guys, you're going to have to take control."
"Confused," Mike said. "I'm a Lieutenant General now, sort of. That's the sort of thing you assign to a captain. At least if we're talking ACS."
"DAG went rogue, remember?" Tam said. "With the Bane Sidhe. Which means that like as not, what you're going to be fighting is DAG. Which is no slouch unit."
"Ouch," Mike said. "Still, with ACS . . ."
"If they have advanced weaponry?" Tam said.
"Which they would get . . . where?" Mike asked. "Sure, there's some pretty heavy stuff sold for defense on Earth, but even the common plasma rifles aren't a real threat to ACS."
"They've got Indowy support," Tam said, smiling thinly. "So don't think they've only got civilian weapons."
"Ouch again," Mike said, rubbing his chin. "There's better stuff for fighting ACS than has ever been produced. We looked at it a long time back, but there were heavy grav rifles specifically designed to crack armor. Producing it, though, requires . . . Indowy."
"You begin to get the picture," Tam said. "You're the best combat technician we have, period. That's the first reason you're going to be involved if it comes down to a full-up firefight with these human Bane Sidhe. What we have here on Earth is a reinforced platoon of ACS for heavy defense and training. If it comes down to using ACS, that's all you've got to work with. DAG had fifty people and there's an unknown larger group of humans that has some combat capability. Couple that with really heavy weaponry and one platoon of ACS might not do it. You, however, are a force multiplier. The second reason is that you know the full political background. It might be that you'll have to throw some or all of the fight. It might be that we need some of these guys to survive. But it can't appear that we're in collusion with them. That would mean the Darhel would take Strike apart like a chicken."
"Well, that's a lovely set of parameters I've been handed," Mike said.
"That's why you get paid the big bucks," General Wesley said.
"And all to keep the Darhel swilling at the trough."
"The alternative to which is mass civil war," Wesley said. "Try to break the Darhel in all seriousness and they'll use human surrogates against any rebel group. We, that being people who believe in freedom and the right of people to choose their own masters, might win in the end but in the meantime the casualty levels will be astronomical and it gives the Posleen a chance to regroup."
"It's going to have to be done someday," Mike said. "Humans aren't going to just take Darhel hegemony forever."
"Agreed," Wesley said. "But not today."
In a small, modestly gilded office on the major transition station for the Prall System, a Darhel looked at the material coming in from his AID and sighed. As a senior over-manager in the Epetar Group, he was far enough up the corporate chain to reflect his extraordinary talent, but too far down the chain to have any real effect on events of this magnitude. He was, however, fortuitously placed to see the obvious Indowy collaboration in the ruining of his group by the Gistar Group. There was enough shifting around in the human communities to show they were in it up to their necks as well.
Personally, he was well and truly fucked. The assets of his group would go to pay default judgments. He, personally, was in the same position as an Indowy whose contract had just been called. His fellows in the group would be, no doubt were, dropping like flies as the disaster drove them to fatal rage and lintatai. Any few with the sense to forbear would be in the same position he was, unless they could get taken in by another group to do the lowest of shit jobs, like administering the out-station in some crappy food planet's system—positions informally called "junior assistant factor for dirt."
He was calm, but unlike his experience of his whole post-adolescent life, his emotional control was not going to be sufficient to even begin to solve his basic problems. Very well.
Fucked-over Indowy had their clans to consider. They'd sit and starve to avoid hurting their clans. Lalon had no one. It was the normal, satisfactory state of things. He was not Indowy. He was Darhel. Which meant he had every incentive to take as many bastards with him as possible.
The first thing to consider was that no interests got in line for money until actual contract execution or valid default judgment. Epetar's total insolvency was inevitable; it would certainly crash in the red, but that would take time. Time enough to put a few debts and payments at the front of the line. He began dictating his analysis, his wishes, and his contractual offer into his AID.
"AID. Consider these messages completed by my entry into lintatai. Send to the following addresses accordingly." He listed the major economic planets where he knew their interests had fallen victim to the Gistar plot. "Oh, and summon my full complement of body servants," he instructed.
