The Lion and the Lizard

by Brindle, Nathan C.

  This is nothing like that. It's four diplomats, two per side, in an old, ruined outdoor temple on top of a mountain, arguing over fine points of contention, while two actual full-blown armies wait outside – either for a treaty that means they can all go home and celebrate, or for the head of one of the two chief negotiators to be tossed out of the shrine, meaning they can all start fighting again.

  Somehow that doesn't worry me. I'm not sure why. I don't have that much faith in my abilities. But I think we're going to all four come off that mountain in one piece. And any treaty that comes out of one of these sessions is The Law; no requirement for governments to ratify it, kings or princes to apply their seals of approbation, or priests to announce God's satisfaction with the outcome. It is, plainly and simply, The Law, to be followed until the next contretemps drags everybody back to the mountaintop shrine.

  I did manage to get Ejr3@lt to agree to limit the size of the negotiation's opposing military elements to a platoon apiece, since we aren't Xzl5!vt and won't have an actual army in the field anywhere on the planet. Possibly little more than cold comfort, but I'll take what I can get.

  So that's arranged, we took our leave after I sent our bottle of Three Son's over to Captain Dz4!bz – he opened it immediately and sent back cordial thanks and an invitation for us to dine with him at a future date, assuming the negotiations go well – and we've made our way back that long weary way to HIP 98813 and Sanddoom.

  In our absence, a small fleet has built up. Four of the six frigates are here, and two of the Santa Maria-class colonizers that have been repurposed as transports and fleet colliers. Apparently the USMC Commandant was as eager as General Buford thought he'd be to drop a bunch of bored US Marines onto Sanddoom to clean shit up, and between them they decided "the sooner, the better." They brought not one, but two MEUs and all of their equipment that would fit into the big colonizer shuttles (once they were stripped internally), and about half of those men and equipment were dropped to the surface around the mine site that blew out when we were here before. The other half were dropped into the nameless city to pacify it.

  It's quite the exercise – and the mullahs are quite exercised, too. On the other hand, when the USMC came a-knockin', and one of its companies immediately marched on and took over their main council chamber, two or three of them who tried to protest violently were shot immediately, on general principles. That didn't make the others any less angry, but certainly concentrated their thinking on what would happen to them if they didn't listen. The USMC general in charge of the entire operation is a student of, and adherent to, the early 21st Century Mattis Doctrine, and absolutely will not put up with any shit from the mullahs.

  Lieutenant General Roger Patterson is also Dad's former USMC CO, from back when Dad got busted up in Somalia. And Tina Patterson's husband. And is he ever happy to be back in the shit, mixing it up with the RIFs. I may as well tell the whole story, as I understand it: He walked into the mullah's council completely unarmed (though naturally with a company of USMC at his back, as noted), ordered his bodyguard to shoot the two or three mullahs who had the balls to stand up, weapons in hand, and object, and then stood the bodyguard down and dared the rest of them to come at him, mano a mano. Nobody took him up on his offer, so he walked up to where the chief mullah was sitting, and ordered him out of his chair. Dude got up, meek as a lamb, General Patterson sat down, and told them all he was now in charge because they were in material breach of the agreement to remain quietly on Sanddoom and not try to get back to Earth or to develop high technology.

  There was a lot of grumbling, but they knew they were caught, and just who was the stronger horse.

  A general cleanup of shit has been going on ever since. They're rooting out the slavers and clearing out the hareems, and where necessary they're killing out of hand the religious "police" who try to get in the way. Slaves who are held by private persons are also being freed on a daily basis; many of them are simply walking away from their "owners" and hailing the passing Marines for a lift to HQ, where they can get a statement of manumission, legal ID, nanos if they want them, and a free M18 handgun and a hundred rounds of ammo for it ditto. (Patterson's staff are talking about opening a BATFE convenience store here – minus the "E" for obvious reasons; these people don't need explosives – so peaceable folks can obtain more ammo, etc., in the future.) Also $500 in gold US dollars (minted on-planet by a special detachment of personnel from the Denver Mint, from the gold we found in the Sanddoom mine complex) to get them started again. That $500 USG has a stated worth of $500,000 in our paper fiat currency, by declaration of the President and approval of Congress; I think that's a great deal. Dad says he thinks they've finally decided to do something about trimming the three stupid zeros, which makes him happy, too.

