When the Devil Dances

by John Ringo

  "Where?" Cally asked.

  "Barwhon," Mueller interjected. "We were both on a recon team that was sent out before the expeditionary force even got there. We were guinea pigs to see how dangerous the Posleen really were."

  "You can't remember that time," Mosovich said. "But . . . there was a lot of disbelief. 'Alien invasion? Right, pull the other one.' That got dispelled pretty quick when a high-level delegation on Barwhon got eaten, and the tape got back to the World. Anyway, we were on a recon of Barwhon doing an order of battle and analysis of the terrain and fighting conditions . . ."

  "Bad and bad," Mueller said.

  "I guess we did our job too well," the sergeant major continued. "We got a call to capture a Posleen and return it. I figured that we could capture one of the nestlings easier than an adult so we attacked a camp that was also holding some Crabs as a walking larder. When we did, the Posleen turned out to be a bit better at fighting than we had given them credit for. All the stuff we know now; the sniper detection system and the way they just swarm to the sound of fighting. Anyway, we lost a bunch of real legends in the special operations community, including our sniper, Staff Sergeant Sandra Ellsworthy. The description of your flashback correlates exactly to her death."

  "Yep," Mueller said. "I thought the same thing. It's like listening to Sandra tell it, complete with the southern accent."

  "You know," Wendy said. "That's hardly coming out at all anymore. The accent I mean."

  "Anyway, that's why we freaked," Mosovich said.

  "What do you think?" Elgars asked quietly. "Do you think that the Crabs put your friend's head in mine? Am I Anne Elgars or this Ellsworthy person? Similar name, both snipers? You think that's it?"

  "Not really," Mosovich said. "Ellsworthy was . . . stranger than you are. Spooky weird. You seem a lot . . ."

  "Stabler," Mueller said. "Don't get me wrong, on a mission Ellsworthy was great. And she was a good sniper trainer. But she was a wild-child when she wasn't in uniform; you've got ten times her stability in many ways, even with your head not completely screwed on."

  "Why thank you, Master Sergeant," she said tartly.

  "No offense, ma'am," he said hastily.

  "So, how does this affect your report to Colonel Cutprice?" she asked Mosovich.

  "I think I'll just send him a message with the whole crazy story," the sergeant major replied. "You move good in the woods and we know you can shoot. If you were a private or a staff sergeant it wouldn't be any question. But for a captain he'll have to make up his own mind. For what it's worth, I think you could learn to do the job."

  "Thanks," Elgars said. "I have to wonder. And I have to agree I don't know what else might be buried in the depths of my mind. Or, really, who I am."

  "Oh, I think you'll get over that," Mosovich said. "Although it brings a whole new meaning to 'getting to know yourself.' Long term, I think you'll be fine. Well, as fine as any of us are these days."

  He looked into the living room where Papa O'Neal and Shari were now dancing to "Magic Carpet Ride." "Some of us, of course, are doing better than others."

  O'Neal walked over holding Shari by the hand and gave them a sort of wave. "Night, folks. We're kind of tired so we're calling it a night." With that they both walked towards the stairs, hand in hand.

  "Well, will you look at that," Cally said bitterly. "Tell me not to go downtown!"

  "They're both old enough to make a rational decision about it," Wendy pointed out. "Old enough to be your grandfather in one case and your mother in the other."

  "And he's old enough to be her father," Cally pointed out.

  "The Koran says that the perfect age for a wife is half the man's plus seven years," Mueller intoned. "That makes you still too young for me. In fact," he looked at the ceiling and fiddled on his fingers. "I think that means the perfect age for a guy for you would be . . . yours."

  "On the other hand . . ." he said, turning to Wendy.

  "Hang on a bit," she said, reaching into her back pocket.

  "Ah, hah!" Mosovich exclaimed. "It's the notorious boyfriend picture."

  Mueller took it and looked at it with a grin on his face. Then he looked puzzled for a moment followed by shock. "Jesus Christ." He passed it over to Mosovich.

  Wendy was in the picture, grinning at the camera in a happy-goofy way. She was flanked by a male in Mar-Cam, wearing much the same expression. What was difficult to grasp about the picture was that Wendy, who was no tiny young lady, looked like a baby-doll next to the . . . mountain next to her.

