by John Ringo
"So how are they planning on moving them?" Sally asked.
"The commandant didn't know" Dwyer answered in a mild Irish brogue. "That said, my dears, since airplanes are right out, might I suggest either ship or submarine, or maybe space ship?"
Daisy's voice was firm. "Not by ship. The Navy would stop any attempt to take our people out by surface. And since the Euro's haven't helped us here a jot, one of their ships suddenly showing up would be suspicious. So would a merchie full of armed guards. Besides, though a merchie's gestalt is very faint there's still a good chance we could read if they were holding our people. Maybe they'll try by submarine."
Sally's eyes blinked rapidly for a short moment. "I just passed the word to the Jimmy Carter and the Benjamin Franklin to be on the look out for submarines. They'd be French, if anything, wouldn't they, Father?"
Dwyer considered for a moment, then said, "The Frogs are the only ones with the range and the sheer chutzpah, both, I think, Sally. But, despite the EU being implicated in this, I don't think the French would go quite so far. Besides, they have good reason to be afraid of our subs."
"Spaceship, then," Sally summarized.
"A Himmit spaceship," Daisy corrected.
"We can't track Himmit spaceships," Sally said sullenly.
"I was afraid you'd say that," Dwyer finished.
Pedrarias Line, Veraguas Province, Republic of Panama
"I was afraid you'd say that," Suarez said, gloomily contemplating the idle combat engineers scattered in groups along the fortified line. Others were working, digging trench, building bunkers, and stringing barbed wire. The minelayers, however, were just sitting around with their collective thumbs up their butts.
"I'm sorry, Coronel." Suarez was still a colonel despite having taken over the rump of the 1st Mechanized Division, a rump he, as much as anyone, had saved. There were rumors, rumors that had the remaining third of the division sharpening bayonets somberly, that Cortez was alive and might be placed back in command.
That Cortez was alive, Suarez knew to be a fact. That he might be placed back in command of the division that he had abandoned? Suarez would shoot the bastard first.
His Logistics Officer, or S-4, a good infantry major who had made it out of the inferno and been stuck with the job against his will and wishes, continued, "I'm sorry, sir, but the mine factory has been closed down. And I heard a rumor."
"Yes?"
"It seems General Boyd has been arrested for running it," the "Four" said. "Sir, if he's been arrested for that, how long before we are arrested for moving them, in my case, or ordering them emplaced, in yours?"
As the major asked the question, a very youngish and worried-looking captain—Suarez knew he was a rejuv like himself—came up and saluted.
"Sir, Captain Hector Miranda requests permission to speak to the regimental, er, division commander."
Suarez returned the salute, informally. "Yes, what is it, Captain? Stand at ease."
Hector relaxed, partially. "Sir, it's my mother. She's disappeared. You've met her, sir. Señora Digna Miranda, back at the hospital after rejuvenation."
"Yes, Captain, I remember. Little bitty woman, right? Red hair?"
"Yes, sir, that's her. Well, my daughter sent me a message. My mother went off with some civilian and someone that I suspect is General Cortez a couple of days ago and she hasn't returned. She hasn't sent word. She's just disappeared. Sir, it isn't like her. I'm worried."
"Wasn't she the same women who led ten or fifteen thousand refugees out of Chiriqui? The one the president decorated and promoted."
"Same one, sir. My mom's one tough bitch."
Suarez mused, Interesting. One hero of the Republic disappears. Another man, as responsible as anyone for us not being totally destroyed in that bound-to-fail attack to the west, is arrested. I wonder who else . . .
USS Des Moines
Julio Diaz knocked on the door to Dwyer's office then entered. He saw two avatars and the chaplain.
Breathlessly, he said, "The XO sent me to find you, Padre. My father has been arrested. Mother has no idea why. She is frantic. It usually means something very bad in this country when a prominent citizen is taken into custody."
Mentally, Dwyer tallied up the people he had seen at La Joya, then added General Diaz to the list.
"Right," he announced. "This isn't just a series of arrests for 'war crimes.' This is a deliberate effort to sabotage the defense of Panama and the Canal. Oh . . . and since the United States needs the Canal and the world needs the United States, I'd have to surmise that it's intended as an attack on all of Earth. But why?"
"It's the Darhel," Sally said.
Daisy nodded vigorously. "They attacked Sally and myself. They nearly took Sally out of the fight permanently. I mean, Father, it has to be them. Even the Posleen just don't operate that way."
Diaz was more than a little in awe of Daisy, whom he knew fairly well by now, having sailed in her and directed her guns. He was possibly more in awe of Sally, whom he didn't know. Even so, he spoke freely.
"I swear, I'll kill the bastards. If they've hurt my father, I won't be quick about letting them die, either."