  Bonus: They found Prisha's friend, Bahadur al-Hashimi! He was safe and sound, hiding with his crew of engineers in a restaurant in the Persian Quarter of the city, of all places, and came forward after the invasion to offer his services and personal logbooks to the investigation into exactly how much technology had been transferred and developed. He's since been up to Constellation to visit Prisha and Naira, and lamented all over himself that whoever was supposed to put the empty container on the stage didn't manage to get that done. When he found out Prisha had killed one of the techs on her way to the portal, he asked if she knew who he was. When she answered, "Najeed," he snorted angrily. Apparently this Najeed was supposed to have been moving the container instead of whatever it was he was mucking about with in the corridor when Prisha turned the corner and ran into him. Bahadur had left him behind specifically because he was a fuck-up, but had told him, on pain of death, to get that container up on the stage, or else. He's not sorry the man is dead, of course; that was pretty much a foregone conclusion anyway, given how he'd rigged the portal to set off the bomb.

  He seems truly a good and upright man. We've all tried to convince him it wasn't his fault, and maybe we're having some success. I'm not sure.

  As bad as that situation was, though, all's well that ends well, or so it seems. Both women have lost all of their hair, look sickly as hell, and are weak as kittens; but they are awake, sitting up, and between the nanos and other medications and support they've gotten since arriving in Constellation's medical section, they are on the path to full recovery. Which is good for all three of them. Bahadur has already pledged to marry Prisha as soon as she and Naira can stand up for the ceremony, and Captain LaForrest – who is a commodore again, at least for the time being – has agreed to marry them, shipboard-style. Oh. And of course, Prisha agreed, with tears in her eyes, and Naira was so happy, they almost couldn't keep her from jumping out of bed. Since she'd have just sprawled flat on her face if she had, luckily, they succeeded.

  After the wedding, Bahadur and Prisha don't know what they'll do. Dad says we ought to consider making Bahadur some sort of planetary governor, or at least overseer, since he seems like "damn near the only sincere and honest man on Sanddoom," and both Commodore LaForrest and General Patterson are leaning toward taking that advice, but naturally that will require Presidential and Senate signoff – and at least some of that also will depend on whether or not the family even wants to remain here. It is certainly not a place either Prisha or Naira will ever remember fondly.

  On the other hand, there's talk about doing some survey work to see if the planet is actually a good candidate for terraforming. So who knows. Prisha also mentioned possibly buying and operating the Persian restaurant in the Persian Quarter of the still-nameless city, where Bahadur and his gang of engineers hung out after the portal blew up. Bahadur says she's a fabulous cook, and she cooks badass Persian-Indian fusion, so that might be a thing. I'll go for the green rice and chicken kebabs, but they can hold the curry . . . no thanks.

  (Hey! They could call the city "New Medina" – since "medina" just means, "city". Goes along with naming the planet al-Saḥra', "The Desert". Yeah, the mullahs have zero imagination . . . )

  All I kn
ow is, I really want to go home and spend some quality time on the beach while the bureaucrats sort the Xzl5!vt business out. It is a pity – all that sand down there, not a lake or pond in sight, and not a bikini – or even a one-piece! – in the shops, either.

  What a fucked-up planet.

  Maybe we finally can do something about that, now.

  Chapter 13

  Arrivals, Proposals, and Departures

  Kat Wolff, who, some hours before, had been notified by General Buford's office of the Bandersnatch's imminent arrival, stood, impatiently, in the garage, waiting for the SHIP INBOUND sign to light up. Finally, it did, the horn went off, and the warning lights set in the concrete around the ship's footprint outline started blinking wildly. Kat thought John had installed those more so she wouldn't jump out of her skin when the ship arrived than to warn people away from the fluorescent-orange-painted outline, which ought to be more than enough of a suggestion, once the big sign lit up and the audio warnings began, for anyone with a lick of sense to get the hell out of the way.

