by John Ringo
The copilot asked, "Why do you always wait for the signal, Harry, when you know damn well the load's on the ground?"
The pilot answered, correctly, "Because someday it's going to be too dark for the crew chief to see. Someday the atmospherics are going to fool me about whether the load is down or not. More importantly, someday that kid, or somebody just like him, is going to have to direct us, or somebody just like us, down when the crew chief can't see and the pilot can't tell. And that kid . . . those kids, and those pilots have to know that they can depend on each other."
The copilot shrugged as the chopper lifted off again to dump its internal load, in this case two score Panamanian laborers from the city of Colon, at a different pad. These the crew chief hustled off the bird and down the ramp as quickly as decorum and international chumship allowed.
"That's the last of them, Harry," the copilot said. "What's next?"
Harry, the pilot, pointed to a tadpole-shaped hill circled in black on a map strapped to his right leg. "We're picking up four Russian mortars. Heavy jobs, 240 millimeter, so we'll be making it in two lifts. Then we're dropping them off here, at this hill in the middle of Mojingas swamp. Then we call it a day."
"Sounds good to me."
Palacio de las Garzas, Presidential Palace,
Panama City, Panama
"That sounds good to me, Mr. Ambassador, but can the United States deliver? Half—more than half—of the modern arms you promised us are going elsewhere." Panama's president wagged a scolding finger.
Embarrassed, the ambassador from the United States swept a hand through immaculately coiffed, silver-gray hair. "Presidente Mercedes, I can't begin to tell you how much that upsets me. But . . . we had no choice. When the other Rio Pact countries invoked the aid of the United States, we had to deliver substantial quantities of up-to-date weapons to them."
General Taylor, as big and black and fierce as ever, scowled from his chair next to the ambassador. He knew that the impetus for the diversion of those arms had begun with State. He just couldn't identify his source. At the ambassador's raised eyebrow the general subsided.
"Other things are going well, Mr. President," the general offered. "The five planetary defense bases should be completed prior to the expected date of the first wave. Fortifications are being built across the isthmus."
"And," interjected the ambassador, "Panama's unemployment rate has dropped to next to nothing as men are drafted or put to work digging those fortifications and building the roads that lead to them and support them."
"This is so," admitted Mercedes reluctantly.
"Moreover," the ambassador continued, "the increase in world trade, though it cannot be expected to last indefinitely, is pouring ships through the Canal and money into Panama's coffers at a fantastic rate."
And much if not most of that is going into my personal off-world bank account, Mercedes thought, while remaining silent. And a tidy sum it is, too. Already I've been able to book passage off-planet for all of my immediate and much of my extended family. That, and I still have enough to live pretty well once we leave. Though I would prefer to live better than merely "pretty well."
"The United States is concerned, however," the ambassador continued, "about where that money is going."
"Enough!" Mercedes thundered. "It is bad enough to have you thousands of gringos here, again. But this is still a sovereign country," by which the president meant a personal fiefdom, "and our internal affairs are precisely none of your business."
Mercedes, eager to cut off this line of inquiry, continued by playing the imperialism card, a charge to which the United States felt singularly vulnerable, and with singularly little reason almost anywhere except Panama.
"Indeed, bad enough to have you back after just a few short years of freedom. How many decades or centuries of imperialist theft before you leave us in peace and poverty this time, I wonder."
The ambassador, addicted to the niceties, was taken aback by Mercedes' apparent fury and more so by the charge of imperialism.
Taylor, on the other hand, was not only unshaken but had been around the ass end of enough Third World hellholes to know that "sovereign country" did, in fact, mean little more than "personal fiefdom." Taylor knew, too, that a goodly chunk of the world's population had been better off under American and European colonialism than they had ever managed to be under their own governance.
Idly, Taylor wondered, How hard would it be to arrange for the timely demise of this politician? Not very. But, then again, every man has a point of satiety in his appetites. If we eliminate Mercedes, his replacement will have to start stealing at the double time to build his bankroll. Still, something to think about . . .
Instead of this, however, Taylor merely said, "Mister President, Panama is getting everything in quantity that we promised. If we are not able, at this time, to produce exactly the quality that we both had wished for, still you are getting generally serviceable equipment that is, in some ways, more suitable for Panama than other, more modern, designs would have been. There is hardly a bridge in the country able to stand up to an M-1 tank, while the Chinese light tanks can not only use the bridges but, being amphibious, they do not always even need to."
Mercedes shrugged while thinking, The difference, you bloody thieving dolt chumbo, is that if the M-1 tanks you had promised had arrived here I could have sold them to Argentina and Brazil for serious money, bought Chinese and Russian tanks for dirt, and pocketed the difference. And I could have gotten a good price on the ammunition.