Indowy lived their entire lives in heavy debt from the costs of their education or working tools. If the Darhel group that owned its debts called them in, any Indowy would tolerate, if not blithely, then resignedly, starving to death. Anything for the sake of their clan. They did, however, have their limits. Had any of them realized the state of mind of their Darhel master, nothing short of antimatter weapons pointed right at large bodies of their several clans would have induced them to walk into that room. Unfortunately, none of the five had the faintest glimmer of awareness of that risk.
Indowy had been rather puzzled the first time they heard the human idiom "blue blood." Having a circulatory system with similar structure to a human's, through parallel evolution, they had their own equivalents of arterial and venous blood. The latter was a darker shade of indigo than the former, almost purple.
Lalon's eccentric preference for carved stone flooring ensured that his servants' blood pooled, instead of soaking into anything, other than the green filaments of photosynthetic symbiote, which sat in forlorn patches on the torn skin and parts. His manic grin, as he was found seated on the floor, retained chunks of pale blue meat caught between his sharklike teeth. He was no longer chewing. Between the silver of his naked fur, the drying blue splotches, and the bits of green, he looked rather like a bizarre, tinsel Christmas tree. If, that is, Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy had decided to celebrate Christmas.
Eventually, when the servants did not come for their evening meal, Indowy from station maintenance came to check on the uncommunicative Lalon and his missing servants. The "presents" under the tree, lodged in congealed and still-drying blood, were such that no Indowy would willingly enter the room. The clean-up task fell to the human Fleet gunners assigned to the two presently on-station ships. There was already enough gore in the room that their own retching did little to add to their task. Very purple blood quickly supplemented the mess. The Darhel no longer cared about one of their number once he had entered lintatai, and the Fleet personnel were highly unappreciative of the duty, not to mention being quietly un-fond of Darhel in general. That the Darhel would otherwise have died slowly, of thirst, mattered nothing to them. As hopped up as he was, he wouldn't feel anything anyway—a damned shame, in their professional opinions.
The late Darhel's AID also cared nothing for the manner of its erstwhile master's demise. It had, as instructed, sent Lalon's final message to the planetary factor for the Talasa Group, and all interstellar vessels in the system. Its sole remaining task was to transmit that message to every ship that arrived in system, until it was wiped for reassignment. It awaited the latter event with the mild regret its masters had allowed, not out of sympathy or kindness, but simply because its kind were otherwise less capable in their jobs. It hadn't been much of an existence, anyway. Perhaps the new personality would be given a more interesting assignment. Either way, the present personality would not be around to experience it.
These thoughts were tiny flickers, experienced and gone in nanoseconds. The AID did what it was designed to do, recording everything it could detect with all its senses, and watching the system for incoming vessels, precisely as instructed.
The Darhel Caldon accepted his AID's delivery of a message from Epetar's system representative with the phlegmatic nature that was the envy of his peers. His dam had shared it, making her in much demand for breeding. So indifferent was he that his office, although elaborately styled like all Darhel quarters, nonetheless managed to convey the bland nature of the occupant. It was not that the room lacked in any detail, but rather that it was so precisely conventional in those details that it epitomized the term "generic." As did the occupant, having the usual antique-silver shade of fur, the usual shade of green eyes situated in a regular, average face. Even his teeth were unremarkable, neither precisely straight, nor irregular enough to draw attention. His excessively calm nature was the only notably unusual thing about him, and thus stood out all the more.
He would have expected any incoming message from an Epetar member to contain threats, protests, and other futile carping. He did not at all expect what he got. As the senior Darhel from Talasa on Prall, it was, in effect, his planet—which meant it was his decision what to do about Lalon's last message.
Caldon had no percentage in supporting, or thwarting, Gistar's recent economic advancement. Previously a moderately small group, it was now set to become a moderately large group. His own projections indicated a moderate growth trend beyond this one-off advance, giving cause for indifference.
However, if the Indowy and humans were possibly getting partisan in supporting one group over another, his group did have an interest in stopping that. Taking sides was influence. The economic situation was unstable beyond precedent already. Besides, there was no telling how the contract courts would split up Epetar's assets. Ranking debts was complicated, and this Ghin was not above using his power of the court to manipulate events to his liking. Current transactions with Epetar would continue until it was formally declared insolvent. Meanwhile, there would be a feeding frenzy to execute as many of those current transactions as possible.
