by John Ringo
"You're really not worried, are you, Daisy?" McNair asked, wonderingly.
The hologram shrugged. "Not really, sir, no. I'm a warship and this is what I was meant to do."
"That's my girl," McNair said, a growing confidence in his voice.
"My girl," Daisy repeated mentally. An entire ship fairly quivered with barely suppressed pleasure.
Diaz soared, nausea gone and forgotten with the smelly, vile bag of puke he had dropped over the side moments after he had cut his glider loose from the lifting balloon.
From a height of nearly two miles he had sailed westward, dropping no more than a foot for every fifty that he advanced. When his altitude dropped to within a half-mile of the earth he had sought an updraft. These were easy to find along these ridges swept by the warm, southerly winds that brought freshness and rain to his country. In these updrafts he had circled again and again until the force of the wind gave out. At that point he had left the current and pushed onward again, ever closer to the fighting.
He was not there yet, though, and his mind wandered, naturally, to other things. More precisely, his mind wandered to Paloma Mercedes as he had last seen her, fiery with anger at his joining up and not using family connections to stay with her.
She'd never called, either. He'd thought she would get over it but, whether from anger or pride the phone had remained silent. He didn't miss her less, exactly, but perhaps the sharp edge of the pain was growing dull from sawing at his heart and soul.
Maybe . . . maybe after this mission I'll swallow my own pride and call her. But first I have to survive.
Beneath his long narrow wings, Diaz saw more than a few signs of the fighting that had raged below. Here a burning tank, there a cluster of enemy dead or a crashed flying sled of the enemy's leaders. These reminded him, as if he needed a reminder, that all that would keep him alive through the next several hours was the enemy's stupidity, the aliens' confidence in their own weapons and sensors, and his own seeming harmlessness. He knew that if the aliens ever suspected he was a reconnaissance platform his life would be measured in tiny fractions of seconds.
For some reason, though, Diaz was unable to reach anyone on the ground. Fat lot of good the information he hoped to gain would do if he couldn't pass it on. He knew the internal codes for his frequency hopping radio were good; he'd checked them before departure.
Darhel Consulate, Panama City, Panama
The Rinn Fain had already done everything he knew to do with the humans. He had sabotaged and misdirected their plans, split their efforts, and aided their president in every way a Darhel knew how to, to rob his own people.
It was nearly time to stop doing things with the humans and start to do things to them.
To this end the Rinn Fain, and all his underlings—Darhel, Indowy, and artificial, all three—manned stations that, in human terms, could only be thought of as electronic warfare nodes.
For now the Darhel avoided interference, for the most part. Except in a few cases they were content merely to analyze human radio patterns, intercepting and synthesizing the codes that the barbarians used to hop from one frequency to another.
Certainly they didn't want to tip the humans off to what they were up to in time for the clever beasts to think of something new.
There were, however, certain of the humans who were physically out of touch enough to risk playing games with their communications. The glider pilots were a case in point. The Rinn Fain had taken considerable pleasure in remotely reprogramming their radios to make sure that anything they saw went unreported.
It was almost as pleasurable as taking control of the human's warships would be.
USS Des Moines
"Captain," Daisy reported, "I'm picking up scrambled signals from someone who, based on what he is trying to say and how he is trying to say it, seems to be a pilot flying at or near the front. I don't think anyone but myself—and probably Sally—can hear him." Daisy hesitated for a long moment, as if in communication with someone not present.
"Sally hears him, too, sir, yes. But there is something wrong with her."
"What?" asked McNair.
"I don't know," Daisy answered, sounding genuinely puzzled and more than a little concerned. "She is . . . different from me . . . a normal AID. And that part of her intelligence, the part created by the Darhel, is acting a bit . . . odd."
"Okay," McNair answered. "See if you can figure out what's wrong with Sally. Help her if you can. And see if you can patch me through to that . . . pilot, did you say?"
"Yes, sir, a pilot. Spanish speaking. Fortunately, I can speak Spanish."
Along with every other human tongue spoken by more than two thousand people, she thought but, tactfully, did not say.
Diaz's voice was beginning to take on a note of frustrated desperation. He knew it and hated it but could do nothing to control it. But there were targets below, thick and ripe and waiting to be harvested.
"Any station, any station, this is Zulu Mike Lima Two Seven, over," he pleaded, for more than the hundredth time.
For a wonder the radio crackled back, in an achingly feminine voice, "Zulu Mike Lima Two Seven this is Charlie Alfa One Three Four. Hear you Lima Charlie, over."