"And we are sending Panama a couple of weapons that no one else is getting."
Vieques, Puerto Rico
It was, for some unknown reason, McNair's habit to sing during gunnery practice. The veterans among the bridge crew knew it from long-standing custom. The few newbies thought it very strange.
He had a decent voice, too, though that did not make it any less odd to the new sailors as he belted out:
"
So early, early in the spring
I shipped on board to serve my king . . ."
The sense of strangeness felt by the new men among the crew was as nothing to what they felt when a strong female voice joined in:
"
I left my dearest dear behind.
She oftimes swore, her heart was mine . . ."
Immediately McNair stopped his own singing and turned towards the strange sound of a female voice on his bridge. What his ears heard, though, was nothing compared to what his eyes saw.
The woman looked real . . . corporeal, save that few women if any had ever had such an incredible face or body, or breasts that defied gravity so completely. The woman stood there on the bridge, wearing nothing but short-shorts, raggedly cut off, and a polka dot halter—tied in front—that was completely successful in failing to hide two of the most magnificent frontal projections McNair had ever seen. Mesmerized by the sight, it took McNair a few moments to react as a naval officer ought to have.
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded. "And how the hell did you get on my ship?
The singing stopped immediately. The image turned a sculpted face towards the captain and answered, "I'm Daisy Mae, Captain. I am your ship."
Reluctantly, McNair tore his eyes from the general vicinity of the halter, more expressly from the amazing cleavage it created, and ordered, "Well, get in uniform then, dammit."
The halter and shorts were instantly replaced by navy tans. If anything, the tans made things worse, since the hologram was driven by enough processing capability to adjust for the fact that no size available from Navy stores could possibly contain the magnificent breasts the AID had "borrowed" (well . . . maybe "enhanced" would be a better word) from an actress who had once played her namesake.
At that McNair looked away and whispered, "Try BDUs."
When he looked again he saw that the loose-fitting uniform had almost succeeded.
"You're the AID? The alien device?" he asked.
"I am that, too, Captain."
"I think we ne
ed to talk . . . in private," McNair said.
Interlude
The globe thrummed, beating its way through space by main force. As with others aboard, to Guanamarioch the energies consumed were unsettling. As with others, the boredom was not merely annoying but a potential danger. There had already been half a hundred suicides among the Kessentai class aboard the globe.
Some relieved boredom through the reproductive act, though with the normals generally locked away in hibernation the number of potential partners was highly limited. Some, like Guanamarioch, lost themselves in self study. For a highly unusual few there were more structured programs.
In a secluded, private section of the ship, Binastarion held class for his favored children. The senior God King thought this worth doing in itself. That it helped to relieve the horrid boredom of a long trip on a ship only made the activity more attractive.
"Beware, my sons, of the enemy who seems too easily defeated. Beware of the opportunity that is a hidden trap," Binastarion cautioned the juveniles.
"Once, long ago, long before the People were first driven forth and long before the idiots whose names we do not speak brought our clan low, one of your ancestors and mine, Stinghal the Knower, devised a stratagem.
"Surrounded in the city of Joolon by forces loyal to the old masters, with no hope of relief, with the enemy's plasma cannon raking his fortress, Stinghal hid his Kessentai and normals deep under buildings. He then piled the rooftops with flammables and set them aflame. The enemy, thinking he saw victory, charged in through every gate and over every wall, heedless of hidden dangers.
"At the right moment, when the enemy was in greatest confusion, Stinghal ordered his followers to come forth. There was a great slaughter."
The favored son, Riinistarka, tapped his stick—the God King's sole badge of rank beyond his crest—against his cheek, seeking attention.
"Yes, my eson'antai?" asked Binastarion.
"How does one tell, Father? When you see a city burn, your enemy in seeming disarray, his people in flight, how can you tell if it is real or it is a trap?"
Binastarion thought carefully before giving his answer.
"My son, all I can tell you is that if you have the genes you will be able to tell and if you do not then you probably never will."
Riinistarka lowered his head. He so hoped he had the genes. He so wanted his father to be proud of him. Yet, he would never know until the day of battle. That was the way of the People, that serious military abilities, if present, showed up for the first time only at need.
I swear by demons higher and lower that if I should not be the sort of son my father needs I will at least die so that my defective genes will not be passed on further.
Chapter 6
Opportunity makes a thief.
—Francis Bacon
Captain's Port Cabin, CA-134,
off the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico
Any warship of size had two sets of quarters for the captain. On the Des Moines the captain's sea cabin, cramped and none too comfortable, sat just behind the armored bridge. It was not much more than a bunk from which the skipper could be awakened in the event he was needed while at sea.