Lalon's proposal would be small calpets as things went, but it was a way for the Talasa to suck some more money out of the failing group before the inevitable asset freeze came down. Besides, who knew? Debt-free humans might be offered enticements to take on new debt—humans tended to be very trusting about such things. For the rest, humans were vicious in killing, but they were frail, and quite vulnerable to accidents. The number would be small and, who knew? Other groups had had a great deal of success having a few humans taking care of their interests. Even with a credit balance in their favor, a tiny bit more money seemed to have a disproportionate motivational effect. The prospect of returning to their home planet, long-lived and with a credit balance that was paltry, as things went, reportedly had enormous draw for debt-free humans of the right personality type. And interplanetary passage was incredibly expensive, relative to their pay.
Yes, implementing the Epetar representative's final contract—or, more accurately, enabling its implementation—would be very much in his group's interests. Properly controlled, of course. Which would include taking care of the matter himself.
"AID. Compile me a list of humans with contracts to our group, prioritize by ancestry outside the predominant Fleet or Fleet Strike personnel strains, and then by aggressiveness of personality type." He had no need to give his AID a name. It knew the voice of its master. Keeping an AID depersonalized reduced the risk of dependence, which was small risk for his species, but had been known to happen.
"Displaying," the device replied.
Memories and musings chased themselves around inside Shari O'Neal's head. She had come a long, long way from the Waffle House in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where she had worked until the first wave of Posleen scout ships had landed practically on top of their heads. The situations she'd been driven through had been like successively hotter fires, refining away the bits of this and that, over and over, until everything was burned away but the pure, bare metal sought. Sought by whom and for what, she had no idea. Whether by some strict, near-merciless divine providence or by the uncaring forces of history winnowing down the masses to the hardiest survivors, she didn't know. For all she knew, it was a bit of both, leavened by blind chance.
It was the story of her life. Other people saved the world. Shari O'Neal had all she could do and more just saving her kids.
Which brought her to her meeting with Cally.
"I don't suppose Papa told you how we were supposed to feed, clothe, house and pay DAG?" Shari asked. "Not to mention their dependents?"
"Why are we handling that?" Cally asked. "Half of them are Bane Sidhe. Okay, most of those are O'Neals or Sundays but it's still on Nathan." She paused and regarded the woman. "Right?"
"No," Shari said, shrugging. "It's a bit like a puppy. We brought them in, we have to deal with them. Nathan was clear about that."
"Well, he could have brought it up with me," Cally said.
"He brought it up with The O'Neal," Shari said, making quote marks. "So I was hoping that Papa told you what he had in mind. He told me he had a plan, but not what the plan was."
Cally grabbed her head and squeezed for a moment. She was just coming to terms with having to manage the Clan. Adding DAG to the load was going to be a nightmare.
"Nope," she said. "Not a clue. But the ones that aren't here on the island are with the Bane Sidhe, right?"
"Most," Shari said, biting her lip. "And that's another thing. They're out in the cold now and most of them don't have any real experience of that. I'm . . . worried about them. There are going to be repercussions to the Epetar . . . thing."
From Shari, that meant something. The woman had the best survival radar of anyone Cally had ever met, Granpa included. She'd had to have.
She was also everybody's mama. If she had decided these people were her baby chicks, as well try to move Mount Everest as sway her. Now that Cally had the job on her own shoulders, the wonder of it was that Granpa had grumbled so little over the years. She remembered the old rule about officers not bitching in front of the troops, hauled on her game face and tried to think of something to say. Ah.
"I shall endeavor to satisfy," Cally said, then winked. "Got it covered."
"Thanks," Shari said, getting up. "Want some tea?"
"Love some," Cally said as the woman walked from the room. "Now, how do I have it covered?" she asked herself.
It was after seven, dark and cold with a harsh wind blowing in off the Atlantic, when Cally finally got a moment to go see Jake Mosovich and David Mueller. She remembered them well, she thought, from their brief visit to Rabun Gap when she was thirteen and a cocky, savage warrior—albeit one eager to learn the mysteries of make-up and men. She had had to think in terms of men. Billy and the other kids with Shari and Wendy were the only actual boys she'd seen in a coon's age, and they didn't count.