  Not that she was arguing, of course. She liked her skin and had no interest in jumping out of it.

  When the ship appeared, she breathed a sigh of relief.

  "I hate when they go off in that thing," she grumbled, under her breath.

  Then she noticed a bit of a scorch mark along the starboard side of the ship. "What the hell?" she wondered.

  Then she noticed the bottom of the ship was kind of . . . dented. She blinked a few times, and looked again. "What the fucking hell?"

  The airlock hatch opened and the first thing she heard was:

  "Don't worry, Kat! None of that was serious."

  Wolff popped his head out, looking her direction. When he was sure she wasn't going to throw anything at him, he came out, jumped to the floor and walked over to where she was standing, just outside the office.

  "You will tell me instantly what the fuck was going on that beat the shit out of your ship like that," Kat seethed.

  "Kat, calm down," replied Wolff, diffidently. "Nothing serious. I'm not kidding. The Shizzle fired a warning shot, or more to the point, a shot to make us wake up and see them, since they were calling us on a frequency we weren't listening to. They barely grazed us, at extremely low power, and we jumped away so fast they didn't get a chance to shoot again. Then, when we'd gotten acquainted a little bit, we offered to jump them back to their home planet to set up the negotiation – under their captain's personal guarantee of safety. We didn't get the Bandersnatch tied down to their topside quite tightly enough, and we bounced up and down for about ten seconds or so, till we came out of rotation. I hadn't really looked at it yet, but . . ." He looked. And then looked closer. "Wow. Yeah. We're going to have to get that hullmetal replaced."

  "Holy shit, John," yelled von Barronov, who was bent over, looking under the ship. "How did we bang ourselves up so bad and not bang them up just as bad or worse?"

  Kat still looked furious. Wolff rolled his eyes. "Thanks, Chris," he muttered under his breath.

  Ariela came out of the ship, dropped her ruck on the floor, took one look at the damage, and gasped. Then she looked at Wolff. "Came pretty fucking close, didn't they? Near-miss, I thought you said?"

  Wolff closed his eyes for a moment, and breathed deeply. Opening his eyes, he said, "Yes. Their plasma shot nearly missed us."

  "That's not what—"

  "Ari."

  "Yes, Dad?"

  "Shut it."

  "Aye, aye, Major."

  "Ariela Rivers Wolff," grated Kat. "You will follow me to the kitchen, where I will break out a bottle of that really good kosher Moscato, and you will tell me everything that happened over the past six weeks."

  "Except the classified shit," cautioned Wolff, sternly.

  "Yes, ma'am, sir," said Ariela, obediently, re-shouldered her ruck, and followed Kat across the garage floor and out the door to the house.

  Wolff looked at von Barronov. "I need a beer."

  "Sounds like a plan," his friend agreed. They disappeared into the office.

  A couple of hours later, they appeared in the kitchen, where Kat and Ariela had drained a bottle of Moscato, uncorked another, and made serious inroads into a plate of spinach artichoke dip and chips. As it turned out, and as they should have realized, Mei-Lin was staying at the house after moving her things over from the other timeline, and was sitting with them, helping them drink the wine and eat the snacks.

  "So?" said Wolff, shortly.

  Kat looked up. "I'm not mad anymore," she said. "Ari explained all the non-classified stuff, and all I can say is, I'm glad the insurance company won't cover your starship. At least our rates won't go up." She grinned. Ariela and Mei high-fived each other and giggled.

  Wolff sighed. "Space Force will pay for the damage, since the ship was under Space Force orders at the time. In fact, given what we were doing when we took it, they'll probably bullshit State into footing the bill. Not that we can't afford it."

  "So, what do you want for dinner? Chris, do you want to call Alicia? Mei and I made Persian green rice and chicken kebabs, if John will grill the kebabs right before we sit down."

  "Sounds like a plan to me," agreed von Barronov, comm already in his hand and speed-dialing his wife.

  "I'm willin' if you've got the kebabs chillin'," said Wolff. "In the fridge?"

  "Yep. Already made up on the skewers."

  "Cool."

  "It's funny," laughed Ariela, "I was just thinking about rice and kebabs on the way home. So yeah, I'm hungry."

