by John Ringo
"The weight saved on engines and fuel is going to add-on armor, hon; good stuff, too. There's some new design coming from off-planet—though we'll actually manufacture it here—that resists the weapons you'll have to face."
McNair looked up at the triple eight-inch guns projecting from turret two. "They were marvels in their day, girl, outshooting and outranging anything similar. But wait until you see the new ones. The Mark-16s are out. We're putting in automatic seventy caliber Mark-71, Mod 1s: faster firing, longer ranged, and more accurate. Going to have to open up or pull all your main turrets to do that. We'll have to pull off your twin five-inch, thirty-eights, too. They'll be mounting single Mark-71s, but the ammo load will be different for those. Different mission from the main turrets' guns.
"Think of it, babes: fifteen eight-inch guns throwing more firepower than any two dozen other heavy cruisers ever could have.
"And your twin three-inch mounts are going. The Air Force is giving up forty thirty-millimeter chain guns from their A-10s for you and your sister."
McNair looked down, as if seeing through the deck and the armored belt below. "We're changing you around inside, too, a bit. Automated strikedown for your magazines, a lot more magazine capacity—you're going to need it, and more automation in general. You're going to get some newfangled alien computer to run it all, too.
"Crew's dropping. Between the rust- and barnacle-proof hull and the automation, you aren't going need but a third of what you used to. You were always a great ship; you're going to be a damned luxury liner in comparison."
McNair was sure the slight thrum he seemed to feel through his feet was an illusion or the result of shifting tides. While the ship was unquestionably alive, he didn't believe it was actually conscious.
McNair suddenly became aware of a presence standing a respectful distance away. He turned to see a stocky, tan-clad teenager wearing the hash marks of a senior chief and smiling in the shadow of turret two. Something about the face seemed familiar . . .
"Chief?" he asked, uncertainly.
"She's still a beaut', ain't she, Skipper?"
"Chief Davis?" McNair asked again of his very first boss aboard Des Moines.
"Hard to believe, ain't it? But yeah, Skipper, it's me. And recognizing you was easy; after all, I knew you when you were seventeen."
McNair started to move forward to throw his arms about his former boss and later subordinate. He started, and then stopped himself. This was the by-God Navy, not a reunion of a ship's company in some seedy, seaside hotel or at the Mercer farm in Pennsylvania. Instead, the captain extended a welcoming hand which Davis took and shook warmly.
"You been aboard long, Chief?"
"Maybe a week or so, Skipper. Long enough to see the mess below."
McNair took a deep breath to steel himself for the anticipated blow. "How bad is she?" he asked.
"Structurally she's as sound as the day she was launched, Skipper. But nobody's given a shit about her in over thirty years and it shows. We've got water—no, not a hull leak, just condensation and weather leakage from topside—about three inches deep down below . . . plenty of rat shit; rats too, for that matter. And the plates are worn to a nub. They're all gonna have to be replaced."
Davis sighed. "The argon gas leaked out. What can I say? It happens. Wiring's about gone—though Sinbad says he's got a special trick for that. Engines are in crappy shape, take six months to get 'em runnin' again, if we're lucky. And then the guns are shot, o' course. Some stupid bastard left 'em open to the salt air. Rusted to shit, both in the tubes and deeper down."
Nodding his head slowly in understanding, McNair keyed on one word Davis had dropped in passing. "Sinbad?" he asked.
"Sinbad's just what I call him. His real name's Sintarleen. He's an . . . Indy? No, that's not it," the chief puzzled. "He's an . . . Indow . . . um, Indowee. You know, Skipper, one of them fuzzy green aliens. He's a refugee and he sort o' got drafted too, him and another twenty-seven of his clan on this ship, another thirty from a different clan to the Salem. Real shy types, they are. But hard workin'? Skipper, I ain't never seen nobody so hard working. Only the twenty-eight of 'em, well twenty-seven actually 'cause Sinbad's been doin' other stuff, and they've already got nearly an eighth of the ship cleaned out. Only problem is they can't do nothin' about the rats. Can't kill 'em. Can't set traps for 'em. Can't even put out poison for 'em. They'll even leave food for the nasty little fuckers if you don't watch 'em careful. I asked 'em though, if they could feed somethin' that could kill 'em and then dispose of the bodies. Sinbad said he and his people had no problem with that. Funny bunch."
As if to punctuate that, a furry-faced, green-toned Indowy, face something like a terrestrial bat, emerged from below, straining under an enormous weight of a capacity-stuffed canvas tarp. The Indowy walked to port and dumped a mass of organic trash, rats and rat filth to splash over the side before returning wordlessly below.
Davis paid no more than a moment's attention to the Indowy before turning back to McNair and continuing, "So anyways, my own cat Maggie had a litter of kittens about a month before I went into the tank; you know, rejuv? Under their mom's guidance, they are taking pretty good care of the rat problem. There's eight of 'em. Maggie drops big litters."