  "That's your boyfriend?" Mosovich asked.

  "Yeah," Wendy said. "He's an NCO in the Ten Thousand. Six foot eight, two hundred and eighty pounds. Most of it muscle.

  "We met during the Battle of Fredericksburg. Well, not really. We went to school together for years. Let's just say I never really noticed him until the Battle."

  "Well, do I have to wait to be rescued in the middle of a battle?" Cally asked. "Besides, I'm more likely to do the rescuing."

  "No, but you should wait a few more years before you go making any life commitment decisions," Wendy said with a laugh.

  "I get the point," Cally said with a shake of her head. "Noted and logged. Okay?"

  "Okay," Wendy said.

  Elgars stood up and walked over to Mueller, tilting her head to the side. After a moment she leaned down and yanked one of his arms over her shoulder then got her shoulder into his midsection and heaved him up over her shoulder. She bent her knees a couple of times experimentally then nodded her head.

  "I can do this," she said. There was no note of strain in her voice.

  "What, exactly, are you doing?" Mueller asked, hanging more or less vertical. He noted that his head was just about at the level of her derriere.

  "As far as I know, I've never been to bed with anyone," she answered, walking carefully towards the stairs. "You'll do."

  Mosovich opened his mouth and raised his finger as if to protest, but then lowered it. Since he and Mueller were Fleet and Elgars was Ground Force it didn't, technically, fall under the fraternization regulations. As long as they survived the stairs, everything should be fine. He downed his moonshine and looked at the table with trepidation.

  "I think that leaves it up to us to clean up," he said. "Since I choose to avoid the wrath of both the boyfriend and the local farmer."

  Cally sighed and started stacking plates. "One of these days," she said, looking towards the stairs.

  * * *

  "One of these days there will be some good news," Monsignor O'Reilly said, looking at his newest visitor.

  The Indowy Aelool made a grimace that was the Indowy equivalent of disagreement. "Why should there be good news? It is not the trend by any stretch of the imagination."

  The four foot tall, green, "fur"-covered, bat-faced biped was swinging its feet back and forth in the chair like a little child for all it was probably over two hundred years old. Unlike virtually every Indowy in O'Reilly's experience, the Clan Chief of the Triv Clan, all fourteen of them, never seemed worried or flustered by the presence of humans. Either it realized bone deep that humans, omnivores though they might be, were not going to suddenly kill it for some mistake, or it was almost preternaturally courageous. O'Reilly had never figured out which it was.

  "Oh, just some minor good news would do," O'Reilly said, waving the message. "Our old friend is on his way back to Earth. He should already be here, as a matter of fact."

  "Dol Ron," the Indowy said calmly. "So I had heard. I wonder what mischief he is up to this time?"

  "Well, the first visit we lost Hume, shutting down the only official group that was closing in on the secret of the Darhel," the monsignor said. "The second the Tenth Corps was hacked and the hacking was pinned on the Cybers, who were the only group who was working at breaking the GalTech codes. Oh, and an attempt on the life of Cally O'Neal, which would have destroyed her father. The third was the death of General Taylor, and the elimination of two Société branches. Now this trip. I wo
nder who is going to die this time?"

  "Not a soldier," Aelool said. "The Cybers would never stop the killing until the last was done. And they are very good assassins."

  "Perhaps we should send a few groups of our own," O'Reilly said bitterly. "It's not as if we don't know the Devil when we see him with our own eyes."

  "Dol Ron is a known quantity," Aelool said with another grimace. "If he were removed, we would have to develop an information network on a completely different Darhel. Not the easiest thing to do. And then, of course, we could lose it at any time if we run into a 'Cyber' moment. It might be well to, sometime in the near future, create another 'Agreement.' The only problem being that they are often so entangling."

  "Well, I'm going to pull in my horns and teams," O'Reilly said. He knew that Aelool had been against the Cyber agreement. The Indowy was clan chief only by dint of being the senior survivor of over fourteen million other clan members; he no longer tended to worry about the odd loss here and there. "As well as sending a warning to some 'exterior' groups."

  "The O'Neals?" Aelool asked.