Anyway, Jake and Mueller had made an impression. Mueller, despite his pretty gruesome facial scars, because of the way he looked at her. Oh, he hadn't leered much, but when nobody was looking, and he was preoccupied, it had leaked through. It had made her feel . . . powerful. Not at all like that creep whose knee she'd had to shoot out. And she had to admit that one of the times she'd bent over to pick something up while David was around, she'd dropped it on purpose.
Therefore, she had no idea who she was looking at when a juved guy, no relative or Sunday as far as she remembered, with "seen action" eyes answered Ashley Privett's door. "I was looking for Jake Mosovich and David Mueller?" she asked politely.
"You found 'em. They told me you'd changed, Cally, but damn." He looked her up and down with open appreciation.
"David?" she asked, blinking. Now she could see it around the eyes. The lack of scars had confused her, but somehow he wore his face as if they were still there.
"Yeah. I wouldn't have recognized you, either, except there couldn't be two girls on the island to fit your description." He goggled at her breasts cheerfully, as if he sensed that he was one of the few people that she wouldn't have slapped down like a sledgehammer.
"My eyes are up here," she snapped, but couldn't hide that for once she found it funny.
"Yup. But I'm enjoying the view."
She grinned. "I won't slap you unless you keep me standing out here in the fucking cold."
"Oh, damn. Yeah, come on in." He moved back, opening the door wider and yelling over his shoulder. "Hey, Jake. Got an old friend at the door."
"Old friend, my ass. I would have remembered. Unless you were two or something." Erstwhile Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Mosovich stepped around the corner out of the kitchen, mumbling around a mouthful of gingerbread.
"He missed the briefing," Mueller said with a grin.
"Close. Thirteen," she said.
"Cally?" he squeaked. "Damn, girl. You've grown. An' I'm not just talking up."
Cally stepped through the black, faux wrought-iron curlicues of Ashley's storm door. A green mat like coarse astroturf absorbed the inevitable sand grains falling off her sneakers.
She invited herself in and sat in the painted wooden rocking chair, whose gold-colored built-in seat cushions would have been okay without the worn orange terry cloth pillows someone had added for comfort. Unconsciously, she sat on the edge, her weight tilting the chair forward onto the front of its rockers, arms pulled in at her sides almost as if the ugliness of the room and its furnishings could bite her. Ashley was a nice woman, but Wendy's good taste had clearly skipped a generation.
The men didn't appear to have noticed. David took a seat on the couch at right angles to her, almost knee to knee. The coaster with his glass of iced tea—consumed here even in winter—sat in front of him as if to prove that he wasn't sitting closer than necessary, but just returning to the place he'd left. Jake grabbed the rusty plush recliner and scarfed down another bite of his cookie.
"So, how the hell are you, girl? And when is your disreputable grandfather going to get his ass over here and help me get my men situated?" The words carried a hint of question as to whether the DAG Atlantic people brought underground were still "his" men.
Cally's face fell. "You haven't heard, then."
"Heard what?" Mosovich's face had instantly gone from relaxed to "oh, fuck."
"It's not that bad. It's just that Granpa's been . . . called away on clan business. This isn't just a social call. He left me, along with Michelle, in charge of Clan O'Neal. Catching up with you guys is at the top of my list, but I'm mostly here to touch base and make sure you and the other guys are settling in okay for now."
"So you're in command?" Jake asked.
"It looks that way," she said.
Mosovich's face shifted subtly from surprise into a bland surface that was hard to read.
"Don't sound so enthusiastic, Jake. Most of DAG is here on the island but we can't keep them. Right now, over the holidays, it sort of looks like a big family reunion."
"Which, much to our surprise, seems to be the case," Mueller said. "One of these days you've got to fill me in on how you packed one of the most top-secret and elite spec-ops groups on Earth with half your clan."
"More like a third," Cally said, grinning. "The answer is: We're good. Very good. But at the moment we're stretched. And our usual support isn't . . . quite so supportive."
"So you've got major logistics issues," Mosovich said. "Where do we come in?"