Initially Diaz was unwilling to respond. It could be an enemy trick. Frantically, he poured through his COI, the code book that gave the call signs for every unit in his army and the gringos fighting in support of it. There was nothing, not one clue as to who Charlie Alfa One Three Four might be.
The warm feminine voice repeated, "Zulu Mike Lima Two Seven this is Charlie Alfa One Three Four. Hear you Lima Charlie, over."
Finally, realizing that if he was so useless as to be unable to communicate with his own people the enemy was unlikely to be very interested in him either, Diaz answered, "Last calling station this is Zulu Mike Lima Two Seven. Who the hell are you?"
Another voice, different from the girl's, came on. That speaker's Spanish was as accentless as the girl's had been.
"Lima Two Seven, this is the heavy cruiser, USS Des Moines, Captain McNair speaking."
"Captain, this is Lieutenant Julio Diaz, First FAP Light Recon Squadron. I have targets and I haven't been able to raise anyone."
The radio went silent. Diaz knew what the captain must be thinking: how the hell do I know this snot-nosed kid is really a snot-nosed kid and not the damned Posleen?
"Can you patch me through to my father?" Diaz asked. Then, realizing that, as phrased, it was an incredibly stupid, second lieutenant kind of question, he added, "He's the G-2. Major General Juan Diaz. My father can verify my voice."
In half a minute a different, and angry, voice came over Diaz's radio. "Julio, is that you? Where the hell have you been? I was about to call your mother. . . ."
"Father," Diaz nearly wept with relief, "I haven't been able to get a hold of anyone since shortly after I went airborne. I can see everything, Father, and just as I thought, the beasts are simply ignoring me. I can see where Sixth Division is engaged. And I can see the enemy massing. But I can't do a fucking thing about it."
The other Spanish voice came back. "General Diaz, Captain McNair. I can do something about it. Do you acknowledge that the voice claiming to be Lieutenant Diaz is your son and that he is in a position to adjust fire?"
The elder Diaz spoke again. "What did I say when I caught you and your girlfriend in the gardener's cabin, Julio?"
"Father! You promised never to bring that up!"
General Diaz's voice contained a chuckle in it as he said, "Yes, Captain, that's my boy."
"Very good then, sir. Lieutenant Diaz, I want you to find me a huge concentration of the enemy. I don't know how long we can pull this off before they shoot the shit out of us. So let's make it count, son."
"All hands, this is the captain speaking. Battle stations, battle stations. This is no drill."
"I'm receiving Lieutenant Diaz's call for fire now, Captain."
"Prepare to engage." McNair was pleased to hear no note of fear or
hesitation in his own voice.
"Captain?" Daisy asked. "Would you and the crew care for a little mood music as we make our run?"
Raising a single, quizzical eyebrow, McNair answered, "Go for it, Daisy."
"In nomine patri, filioque et spiritu sancti," Father Dwyer intoned as he made the sign of the cross over a half dozen of the crew that knelt for a brief and informal service, pending action. Dwyer could have sworn at least one of the present flock was a Moslem but the man took the host without hesitation and eagerly grasped the two-ounce plastic cup of "sacramental scotch" Dwyer proffered.
No atheists in foxholes, they say. I think that, given the power of the Holy Spirit as manifested in the Glenlivet distillery, there shall soon be only good Roman Catholics afloat. Well . . . and perhaps the odd Presbyterian. Now if only I can find something suitable to bless for the benefit of Sinbad and his Indowy.
Before he could continue that line of thought Dwyer heard, "Battle stations . . ."
"Boys," the priest said, "here aboard ship or in heaven or in hell, I'll see you soon. Now you to your posts and I to mine."
With that, the Jesuit headed towards sick bay. Worse come to worst he had a fair chance of saving a couple of more souls there.
* * *
McNair was startled twice over. The first time was when Daisy's avatar blinked out of existence on the bridge. The second came when the ship itself began to vibrate with music.
O Fortuna
velut luna
statu variabilis,
Through the narrow slitted and armored glass-plated windows of the bridge, it seemed to McNair that a glow began to arise from the hull, spreading out into a perfect circle. The normal wake made by the bow as it sliced through the water disappeared, as did the waves.
semper crescis
aut decrescis;
From the glowing circle a fog arose; real or holographic McNair couldn't say. Yet it seemed real enough. Below the fog the dimly sensed ocean began to bubble. Again, real or illusion? McNair assumed it must be illusion.
vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat
et tunc curat
ludo mentis aciem,
The rear turret, number three, was beyond McNair's view. The forward two turrets began slowly to turn in the direction of land.
egestatem,
potestatem
dissolvit ut glaciem.