Gorgas Hospital, Ancon Hill, Panama City, Panama
Laid out on the helicopter's litter, Digna expired not twenty minutes flight from their destination, her chest rising suddenly and then slowly falling to remain still. The paramedic in attendance had at first tried to revive her, using cardio-pulmonary resuscitation and then, when that failed, electric shock. Finally, after half a dozen useless jolts, he had shaken his head and covered her face with the sheet. He shrugged his regrets at Digna's son, Hector, then politely turned away as Hector covered his face with his hands.
The inspector's face remained impassive throughout.
Hector had managed to gain control of himself by the time the helicopter touched down on Ancon Hill overlooking Panama City at what had once been officially know as "Gorgas Army Hospital," and was still commonly referred to as "Gorgas."
At the helipad, Hector was surprised to see an ambulance still waiting for his mother. What did they think they could do for her now? She's gone. He was even more surprised that the ambulance sped off, sirens blazing and tires lifting from sharp turns at a breakneck speed, once his mother's body had been loaded.
Another car, a black Toyota, was left behind as the ambulance raced away. Into the back seat of this vehicle the inspector peremptorily ordered Hector, before seating himself beside the driver. Hector's pride bridled but, realistically, he knew that the reach of the Miranda clan's power stopped well short of Panama City. He went along without demure.
Hector Miranda hated the antiseptic stink of hospitals. Worse, this was an ex-gringo hospital where the smell of disinfectant had seeped into the very tile of the floors and walls. It didn't help matters that his mother had just died. Almost as bad was uncertainty over his own future. A conscription notice at his age seemed too absurd for words.
And then there was that heartless bastard, the inspector. Did he have a word of sympathy over Digna's death? A kind gesture? Even minimal civilized politeness? No, he just sat unspeaking as he pored through one file folder after another.
Hector was a proud man; as proud of himself as he was of his lineage. He could not weep for his mother here in public. Had he done so, and had she been there to see, she would have been first with a none-too-gentle slap and an admonition that "men do not cry." It had been that way since he was a little, a very little, boy.
Once, his mother had caught him crying over some little-boy tragedy; he couldn't for the life of him recall just what it was. She had slapped him then, saying, "Boys don't cry. Girls are for crying."
Shocked at the slap, he had asked, sniffling, "Then what are boys for, Mama?"
His mother had answered, in all seriousness, "Boys are for fighting."
He had learned then to weep only on the inside.
So, dry-eyed, he paced, hands clasped behind his back and head slightly bowed. People in hospital greens and whites passed by. He thought some of them were gringos. Hector paid little attention to the passersby, but continued his pacing. Ordinarily, even at his age, he would have at least looked at the pretty, young nurses. He knew he looked young enough, perhaps thirty years less than his true age of eighty-seven, with a full head of hair and bright hazel eyes, that the girls often enough looked back.
One girl did catch his eye though. A lovely little thing she was, not over four feet ten inches, her shape perfection in miniature, and with bright blue eyes and flaming red hair. It was the hair that captured Hector's attention; that and the bold, forthright way she looked at him. He had no clue what it was about him that caused the pretty redhead to walk over and stand directly in front of him.
She stood there, quietly staring up into his eyes, with the tiniest of enigmatic smiles crossing her lips. This lasted for a long minute.
Something . . . something . . . what is it about this one? Hector thought. Then his eyes flew wide in shock.
"Mama?"
Fort William D. Davis, Panama
Sergeant Major McIntosh sneered, showing white teeth against black lips. The place was a shambles, disgusting to a soldier's eye. Never mind that the golf course was overgrown, riotous with secondary growth jungle. The sergeant major thought golf was for pussies anyway. But the barracks? They were a soldier's shrine and that shrine had been desecrated! Windows were broken in places, missing where they were not broken. Wiring had been ripped out, unskillfully and wholesale. The paradeground had gone the way of the golf course, and that did matter in a way that a silly pursuit like golf did not. Trash was everywhere. The only buildings still in half-assed decent shape were the post housing areas that had been sold to government functionaries, their families and cronies. And even those needed a paint job.
The sergeant major stopped and stared at what had once been a wall mural of an American soldier in an old fashioned Vietnam-era steel pot, weighed down under a shoulder-borne machine gun, symbolically crossing the Isthmus of Panama. The mural was a ruin, only the artist's name, Cordoba, remaining clear enough to distinguish for anyone who had never seen the mural when it was fresh and new.
"Muddafuckas," the sergeant major announced in a cold voice with a melodious Virgin Islands accent. "Dis post used to be a fucking paradise, and look what's left."
James Preiss, former commander of 4th Battalion, 10th Infantry and future commander of the entire, rebuilt, regiment, ignored the sergeant major's ranting as the two of them turned left to head east along the old PX complex, just south of the overgrown parade field. Preiss looked to right and left—assessing damage, prioritizing work to be done. This was as it should be; he to set the task, the sergeant major to tongue-lash the workers until the task was completed to standard. Preiss knew that the sergeant major was just getting himself in the proper frame of mind for when the troops began to show up.