  "Yes, among others," the monsignor answered. "We don't have a team there anymore; we lost Team Conyers trying to prevent the Ontario sanction. So I think they'll be on their own. But I'll warn them that there might be hostile visitors."

  "Keeping the O'Neals, and Michael O'Neal specifically, functional has positive long-term implications," Aelool said with a nod. "It is a thread that is being monitored at the very height of the Bane Sidhe. I have methods to contact them discreetly; would you prefer that I do so?"

  "Go ahead," O'Reilly said. "And then get ready for a storm."

  * * *

  Shari ran her finger up a long scar on Papa O'Neal's stomach and fingered a twist of gray chest hair. "That was very nice; you're good."

  "Thanks," O'Neal said, rolling over without breaking contact and snagging the bottle of muscadine wine he'd left by the side of the bed. "So are you; you wear an old guy out."

  "Fat chance," Shari said with a chuckle. "I'm pretty old and tired myself."

  "You're not old at all," O'Neal said, pulling her closer against him. "You're no teenager, but I wouldn't want a teenager in my bed; a person who doesn't have any scars isn't worth my time."

  "I don't have any scars," she said, deliberately misunderstanding. "See?" She waved down her body. "Well, an appendix scar, but that's about it."

  "You know what I mean," O'Neal replied, looking into her eyes. "I think for all the knife slashes and zippers I've got on my body, I've probably got fewer scars than you. Not many fewer, but fewer."

  "Liar."

  "When you say that, smile," Mike Senior said, but he smiled as he said it. "Seriously, I made a mistake a long time ago thinking that young and pretty was enough. It's not; a person who hasn't been through the fire doesn't know what the world is about. They think that it's all sweetness and light. It's not; the world is at best chiaroscuro. I swear, my ex-wife still believes you can talk to the Posleen and show them the error of their ways. 'Bring them to the Goddess.' It makes me want to puke. Especially when I think about all the time and effort the 'peace at any price' assholes cost us in the early days of the war. And there are people that are, frankly, five times as bad as the Posleen. The horses don't have any sense or a way out of their cycle; humans can choose. The fact is that too damned many of them choose evil."

  "I don't think that violence settles everything," she said. "And calling humans evil is pretty questionable, even my ex-husband who is about as close as it gets. But it is certainly the only language the Posleen understand. I . . . didn't always believe that. But I haven't been the same person since Fredericksburg."

  "I know," he said, wrapping his arms around her. "You're better."

  She leaned into him and nipped at his shoulder. "You're just saying that to make me feel better."

  "No, I'm saying that to get laid," O'Neal said with a laugh. "If you feel better, that's what they call a fringe benefit."

  "What? Again? Did you get a Viagra prescription?"

  "For you, baby, I don't need no Viagra!" O'Neal intoned with a waggle of his hips.

  "What?" Shari yelped. "Now that is corny! Not to mention insulting!"

  "Sorry," the farmer repented with a laugh. "I must have been channeling Bruce Campbell there for a second."

  "Well, as long as you don't come out with something like 'baby, you got real ugly' I'll let you live," she said with a kiss.

  Later she ran her fingers up his spine and whispered in his ear:

  " 'Bad Ash, Good Ash, you're the one with the gun.' "

  Chapter 21

  Clarkesville, GA, United States, Sol III

  0115 EDT Saturday September 26, 2009 ad

  "So, Goloswin, how does it go?" Tulo'stenaloor asked.

  The Posleen technician looked up from his monitor and flapped his crest. "It is going well. We have received a new piece of . . . intelligence."

  "Ah?" Tulo'stenaloor asked. "From the Net?"

  "Yes," Goloswin answered, gesturing at the monitor. "From a Kessentai who was on Aradan. It seems he has gained access to control codes for the metal threshkreen communications. We are now 'in their net' as the humans would say. This includes communications between the chief of all threshkreen in this land and the metal threshkreen. Also, there are other threshkreen who use this communications medium; among others your lurp friends. I also have their numbers and disposition in the entire U.S.; the only available unit is in its quarters in the area the humans call 'Pennsylvania.' It also permits entry to Indowy communications on the planet, few as they are. The few Darhel are still locked out, but it gives me a starting point to work on them as well."