  Kat beamed. "Good! You'll like this rice. I got the recipe from a good Sephardic Israeli-Persian family I've known for years."

  After dinner, which was a smashing success, everyone started to get up and wander to the living room for drinks. Ariela was no exception; she wanted some whisky, neat.

  "Ari," murmured Wolff, who'd hung back. Ariela looked back at him.

  "Come with me for a minute, will you?" he asked.

  Puzzled, Ariela nodded, and followed him in the opposite direction to the library, where, once they were both inside, he shut the door and motioned her to take a seat.

  She sat, and waited.

  Wolff started to walk over to the sideboard for a whisky, but changed his mind and sat down opposite her. After a couple of false starts, he just looked at her, helplessly.

  "What is it, Dad?" she said.

  "You and Mei," he blurted, then closed his eyes and shook his head, annoyed with himself.

  Oh. "What about us?" she replied, innocently.

  "Ari, I'm not your real dad, but your real dad told me about an issue I need to bring up."

  "Oh. You mean, the time we had hot girl-on-girl sex upstairs in my bedroom, and he heard us?"

  "Well, that's forthright," laughed Wolff, relieved he wasn't going to have to drag it out of her. "Yes. That's exactly what I mean. Is that still a thing?"

  Ariela shook her head, seriously. "No, Daddy, it's not. It wasn't after that night. Neither of us swing that way. Well, Mei might, casually, but not seriously; and I've never been tempted that way again. We were both . . . kind of vulnerable at that point, it just hit us both at once, and we had time and opportunity. Dad only knew because we were thumping the bed against the wall a little, and he wakes up at the drop of a feather. I guess that means you do, too?"

  Wolff nodded. "I do, and I'd write it off to the military, but I was like that as a kid, too."

  Ariela relaxed a little. "So why is this an issue?"

  "I want to make sure it's over, and won't repeat. The thing is, Ari, she's a brigadier general and you're a second lieutenant. O-7 and O-1. That's as much of a problem as enlisted/officer relationships. More, actually. Just to make the point, we don't give a damn about the same-sex business anymore, and as such, it's not even treated in the UCMJ. But all abusive relationships, be they hetero or same-sex, all get treated identically under UCMJ and the various service regulations. Relationships that span more than a rank or two are still technically a
UCMJ violation under the abuse clause – at least without signoff from higher, which is required to some extent in order to keep higher from being surprised, but primarily to ensure that nobody is being blackmailed or coerced. So there's still a stigma attached to those rank differential relationships, but it's shifted from the relationship itself to actions detrimental to the service that may happen in them.

  "And I should mention, even though we don't care if you're straight or gay, that's where it stops; poly relationships in the services are 100% verboten, regardless whether all involved are military or it's a mix of military and civ." He shrugged. "Time and time again, those arrangements have been found to be toxic in the military, particularly when they happen on shipboard. If someone in the service swings that way, and it's found out, they're invited to stop that shit right now, or swing that way as a civ. It's one of a very few UCMJ violations that require nothing more than a Captain's Mast and paperwork, no official court-martial or other proceeding, to separate someone with a Bad Conduct discharge. I know that's not an issue for you, but as an officer, someday you may have to sign that paperwork for one of your riflemen. For what it's worth, anyone claiming to be trans is out exactly the same way. That crap went out in the '20s and we don't have time for that kind of stupidity in the modern military."

  Ariela grimaced. "So this is also part of my education as an officer, I take it."

  "Yep." Wolff didn't look happy about it, either. "You would have learned it eventually, as you study the changes in the UCMJ that have been made since the late twenty-teens. Anyway, to get off that unpleasant subject and back to the much more pleasant subject of you and Mei-Lin, bottom line, if you were, say, a colonel, and she a brigadier, nobody would bat an eye; they'd probably tell you congratulations and might even be a little jealous." He chuckled. "You know you're both pretty hot little numbers, right?"

  "Dad!" Ariela was a bit shocked. Well . . . she knew from personal experience Mei was hot. And strong. And soft. And, um, delicious. But she didn't think that way about herself at all.