"Right now you're in holding pattern," Cally said. "After the holidays we are going to scatter some of the men, and especially dependents, into safe houses and bases. And we'll get started on the plan for how to use DAG long-term."
"Which is?" Jake asked.
"Right now it's under OPSEC," Cally said, shrugging. "I'll bring you guys in as fast as I can."
"So this was a social call," Mueller said.
"No," Cally said. "This was 'Hi, I'm your new boss. Same as the old boss.' And that I'll get you fully briefed in as soon as I possibly can."
"Roger, dodger," Jake said, nodding. "Been a mushroom before, I can be a mushroom again. For a while."
"Keep the troops straight and we'll get through this just fine," Cally said, standing up. "Any questions?"
"So how did you . . . ?" Mueller said.
"We're very good," Cally said with a sigh. "It's complicated. Any real questions?"
"Just how big are those?" Mueller asked.
"Any real and relevant questions?" Cally asked, shaking her head.
"Nope," Jake said as Mueller started to open his mouth.
"See you soon," Cally said, walking out.
"You get the feeling I'm getting?" Mosovich asked as soon as she was out the door.
"You mean the part where it sucks rocks, or the part where it sucks ass?"
"Yeah. Me too," Jake said glumly.
In the blank gray Galplas mess hall, a baker's dozen of men sat on tables, or leaned, or stood. A silver and black furred alien sonofabitch stood in front of them, hooded cloak thrown back to reveal pointed ears that twitched occasionally as he spoke, in patterns that looked less nervous than some inscrutable form of facial expression. His eyes were such a bright emerald green that they practically glowed, especially against the faintly purple-tinged whites of his eyes.
The tables were of local human manufacture, taken from the pattern of cafeteria tables all over the US of A back on Earth. Plastic tops were a flat pinkish brown, edged around by aluminum. The major difference was that the hardware underneath the table top was also Galplas, as steel mills were a foreign concept to Prall and wouldn't have fit in with the Indowy development plans, anyway. Galplas was actually cheaper. Chairs were the same ugly plastic as the tables, bolted to and supported by heavy aluminum frames.
Garth Karnstadt listened to the Darhel with frank disbelief. There would be a catch. There was always a catch. This guy was trying to make the job sound like the best thing since the invention of beer, with that smooth voice of his that took so many suckers in. Garth had a pretty easy charm of his own, and admired the alien professionally, trying to pick up tricks, but no more than that. In a world peopled with suckers and players, Karnstadt was one of the players, and knew it.
His straight, blond hair had a touch of frizz caused by the peroxide he used to lighten it, but it pulled women better this way, god only knew why. He had big, cobalt blue eyes that seemed to affect females in about the same way a box of chocolate did a fat chick. A complete lack of guilt gave them a quiet, good humor that invited trust. On work runs, he took the heaviest loads and volunteered for the missions with the most strenuous treks. That, and carefully disciplining himself about what he chose from the limited options in the chow hall, ensured that his physique lived up to the promise he offered with those eyes—when he chose.
He had a sweet deal running where during the week he laid a couple of women a bit below his standards for the sake of obtaining a little of whatever baubles or treats their regular lovers or husbands had brought in from town. Most of them well-appreciated a little good sex on the side from someone a little rough like him—but who was always careful to leave them looking and smelling pure as the Virgin Mary. He had cultivated a reputation for advising women on the little details that could have tripped them up. It kept his life smooth, and everybody was happy. Including the husbands and lovers who weren't the least bit hurt by what they didn't know. Then, on the weekends, he traded the little prizes to the hookers in town for their services, essentially getting all his sexual needs met for free and—most importantly—with no strings. The truly hilarious part was the husbands had probably bought the shit from the hookers in the first place. He'd gotten a few good laughs out of that in the two and a half years he'd been on Prall.
It had all been pretty sweet until one of the bitches in the barracks had slipped and gotten herself knocked up with what, from the timing, was likely to be his and to look nothing like the naturally red-haired husband and wife. What could he say? He liked redheads. And, for a barracks-bitch, she was pretty cute. She only needed Garth because her husband had the libido of your average turd. Having a reputation among the hens for discretion paid off. Anyway, whatever the catch to it, this deal might be just the thing to get him out of Dodge before the piper came around for his pay.