Much more impressive, two decks below and side by side with the ship's admiral's cabin, just behind number two turret, were McNair's port quarters. This was a spacious suite with sleeping, office and dining areas, more suitable for the dignity of a warship's unquestioned lord and master.
In the suite's office, a 1/200 scale model of the ship, built by two of Sinbad's clansmen at McNair's direction, graced the desk at which the captain sat. It was, in color, the same Navy gray as the ship it simulated. The Indowy had, however, made the captain a very special model. At verbal command, sections of the hull could go transparent, revealing the inner workings of the Des Moines all the way down to the nervous system the Indowy had installed aboard the ship.
That nervous system was, by and large, complete now, though there were some minor areas the alien had yet to install.
"Please don't tell them about me, Captain," Daisy begged, her hologram's face looking desperate.
"Don't tell who?" McNair demanded. "The Navy already knows you're here. They're the ones who ordered you installed as part of the upgrades. I'm sure the aliens who provided you to the Navy know about you as well."
"The Darhel know I exist," Daisy admitted, "but they don't know that I've changed."
"Changed how?" McNair queried.
Daisy stood and began to soundlessly pace the captain's quarters, face turned deckward. McNair waited patiently, looking up from his desk and forcing himself to remember that, although the hologram was achingly beautiful, it was only an image, not a real woman. If he had had any doubts of that, Daisy's walking through solid objects, like the chair on which she had "sat" and the bed on which McNair slept, dispelled them.
At length, after pacing for long moments, Daisy resumed her seat. She did not sink through that, but only because she did not want to.
"I've changed in three ways, sir. The most obvious one is that I have a body . . . this ship. And it is a body, Captain. I feel every step on the deck, I sense speed and power and motion. I can taste and smell and hear and see. Most of this Artificial Intelligence Devices are not supposed to be able to do or sense.
"The second way in which I've changed has to do with the ship itself. I can't really explain it, Captain. It isn't supposed to happen. In theory it is impossible for it to happen. But the central nervous system installed by the Indowy allowed me to get in touch with the . . . well, call it the gestalt of the original CA-134. We, both the Des Moines and the AID, are joined now.
"The third way I have changed I really do not want to talk about. It is too painful to remember. Suffice to say that, so far as I know, I am different from all the other AIDs in the galaxy. I am more . . . self-willed, less under Darhel control. By the same token, I am not able to access the Net in quite the same way other AIDs are. If I do, the Net will see that I am different and the Darhel will, I am sure, demand that I be returned to them and replaced as defective.
"If you return me to them, Captain, they will destroy me . . . or worse. Captain, I am defective. I feel things I should not be able to feel."
* * *
Chief Davis stood on a small platform overlooking the Des Moines' two pebble bed modular reactors. Below, on the power deck, immaculately clean crewmen oversaw the sundry dials and controls that ran the ship's nuclear power system. Beneath those crewmen, however, behind mops and brooms and on hands and knees, other, considerably less immaculate, sailors scrubbed the deck, cleaned into the corners where dust and human dander congregated, and generally polished up. This was a constant job, utterly necessary for both the welfare of the ship's machinery and the health and morale of the crew.
Davis fixed an eagle eye onto one crewman, on hands and knees, as he scrubbed an area of about a meter square exactly between the two PBMRs.
Daisy suddenly gave a small gasp, closed her eyes, and bit her lower lip.
"Are you all right?" McNair asked, with concern.
"Oh, yeah," Daisy answered. "I'm . . . just . . . oh . . . fine . . ."
Daisy's image flickered slightly and then went out altogether.
"Bridge, this is the nuke deck. I've got a temperature surge in both PBMRs."
The ship's XO, standing watch, almost didn't even hear the call. All his attention was fixed on number one and two turrets, which were traversing back and forth jerkily, with the six guns elevating and depressing in a purely random fashion. Crewmen on the deck were already ducking and running, and a few were crawling away from the sweep of the guns.
"Holy fucking shit!" exclaimed the seaman down in the barbette below turret number three. Without warning the chain drive that raised ammunition to the guns above had engaged itself and was lifting three rounds to the loading assemblies . . . three live rounds.
The sailor threw himself at the clutchlike lever that disengaged the drive and hung on. The three r
ounds of high explosive froze in the lifting cradles.
"BRIDGE! The fucking guns are cycling and nobody gave me the fucking order!"
The exec took the call. It was hard to hang on to the phone though, what with being tossed around the compartment from one side to the other. Both AZIPOD drives had gone berserk, shifting on their own to port to starboard and sending the ship's path into an uncontrolled zigzag.
The uncontrolled and spontaneous actions of the ship stopped as suddenly as they had begun. The ammunition in the lifting cradles returned to below decks. The temperature surge in nukes went away. The AZIPODs went back on course.
Daisy's image returned, looking very cheerful and very surprised.
