Eye of the Storm

by John Ringo

  He had at least expected the security ACS to be firing upwards. There wasn't much they could do against a KEW, it was after all not much more than a chunk of steel, but they might have intercepted a couple. He expected them to go down fighting. But there was no fire headed upwards.

  The first projectile hit to the west of the camp, the second to the east then it became too fast to follow. It was clear, though, that the strike was intended to contain even ACS and pulverize them into nothing. It went on and on and on, continuous concentric strikes until where the camp had been was nothing but a churned crater.

  The whole corps was gone.

  Mike started to step forward, to do what he didn't know, when his suit pinged.

  "General, your shuttle is here."

  It was such a normal voice, a sentence he'd heard dozens, hundreds of times before. As if nothing had happened.

  Mike spun in place and brought up his guns automatically, fired at the descending shuttle.

  Nothing happened. Nothing damned HAPPENED.

  "Shelly! Guns!"

  "Guns are inactive, General," the AID said in a chirpy voice. "It's time to board the shuttle. You are ordered to do so out of the suit. Should I eject?"

  The shuttle landed and a platoon of masters-at-arms deployed, covering the four ACS suits with what would normally be totally inadequate hand-lasers. The MAs were hated by Fleet Strike personnel since, well, they were Fleet and they acted more as admiral's bullies than police. And they seemed to take inordinate pleasure on beating up on Strike personnel whenever they got the chance. Fleet Strike tended to return the favor. Currently, they looked nervous and he wondered at the inanity of that thought.

  His corps was gone. The masters-at-arms looked nervous.

  "Incoming call from Admiral Suntoro. Go ahead Admiral."

  "Michael Leonidas O'Neal, you and your staff are under arrest for treason. AID, open the suits."

  Mike took a breath of air as the suit opened against his will, then stepped out onto the grassy sward. Four of the masters-at-arms were approaching, two with lasers and two with sonic stunners.

  "Do not attempt to resist this fully authorized detention," the admiral's voice continued to say over the speakers of Mike's suit. "The masters-at-arms are authorized to use lethal force at the slightest sign of resistance."

  Mike couldn't have resisted if they'd paid him. His entire family was dead and now the corps that he had nurtured like a flower was just . . .

  The other three officers looked equally dazed but slowly raised their hands as the MAs approached. The group facing them in a semi-circle suddenly raised their lasers and opened fire, cutting them down.

  Mike watched as Bobby Ashland fell back in the low scrub, his chest slashed nearly through by a laser. Bobby had come over to the corps as the ACS had slowly been reduced. They'd never met during the Siege but had gotten along over the years. Mike had been glad when Bobby had been assigned as his Intel officer. He knew that Bobby always had his finger on the pulse of not only "threats forward" as he'd come to call them but what was going on back in the corridors of power.

  This was one threat neither of them had seen coming. Not this way.

  "General O'Neal, get on the ground with your hands behind your back," one of the MAs said. "Down!"

  "What?" Mike asked, still looking at Colonel Ashland.

  "Get on the ground!"

  "What?" Mike said again then lifted his eyes. His brow furrowed down then there was no thought.

  "Like hell!" he shouted, charging forward.

  He had hoped for the lasers. There was just nothing left. There was not a damned thing in the world to live for anymore. Even revenge was impossible to achieve.

  But they got him with the stunners instead.

  As he flopped to the ground, his entire body jangling, all he could still see was the mangled body of Bobby Ashland.

  Gone.

  Chapter Five

  . . . I have watched the path of angels

  And I have heard the heavens roar

  There is strife within the tempest

  But calm in the eye of the storm

  —

  Crüxshadows

  "Eye of the Storm"

  I have investigated my sister's claims, Michelle thought. Once I was aware of them.

  The seven individuals were, unquestionably, the most powerful humans in the galaxy. There were presidents and prime ministers aplently. Commanders of powerful fleets. Chiefs of major corporations by the hundreds.

  But there were, to date, only seven human Sohon mentats.

  Very few people understood them. Taken from their parents at a young age, raised entirely by the Indowy, they stood apart from the normal ruck of humanity already. Add to that minds that could wield extraordinary power, yet had been inculcated from that same very early age with an abhorrence of violence and a strong sense of duty and responsibility. Add again that, due to the nature of their exile, every single one of them came from a military family. They may have been taken from their parents young, but from their mother's milk they still drew an essential sense of "Duty, Honor, Country."

  Their "Country" had changed, enlarged to fill a reasonable quadrant of the galaxy. But the Duty and Honor remained. And it might have shaped the fact that every single one of them, independently, as soon as they learned how to truly manipulate matter at the very smallest level, tried to see if they could get it to blow up.

  One of their number had proven, though, that being too inflexible in the whole "Duty" thing was not necessarily good. Perhaps the power had warped Eric or perhaps he had started off warped. But it was possible for a Sohon to go very, very bad through the best of intentions. Eric's fall remained a moral tale for them all. And since it turned out that they could get matter to blow up, and more, every decision of weight had, since then, been taken in council.