  "Excellent," Tulo'stenaloor said, flapping his crest in reply. "The assault starts tomorrow at midday. With this information we can know when the damned 'ACS' is coming."

  "We can change some of their information," Goloswin said. "Make them think that things have been said which have not or tell them false items. But that will quickly be detected. Or we can simply listen in. As long as they do not realize that we are acting on the basis of the information they should never know."

  "That is good," Tulo'stenaloor said. "I think we'll just listen for now. Ensure that Esstu has this information."

  "I shall," Goloswin bubbled happily. "It is so very timely!"

  "Yes," Tulo'stenaloor said, fingering his crest ornament in thought. "Very timely indeed."

  * * *

  "Balanosol, your forces are a mess," Orostan snapped. He cast a baleful eye over the Kessentai's oolt and raised his crest in anger. The oolt'os were half starved, many of them showing prominent shoulders and backbones, and their equipment was falling apart.

  The Kessentai, on the other hand, was a resplendent figure in gold and silver harness—he had enough heavy metal on his harness alone to feed his oolt for a month—and his tenar sported the heaviest model of plasma gun.

  "I think," the oolt'ondar continued, "that all things considered, you shall have the honor of leading my portion of the assault on the morrow."

  The conversation was taking place under the light of a half moon, just north of Clarkesville where the millions of Posleen were opening up and getting in position to begin the assault. It would be a three hour movement for the front rank from this rear assembly area to the forward assembly area in the ruins of Clayton. By the time they reached Clayton, they could be expected to be under artillery fire; not that that should last long for once.

  "Well, I don't think so," Balanosol said, raising his own crest in defiance. "I have seniority over half these young nestlings, including your sorlan here. Let them take the honor of the front rank; I intend to survive this assault."

  "Do you?" Orostan hissed. "Then look you at the woodline."

  The Kessentai turned his head to the side and, in the dim light, saw the flicker of metal in the woods.

  "You agreed to obey our orders," Orostan hissed quietly. "That was your word. Not to whimper at the first one you w
ere given. You have eaten our rations and drunk our water and breathed our air for the last month; you owe us edas. And the reason that you have, that we have permitted your fuscirto oolt to eat up our stores, is that we needed you, and other scum like you, to take the front rank. And if you think you're going to limp along in the rear, scavenging the leavings of your betters, think again. You can either move to your 'jump-off' position, or I will have my oolt'ondai kill and eat you and your pitiful oolt. You see, the humans may kill you. But if you don't move out I will kill you. If for no other reason than to remove your blot from the race."

  As the rag-tag oolt moved up the highway to their designated position, Cholosta'an flapped his crest. "So this is what you meant by 'political units.' "

  "Indeed," Orostan said with a snap of his muzzle. "Better to weed out those like him, better for the force, better for the race. If he survives he will just grab the first useless piece of territory he comes to."

  "Instead of getting a cut of everything," Cholosta'an said. "But even your 'political units,' even my unit will eventually have to brave the Gap. And we will not do so unscathed."

  "Oh, if we were far enough back we would," Orostan disagreed. "But I, for one, have no interest in walking up the pass.

  "I'm too old to ride tenar everywhere like you young nestlings," he continued, as the first oolt'poslenar drifted over and dropped to the ground, light as a feather. "Nope, no Gap and no tenar for us; we're riding in style."

  * * *

  Shari yawned as she looked out the window of the Humvee. Franklin was coming up and when they got to the Urb it would be back to the daily grind. But, she recalled with a smile, not for long.

  "So you're really going to move up there?" Wendy asked. "What the hell am I going to do?"

  She pulled at the leather pants she'd picked up at the O'Neals', trying to get a better fit. Papa O'Neal had been more than kind and insisted on outfitting the kids. So when she found the pants while digging in the back of a closet, and clearly liked them, he had also insisted on her wearing them. And when Papa O'Neal insisted, people listened. Only later did she find out they were the late Sharon O'Neal's. She had to admit that the lady must have been in shape; she'd had to roll the cuffs up and was still having trouble getting the . . . ahem, stretched out. Sharon O'Neal must have had legs like a giraffe and a butt the size of an ant.