"Calm down, son," Dwyer commanded. "Daisy, Sally, what do we know about the Darhel?"
A hologram appeared in the chaplain's office. Dwyer didn't know who had projected it but assumed it was Daisy.
As if to confirm, Daisy spoke up. "I pulled this off the Net. This is the local representative of the Galactic Federation to the Republic of Panama. His title is 'Rinn Fain.' This is not a unique title to this person. Rather it represents a mid level bureaucrat or executive, lower than a Tir and considerably lower than a Ghin."
"Do we know anything about the background of this one?" Dwyer asked.
"Nothing," Daisy and Sally answered together. Sally continued, "His background could be medicine, or business, or law. There is no telling."
Dwyer frowned. "Could it be military, or intelligence?"
"That is a faint possibility," Daisy said. "There is, strictly speaking, no military profession among the Darhel. Nonetheless, they raised a sort of suicide corps from among their kind early on in the Posleen War. They have always had strong capabilities in intelligence, though it was normally of the industrial and mercantile espionage variety."
Darhel Consulate, Paitilla, Panama City, Panama
The specially programmed shyster-AID projected a chart of the existing chain of command of the forces or the Republic of Panama, with a similar chart of United States' forces next to it. The Rinn Fain was pleased to see the number of blocks crossed with an X, indicating that the chief of those sections was firmly in custody. Still others were highlighted, indicating that the heads of those were on the list to be picked up. Others, particularly at the very top, were outlined in purple, indicating they were already working for the Darhel and could be expected to continue to do so.
"What is the projection of recovery time, once the local barbarians have filled those holes?" the Darhel enquired of his AID.
"Analysis of personnel records and nepotistic connections indicates that few of those positions can be filled," the AID answered. "Rather, they will be filled, to a certainty, by humans who will use the powers for their own gain. Once these other people are safely in the hands of the humans' International Criminal Court the collapse of the defenses of this area will follow at the first push from the Posleen."
"Any rumblings from the United States about the two of their people the government of Panama has taken in?"
"The local United States embassy is ignoring the entire issue, except that their ambassador has enquired again about off-world travel. Their Southern Command seems to be trying to reach their president but our humans in Washington are deflecting the inquiries, so far."
"And when is the Himmit transport scheduled to arrive?"
"Three of the local days, milord," the AID answered.
"The prosecutor at their International Criminal Court is ready to receive the prisoner
s?"
"She claims to be, but she too seems frantic to travel off-world with her family."
Interlude
The stars still swam in the quiet stream where Zira and Guano fished almost daily, whenever their agricultural duties permitted.
Guanamarioch stared at those stars as he whispered, "I was just thinking, Zira, what if we didn't migrate to a different spot on this world, when the time came, but reboarded our ships and set off, as fast and as far as we could go, to another world? Someplace far away from our own? Someplace we could build into a great clan again before others of the People showed up to try to wrest it from us?"
Zira thought about that for a moment, staring also at the winking stars. It was surely a tempting thought. But . . .
"We are too few to form a globe, Guano. Even if we formed something smaller—a mini-globe—our speed would be so reduced we would be in space for decades, subjective. By the time we arrived to conquer a new world the odds are good we would find the People there ahead of us, rendering blades all sharpened and waiting, when we popped out of hyperspace. That, or they would be so far ahead of us we would find nothing but wasted, radioactive worlds that had already plunged into orna'adar and been abandoned."
Shivering, Guanamarioch remembered the distant mushroom clouds rising above the soil of his birthworld.
"It was just a thought," he admitted. "The clans around us press us at our borders even now. It would be something wonderful, I thought, if we could somehow escape from that."
"It would, Guano, if it were possible. Sadly, it is not."
The Kenstain grew quiet for a moment, his one remaining arm reaching back and rifling the saddle bags that were his constant companion. Tinkling sounds came from the bag, reminiscent of the water as it dropped to splash onto rocks a few hundred meters downstream.
"I found a supply of these, in a threshkreen building the normals have not yet demolished," the Kenstain said, handing over a cylindrical clear container holding an equally clear fluid. "Try it. It is rather good, almost good enough to justify keeping some threshkreen around to keep making it. The seal twists off easily. Just be careful how much strength you use; the material turns very sharp when it breaks."
Gingerly, Guanamarioch took the bottle from Ziramoth's offering claw. "AS, what does the label say?"
The artificial voice answered, "It says 'Rum,' lord. I believe that is an intoxicant the local thresh are fond of. The label also indicates that this container holds a very powerful version of the intoxicant."
"Very powerful, indeed, Guano. I'd go easy at first," Ziramoth added.
Still holding the rum in one claw, the God King twisted the cap off and raised the bottle to his lips. His crest dropped as his muzzle raised. With an audible sound—glug, glug, glug—Guano poured the stuff in and—
"Holy Demon Shit!"