  I see the data, Thomas replied. And more. This action on the part of the Darhel breaks their Compact.

  They were not in the same room nor even in the same solar systems. But their method of telepathy was virtually instantaneous across any distance or dimension. The "virtually" being of interest only to particle physicists and mentats.

  The Tir Dol Ron has already left Earth, Minnie noted. He is surely high on their list. And two Darhel have already died in what are being reported as "accidents."

  I am unsure of our action in this regard, Michelle admitted. The corps is gone by now. We cannot undo that even if we wished. If my father has been incarcerated, should we act?

  Have you an emotional attachment to this? Thomas asked. He was the oldest of them by barely a pair of years. Also the weakest. But he had been a leader among the "Lost Boys" from the beginning and still retained a vestige of that position.

  I find myself torn, yes, Michelle admitted. However, it is less that he is my father and Clan Leader than that the Darhel are in breach of numerous contracts and obligations. If they are willing to become this high-handed, how can any of us trust the Contract? Most of us still labor under contract. If the Darhel have thrown off the Rules, what is to keep them from acting with complete arbitrariness?

  Can we convince a Clan Leader to submit his appeal? Chan asked. This would both teach the Darhel the danger of breaking contracts and, potentially, save your father's life. On a purely personal level, it would place the Darhel in a position of being unable to fulfill their part of our contracts, thus freeing us.

  Unlikely, Koko replied. Any clan doing so would be Called in a moment. It would be suicide for the entire clan.

  The vast majority of the first Fleet had been drawn from European and North American sources. Thus most of the children sent into exile had been from America, Britain and Germany. Koko Takawashi and Kang Chan were the only two mentats not from such countries. Indeed, all but two of the others were from the former United States. It had been debated, given the disparity, if Japanese and Chinese might make better Sohon adepts naturally. Thus far there was insufficient data. Given that the Race of Han
had been severely reduced during the War, as had the Japanese, it might not ever be resolved.

  I believe there may be one, Michelle thought, But the moment the Darhel heard of the appeal, they would terminate my father. I am unsure why they have not done so already.

  I see the hand of Tir Dol Ron in that one, Thomas thought with just a note of emotion in his telepathic communication. He enjoys watching individuals suffer.

  Being the mentat with the most experience of that particular Tir, he would know.

  There is a concept, Ermintrude thought. The sole English mentat's mind was clearly racing. The Darhel cannot kill him if he is not available to them.

  "So you want our help again?" Cally said.

  "It would be obvious if the Sohon acted directly," Michelle replied. "And I, of course, must keep a very respectable distance. This is the last contact we shall have until resolution of this crisis. If you see Father and he asks of me tell him that I hold him as dead, as galactic law decrees. I shall resolve this issue when I see him at last."

  "So what's the plan?" Cally asked.

  "The first part you will not care for," Michelle said. "You must be patient."

  "I'm not good with patient," Cally said. "How patient?"

  "It will be nearly a year before we can act."

  "That's okay," Cally said. "I can spend the time killing Darhel."

  "And you must not do that."

  "Oh, we are so going to have to talk 'when this issue is resolved.' "

  Mike opened his eyes and blinked, gummily. His mouth felt like someone had stuffed it with cotton. Damned Hiberzine.

  Hiberzine was only one of a number of amazing drugs the Galactics had brought with them. One dose would put a person down for a half a year with no ill effects. They could even be in conditions of minimal oxygen for a few months. He'd once been damned near ripped in half and left under the sea for weeks. Between his suit's undergel and Hiberzine he'd survived.

  One dose was fine. But after a half a year even with the best nannites working their little biomechanical asses off you got sort of dehydrated. Push it any further and you got really dehydrated. He'd been down longer than half a year.

  "Fuckers could have given me a damned IV," he muttered.

  He was manacled to the wall of a cell. Whoever had given him the antidote had apparently beat feet afterwards. All he had were four plasteel walls, a cot, a table and a sink/toilet combination. Oh, and a bottle of water. How thoughtful.

  He drank the bottle of water in one go, then dragged his chain to the sink and filled it again. Three drains and it was time to take a very long piss.

  Gray walls, orange jump-suit. Not much to work with. He contemplated the steel chain and the plasteel wall. Plasteel was about ten times the strength of standard carbon steel. Oh, well, either the chain would get worn out or he'd cut his way into the next room. Which was probably another cell. He set to rubbing one link of the chain on the wall, over and over. Molecule by molecule the steel started to fleck away. At this rate he'd be into the next cell in about a century but nobody was quite sure how long a life rejuv gave you, so what the hell.

  He wasn't sure how long it was till the door opened. Food had appeared out of an unexpected slot in the far wall at one point. He'd taken a dump and a couple of pisses, filled and drained his water bottle several times, taken a nap, worn one face of the steel link shiny and made an almost unnoticeable groove in the wall. Say a day or two. Hell, he'd once lain in his suit in total EMCON and underground for longer than that. If you couldn't handle sensory deprivation and boredom, ACS was no place for you.