Sors immanis
et inanis,
rota tu volubilis,
status malus,
Lightning, real or false, flashed from deep within the frothing circle. Sometimes it came in the form of streaks or ribbons. At others it came as dancing balls of fire.
vana salus
semper dissolubilis,
obumbrata
et velata
The circle of fog expanded upward, becoming a hemisphere around the ship. From inside that hemisphere it seemed like the surface of a portal to Hell, all impossible colors and writhing, unsettling combinations. McNair tore his eyes away from the eerie display surrounding him and his ship. He could see that the guns were pointed at about the bearing he would have expected if . . .
michi quoque niteris;
nunc per ludum
KABOOM! Center gun of number two turret spoke.
dorsum nudum
fero tui sceleris.
A leg now, long and shapely, appeared to grow from the top of number two. The foot must have been somewhere around the keel. Risking concussion, McNair hurried out from the protected bridge.
Sors salutis
et virtutis
Another flash and the blast of a gun shook McNair to the core. His attention, however, was entirely on Daisy's hologram.
michi nunc contraria,
est affectus
She was a giant, a goddess. Lighting flashed back and forth between her hands.
et defectus
semper in angaria.
KABOOM! Another blast erupted from a gun.
Daisy said, very softly for such a grand goddess, "Please, Captain. Go inside. I know what I'm doing."
Hac in hora
sine mora
corde pulsum tangite;
quod per sortem
sternit fortem,
mecum omnes plangite!1
And then, fire adjusted, all nine guns were on the target in a pattern designed for maximum destruction. Daisy thrust her hands forward and the lightning no longer passed between them but hurled through the night toward the land.
The ship shuddered: KABKAKAKABOOMOOMOOMOOM, as all nine eight-inch guns in the three main turrets hurled death and defiance at the invader.
"Splash, over," said the warm female voice.
Diaz eased his glider over slightly and looked in the direction in which he expected the shell to land. It was over and to the northwest but . . . he checked his altimeter again. Yes, he was at the height he expected. That shell must be huge, much bigger than the 105mm artillery he had trained to adjust.
He took another direction to his target, several—maybe ten or twelve—thousand Posleen massing in some low ground east of 6th Division.
"From last shell, direction: 5150. Left eight hundred . . . down two thousand, over."
Almost as fast as Diaz spoke the woman responded, "Shot, over."
After what seemed a long wait came, "Splash, over. Lieutenant Diaz, in case no one ever told you, with naval guns there is a large probability of major range errors. You may want to keep your corrections small."
"Roger," Diaz answered, looking over to where he expected the shell to land. Dammit. I overcorrected.
"Direction 5190, add twelve hundred, right three hundred."
"Shot, over . . . splash over."
A large blossoming flower, a mix of black, yellow and purple, grew approximately in the center of the Posleen horde. Even from his distance Diaz saw bodies and chunks of bodies flying through the air.
"Direction 5220, add one hundred! Fireforeffectfireforeffectfireforeffect!"
"Calm down, Lieutenant Diaz. I understood you the first time. Shot over . . . splash, over."
Nothing in his training prepared Diaz for what happened next. He had never seen more than a "battery one" from 105s, six guns of small caliber firing one round each. The long-range error the woman had told him to expect was there and obviously so. Shells fell that were absurdly long or short.
But in the main, they fell on target . . . and fell . . . and fell . . . and fell.
Posleen in groups small and large attempted to escape. But still the shells came down, engulfing them. About the time that no more recognizable pieces of alien bodies were being visibly hurled into the air Diaz decided they had had enough. Nearly three square kilometers were completely covered in black, evil smoke. Already elements of what he assumed was the 6th Division were emerging from cover and creeping cautiously forward.
"Cease fire, cease fire. Target . . . well, ma'am, it's a lot worse than just destroyed," the boy said, awe plain in his voice.
"You're welcome. By the way, you can call me Daisy."
Diaz nosed his glider over, following the barely visible forward trace of the 6th Division. Soon he saw another group of Posleen.
"And I'm Julio. How far can you range, Daisy?"
"A little past the Inter-American highway, if I move north from this position. But, that's really constrained. Not much space to maneuver. I may have to bug out to the south at any time."
"I'll take what I can get, Daisy. Adjust fire, over."
Panama City, Panama
The Rinn Fain contemplated telling the Indowy to terminate itself, but decided, reluctantly, against it. It wasn't that the Indowy was particularly valuable, ordinarily, that had saved it. In these circumstances, however, the Indowy would be impossible to replace. This made it valuable, for however short a time.
What a disgusting thought; a valuable Indowy.
Casting his eyes even lower than those of his kind usually did, the Indowy contemplated his own impending end. If he were
lucky, the master would let him go without excessive pain.