I almost feel bad for the poor shits after the sergeant major has had a couple of weeks to brood. This was his favorite place even after thirty-five years in the Regular Army. Preiss smiled a little smile—half mean, half sympathetic—in anticipation.
Ahead was the post gym; built by the troops of the 10th Infantry Regiment early in the twentieth century, a bronze plaque to the left of the main entrance so proclaimed. "I wonder why nobody stole dat?" wondered the sergeant major aloud.
"Be thankful for small favors, Sergeant Major McIntosh. Though I admit I'd have been disappointed if even that had been gone."
Fort Kobbe, Panama
Kobbe was composed of little more than thirteen red-tiled and white-stuccoed barracks and one smallish headquarters building, plus a half dozen old coastal artillery and ammunition bunkers and a couple of sold-off housing areas. Whereas Davis was a complete post, intended to be sufficient unto itself, Kobbe was a mere annex to what had once been Howard Air Force Base. It had no PX, no real chapel, no pool, no NCO club, no officers' club. In short, it was just a place for troops to live; happiness they would have to find elsewhere.
Worse, if Fort Davis was a mess, Fort Kobbe was more nearly a ruin. Everything was missing. If Davis was missing toilets, Kobbe had seen its plumbing cannibalized. If Davis had had its wiring removed, on Kobbe the street lights had gone on an extended journey. If Davis was covered with graffiti, Kobbe's buildings had seen the stucco rot in patches from its walls.
This was natural, since there were so many more people, hence so many more thieves on an equal per capita basis, in Panama Province than in Colon. About all that could be said for the place was that the thirteen barracks and one headquarters were still standing, though building #806 was plainly sagging in the middle.
"That fucking idiot, Reeder," commented Colonel Carter, in memory of a born-again moron who, in 1983, had just had to knock out a central load-bearing wall to build an unneeded chapel for an ineffective chaplain. "Why, oh why, didn't somebody poison that stupid son of a bitch for the good of the breed like Curl said we should?"
Short, squat and with an air of solid determination, Carter glared at the collapsing building with a disgust and loathing for its destroyer undimmed after nearly two decades.
The Panamanian contractor standing next to Carter and surveying the same damage had no clue what Carter was speaking of. He assumed it was simple anger at the damage. He could not know that Carter was reliving, in the form of the falling Building 806, all his experiences with one of the more stupidly destructive and useless officers he had ever met in a life where such were by no means uncommon.
Carter shook his head to clear soiled memories. "Never mind, señor, I was just remembering . . . old times."
"You were here, with the battalion?"
"Yes, I was with B Company as a lieutenant. I was a 'Bandido.' "
"Was?" the Panamanian asked, with respect, then corrected, "Un Bandido siempre es un Bandido."
"So we were," agreed Carter. "So we are. Señor, have you seen enough to make an estimate of the repairs?"
"I have, Coronel, and the bill will not be small."
"The bill never is, señor."
Harmony Church, Fort Benning, Georgia
They came in old and fat and gray, or—some of them—old and skinny and cancerous and bald. Still others—the more recently retired—were fit but worn. One poor old duffer grabbed his chest and keeled over while standing in line. The slovenly looking medics merely dragged out a stretcher, put the heart attack victim on it, and carried him to the head of the line.
After passing through the white-painted, World War II era barracks building, they left young and fit and full of energy. Even the heart attack victim left as young and alive as any, albeit a bit more surprised than most.
They came from such diverse places as Tulsa, Boston, New York and Los Angeles, in the United States. Many came from outside the United States altogether.
Yet they had one thing in common: each one of them had at least one tour in the old 193rd Infantry Brigade (Canal Zone), soon to be reformed as the 193rd Infantry Division (Panama). Many other commonalities flowed from this.
Juan Rivera, Colonel (retired), looked up at his old comrades awaiting rejuvenation. He had to look up; Rivera was a scant five feet five inches in stature. He couldn't help but notice their proud bearing. His own shoulders squared off, automatically. How different from the gutter scrapings of draftees I saw from the bus on the way in. Ah, well. I had thought to live out my life in peace and quiet. If I must go back to youth and turmoil I would rather do so with proven soldiers. Besides, it would be nice to have a hyper-functional pecker again. And better to die with a bang than a whimper.
As if he could read minds, a soon-to-be rejuvenee said aloud, "Man, I can hardly wait to get back to Panama with a working dick."
Rivera wasn't the only one to join in; the laughter was general. He also suspected he wasn't the only one who had had the very same thought at the very same time. There was
an awful lot to be said for a second man-, if not child-, hood. There was even more to be said for having that second manhood in Panama.
There were a surprising number of rejuvs for what was, Rivera suspected, an important but still secondary mission. He had no knowledge of the algorithm that had set aside such a large number of potential rejuvs—nearly three thousand—for a division that would be no more than fourteen or fifteen thousand at full strength. He suspected that Panama had so charmed that troops assigned there in bygone days that an unusually large number had reenlisted and gone career in the hope of someday returning. Thus, there had been a great many more than usual jungle-trained and experienced troops to rejuvenate.
Maybe that was it, he thought. Or maybe we are just plain screwed.