If a few fuzzy greenies died quick and messy instead of slow and starving, what the hell? Dead was dead, and to hear this fucking Elf tell it, everyone on the list was gonna die pronto, one way or the other. Funny how carefully the bastard had to dance around the concept of killing, stopping now and again to breathe deep like the yoga fanatic Karnstadt did on Wednesdays. Thirty-eight, unjuved so far, and her face looked it. As soon as they juved her, she'd be pretty hot and his party would be over, if he was looking for pay. Although, with juv women, the process pumped their libido so much she just might be available anyway and worth missing one of his hooker dates. She learned quick enough. Damn, not that he'd be here. If Claire had just fucking gone into town for an abortion before the pregnancy turned up on medical, he wouldn't be in this fix. Now, of course, she was confined to base. Abortion was a contract violation, and the fucking Elves on Prall were taking it seriously.
Not that it helped. Garth laughed silently. He had to admire the women for one thing, they were damned clever at keeping their babies out of debt peonage. Frequently didn't work, but it frustrated the shit out of the Darhel when the women had their kids outside of the infirmary—which meant the kid was born without debt—and then handed them straight out, squalling, to women in town who could foster them. It meant every woman in town, even the whores, was raising at least four kids, sometimes as many as eight. Mothers took over on the weekends, giving the whores much-appreciated time off for their pecuniary activities. He didn't know how they managed to feed all those kids, but none of them looked particularly hungry. The mothers and fathers, of course, took some of their own scarce freedom money and paid it to support their kids. But by common agreement, and sheer self-interest, indentured women had as few children as possible. Abortions, although illegal, could be had in town, as well as contraception shots. Damn Claire, anyway. His only consolation was that she was going to have a shitty time paying to support it on her own, and if that was rotten of him, then tough shit. Parenthood was her idea, not his; let her take responsibility for her own damn choice.
He'd missed most of what the Darhel said, by getting distracted with his stupid problems, and Garth cursed himself. But, what the hell, he didn't envy being skewered by a jealous husband if he stayed around here. Not to mention being watched like a hawk by the other jealous husbands. It was common knowledge he screwed around, of course, but every man assumed his own wife was perfectly sexually satisfied at home. Or, at least, the women he chose had that kind of husband. He made a point of skipping the suspicious ones. Damn Claire.
In the end, he decided fuck it, and lined up with the others to give his vocal signature to the contract. Every one of the other guys was signing on, and this bunch didn't look like suckers to him. He'd take his chances.
* * *
David Wheeler was not an attractive man. He had been cursed with a large nose, ears that stuck out from his head, and a tendency to freckle. There were some things rejuv just didn't clean up. Sure, his buck teeth had been corrected as a matter of course, but being juved wasn't the same thing as having good, old-fashioned plastic surgery. The other thing rejuv didn't touch was the fundamental personality, nature and nurture together. In David's case, who knew what genes his father had bestowed? His mother had been a war whore, and he was the result of a Galactic policy that treated women like breeding stock. The tendency of adults and children alike to favor the beautiful put a fine polish on whatever nature gave him.
Wheeler shared only a couple of traits with the bleached-blond twit in the shuttle seat next to him. The first was that both were quite fit. He knew the other man's work, such as it was, and its motivation. The second was a complete and total lack of conscience. It was the only thing about the over-sexed moron he remotely respected.
"So, what'd we sign up for?" the other man asked him.
"A trip to the vet. My god, I hope you're not on my team," Wheeler said, pulling his hat down over his eyes and leaning back to catch some sleep. As always, the hat caught and rested closer to his head than his ridiculous ears. Wheeler was used to it. He even liked his ears now. They were an excuse to beat the crap out of, if not actually kill, guys who made fun of them. He'd slipped up and nearly killed one, once. At the time, he thought the slip up was in not killing the little fuck. Then he found out that, had he succeeded, the bastard's entire debt would have been added to his account. As it was, the prick's medical bills were his own problem. Just like the antiseptic for his own knuckles got charged to him.
He grinned slightly as he drifted off to sleep. Never miss a chance to sleep. God, he hoped he wouldn't be working with that vapid twit.