  They'd sent six guards with stunners. For all he knew there were more in the corridor beyond. One of them was unarmed; he just held the shackles.

  None of them were, individually, all that big. Fleet mostly drew from Indonesia and Southeast Asia; their personnel didn't run to tall.

  Mike wasn't tall, either, but he was broad as a house. He'd been a work-out freak since before he'd ever heard of the Posleen and fifty years as an officer hadn't changed anything. He might not be the biggest runner in the world, but he could lift an ACS suit with one hand, which was right at the strain gauge of the human muscles and bones involved. He figured that even with the stunners he could probably take down four or so, if he hadn't been chained to the wall.

  So he just held out his arms to be shackled.

  He was led down empty corridors to a room very much like the one he'd been sitting in. There were four differences. No toilet or sink, which wasn't going to be good if this went on too long. There was a video monitor on the wall. The table was bigger and had two seats. And there was a Fleet commander sitting in one of the chairs.

  Mike was frog-marched to the far chair, seated in it and shackled down, hard. He could barely move his arms or legs.

  "Michael Leonidas O'Neal," the commander said without preamble. "Lieutenant General, Fleet Strike. Serial Number 216-29-1145. Entered Fleet Strike from the state of Georgia in the nation of the United States, Earth. Is all of that correct?"

  Mike just looked at him. The commander had more of a Chinese look than Indonesian. But it was unlikely he was directly descended from the Mainland given what had happened there. His uniform had his rank tabs but no nametag.

  "Mr. O'Neal I am your defense counsel in this matter," the commander said. "I am to present your defense in this court-martial. It would be helpful if you at least answered my questions."

  "I can request other counsel," Mike said. "I officially do so."

  "Unless the court is to meet in secret session," the commander replied. "Which this one will, due to the security aspects of the investigation."

  "Big surprise there," O'Neal said. "Given that part of my testimony would be that Fleet just destroyed an entire corps of ACS."

  "If you're referring to the Eleventh Corps, you are mistaken," the commander replied. "It was virtually wiped out in the battles on R-1496 Delta. Due to your negligence and rejection of the input from your Darhel superiors."

  "Oh, so that's what I'm being tried with?" Mike asked, laughing. "Do you have any survivors to testify? Because as far as I could tell the orbital strikes were pretty thorough. I'd love to know that even one of my boys survived your fucking massacre."

  "You are being tried on the charges of crimes against humanity," the commander replied. "Relating to new information about your actions in the first battles on Diess."

  "That was fifty fucking years ago," Mike said, blinking. "I won my first Medal of Honor on Diess!"

  "There is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity," the "counsellor" said, pulling out his AID and setting it on the table. "Specifically, you are charged with the deaths of some three hundred thousand Indowy in the destruction of the Qualtren Megascraper. The destruction had been considered accidental, one of those unfortunate events that occur in war. But recently information has surfaced indicating that you ordered charges placed to destroy the building. I'm here to present your side of the action. So why don't you tell me about it from your perspective. Where were you on the evening of May 18th, 2002 AD?"

  "You're asking if I can remember specific actions from over fifty years ago?" Mike asked.

  "Yes," the commander replied.

  "As a matter of fact," Mike said, dropping into memory, "I can."

  Lieutenant O'Neal stripped the box magazine from his M-200 grav rifle and stared unseeing at the thousands of teardrop-shaped pellets within. Then he reinserted the magazine and did the same with his grav pistol.

  "Would you please quit doing that?" asked Lieutenant Eamons. Both of them waited by windows on the northwest corner of Qualtren. The angle was even greater than the FSO indicated and they had a clear view of the 1.145 miles to the next intersection. There the Naltrev megascraper cut back and blocked the view. Naltrev and its sister megascraper Naltren held the battalion scout platoon and the upper part of O'Neal's vision systems were slaved to the view from the scout platoon leader's.

  "Where are your people
, Tom?" Mike asked.

  "Downstairs."

  "Are they tasked?" O'Neal continued to watch the view from the scout leader. It was unsettling because of the flicker of a Personal Area Force-screen—the PAF set up in the anticipated direction of attack—and because Lieutenant Smith had a nasty tendency to occasionally toss his head like a horse throwing a fly. The movement would swing the viewpoint right and up. I doubt he even notices that he's doing it, thought Mike, stripping out the magazine and reinserting it, but I wish he'd quit.

  "Would you please quit doing that, Mike! And why do you want to know? No, they're sitting around with their thumbs up their butts."

  "Quit what?" Mike asked, his attention focused like a medical laser on the view from his helmet. "Start having them emplace cratering charges across Anosimo and Sisalav at the Sal line and then start placing C-9 charges at the locations I'll slave to their AIDs."