Chapter 24
Beware of the thing that is coming, beware of the risen people,
Who shall take what ye would not give.
Did ye think to conquer the people,
Or that Law is stronger than life and than men's desire to be free?
—Padraic Pearse, "The Rebel"
Panama City, Panama
Iced rum barely diluted by lime juice swirled in the glass the inspector held contemplatively in his right hand.
The inspector didn't have Daisy's and Sally's instant access to the broader Net. He didn't have the chain of command of the armed forces at his fingertips. He did, however, have a policeman's feel, and his fingertips were fairly shrieking that this purge—there was no other word for it—had gone way past upholding the law of the land, or even of the Earth, and gone all the way over into tossing that land over to the enemy.
He sat now, at his dining room table, face staring down towards the glass of mixed ice and rum and mixing worry with regret in roughly equal measure.
The lady of the house, olive-skinned, short and a little plump, walked up beside him and placed her hand on her husband's shoulder. She said nothing, but the hand said everything: Whatever you decide, I will support you.
In gratitude for that silent support, the inspector put down the glass and laid his own hand atop his wife's.
"I can't let it stand, Mathilde. This is just so wrong . . . and it is half my fault and I am up to my neck in it."
Mathilde, the wife, released her husband's shoulder and walked around to sit at the chair facing him. "Do you want to tell me about it?" she asked.
Looking up, the inspector made a sudden, though difficult, decision. "I can't. Your life is already in danger. It will be more endangered if you knew what I know. But I am thinking that maybe you should take the children to your parents; that, and stay there until I send for you."
She nodded her understanding. In times past—when her husband was on the trail of a major criminal, drug runners especially—he had sent her out of the city, out of the country on one occasion, to keep her and their children from harm.
"That bad, eh?" she asked calmly, a policeman's wife, not entirely unfamiliar with danger.
"Worse than I can tell you, esposita querida."
"I'll start to pack," she agreed sadly, "but what are you going to do?"
"I think I need to go have a conversation with the gringos."
USS Des Moines
It was well past midnight, the nightly rains having come and gone, when the inspector presented himself at the bow of the gringo cruiser asking for admittance. The deck officer, one of the ship's genuinely young—as opposed to only apparently young—ensigns, didn't really know what to do. A foreign national, claiming to be a member of the police force, wanting to board, would have been easy enough. After the ship's captain had been arrested, presumably by the same police force as the man claimed to be from, the ensign was torn between shooting the man, making it a more formal occasion and calling a detail to keelhaul him, or—just maybe—calling the senior officer present afloat and letting him decide.
The ensign rather hoped the ship's XO would decide on a keelhauling. Then again, with a GalPlas coated hull and, thus, no barnacles, the keelhauling would have lacked a certain something.
Daisy—her avatar, actually—beat the XO to the bridge rather handily. Why not; she was already there.
"I want my captain back," were her first words. "I want my captain back now."
The inspector was more than a little shocked to see a beautiful gringo woman standing on the bridge. He was even more shocked that he could, if only just, see through the woman. He remembered reading a report of a giantess accompanying the ships that had sailed forth to battle the aliens. A smaller version of the same thing? Who could say. But the world was full of undreamt of wonders—and horrors—these days.
"You are the ship, madam?" he asked.
Daisy nodded, seemingly agreeable for the moment. Yet the fire and fury in her holographic eyes suggested no such agreeability.
"I want my captain back," she repeated.
At the time the XO climbed to the bridge. "Who are you?" he demanded of the Panamanian who claimed to be a policeman.
The inspector was about to answer, as he usually did, my name is unimportant. Then he looked at the XO's eyes, almost as deadly looking as the hologram's and decided to be open.
"I am Inspector Belisario Serasin and I am the man who arrested your captain."
Without another question the XO turned to the ensign on watch and commanded, "Get me a detail of Marines. Armed Marines."
"I'm not here to arrest anyone," the inspector said, quickly. "In fact, with your help perhaps I might be able to free your commander."
The assembly in CIC included both the inspector and Julio Diaz, this time, along with the XO of Salem and a couple of armed Marines dressed in MarCam.
The inspector explained, "I came here in person, rather than simply telephoning, because I have reason to believe that all telephone conversations are being monitored."
"They certainly are," Daisy confirmed. "Both Sally and I are doing so continuously
, as a matter of course."
"Not just by you," the inspector insisted. "Someone else."
"Daisy, dear, how many AIDs are there in Panama?" Dwyer asked.
"Myself and Sally, of course, Chaplain. Then there are four hundred and twenty-three in the remaining armored combat suits of First Battalion, Five-O-Eighth Infantry. The only other three are the Darhel Rinn Fain's, the United States ambassador's, and the one assigned to the president."
