by John Ringo
And I really could dance forever to this. How could she have known, singing so long ago. Just like this. But he took the numbness away. And until now I never even realized it. How ironic. Only really alive now, when I'm about to die.
They won't be playing patty-cake with me forever. Best get as much done as I can, before they get wise. And I was frozen in my heart. So cold. At least . . . at least I had him for a little while.
Oop. Here come the bastards, and with a gurney and Fleet pukes, they mean business. Darhel goons instead of honest soldiers, would be my guess. It would take their manipulations to get Fleet involved. No reason not to take on a few just on general principles. Maybe I'll get lucky and rush somebody into killing me.
Titan Base Freight Port, Tuesday, June 18, 23:00
The transmission time lag between Earth and Titan Base, especially when the signal was getting encrypted, hidden underneath another transmission as static, and bounced around six ways from Sunday to hide both sender and recipient, was a pain in the ass even under normal circumstances.
As it was, Papa O'Neal was twisting a finger in his ear as if he couldn't believe what he had just heard, and Tommy was afraid he was about to be treated to the legendary temper attributed to redheads.
"Are you sitting there and telling me that this organization I just devoted thirty plus years of my considerable professional expertise to is actually refusing to even consider the practical feasibility of an extraction for my granddaughter, who has also just devoted thirty plus years of her considerable expertise to said organization? Please tell me that that is not what you're saying, O'Reilly." His teammate and mentor's eyes were cold, colder than Tommy had ever seen them. On the other hand, the way he felt right now, his own probably looked very similar.
The lag was interminable. Unfortunately, it gave both of them ample time to build up a fine head of steam. Fortunately, it also gave plenty of time to think of potential responses and counter responses and choose the ones most likely to be effective and least likely to be inflammatory and counterproductive. Every second was necessary.
"Mike, for what it's worth, and it may be worth a lot, I agree with you. This is not over. By no means. I'll be meeting with Aelool tomorrow and will see what I can do. Mike, you and Sunday are top notch operatives. None better. I'll tell you what—while discussions are still pending, run up some analyses and contingency plans. There's no sense wasting your valuable time while we work through the process from this end." Father Nathan's eyes seemed to plead for understanding and time. Tommy could feel a cold, numb rage begin to radiate out from his center. This was Iron Mike's daughter for God's sake.
"Nathan, I would strongly suggest that you remind our little green friends that humans are not Indowy, and that we're not inclined to be their water-boys anymore than we are for the Darhel. I would suggest that you put that reminder in the strongest terms possible. Loyalty down the chain to the memories of deceased agents is one thing. Loyalty down the chain to live and breathing agents had better be high on their list of priorities. And that particular principle has nothing to do with my relationship to this agent. If they're even considering that it's going to be acceptable to the human side of the organization to use denying an extraction, without even considering feasibility, as a way to get permanently rid of loyal agents they may have a problem with, then they need to know that they probably don't have two human operatives in North America who will agree to work under those conditions. Make sure they know that. From me." His tone was clipped and precise, enunciating each word carefully.
"Mike, all I can do at this point is to authorize you to work on those contingency plans and ask you to trust me. I would hope that I've earned that much over the years," he said.
"For now, Nathan, I can deal with that. You need to get back to us with an update on this. Soon. Sir. O'Neal out." As he spat into a coffee cup he'd bought on base for the purpose, his face had a bitter tinge that Tommy couldn't recall ever seeing before.
* * *
Titan Base, Fleet Strike Detention Center, Wednesday, June 19, 03:00
Obviously that last shot had been Provigil-C. Felt like a quarter-dose. She knew what would come next. The "R" in SERE training was finally making itself useful after all. Forcible sleep deprivation to induce hallucinations and sleep-dep psychosis. No problem. Oh, she'd go just as loopy as anybody, but what she wouldn't do was give up information. Now, as to what else she would do, that was anybody's guess. She wouldn't want to be the poor schmuck who walked into a room with her in that condition.
Meanwhile, they'd done her a tremendous unintentional favor by giving her an unmolested night to work with and the energy to use it effectively. Yeah, baby, go ahead and wake me up. One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight! Nice, clean jazz hands, and a stretch up to the sky and spin and down, push up to stand, hip walk to stage left, then round-off into a back handspring into a back flip half-twist, into a front handspring, and strut back towards center stage and turn, hands back feet spread, roll the head across the front and up and spin and spin and spin and stop and kick up into a vertical split, back down. . . .
It was going to be a long night but she was up for it.
* * *
Under a cornfield in Indiana, Wednesday, June 19, 09:30
"Are we at a stalemate here?" Nathan O'Reilly clearly was not talking about the chessboard, which had at least five moves to mate, if the Indowy across from him made a particular mistake. And that was one of the shorter options.
"I do not know. Possibly. And it gives me grief to admit it. You humans cannot, or will not be other than what you are. And I have observed enough humans and read enough of your history to know that human organizations without what you call down chain loyalty simply do not work. They collapse of their own weight, as a tower whose antigrav fails." His hands crossed briefly in the equivalent of a shrug.
"I understand why loyalty that only goes up the chain, Your Loolnieth, works for the Indowy. But don't you have true reciprocal obligations in arrangements between clans? Can't your people be persuaded to see the analogy?"
"I truly do not think relations between the Indowy of the Bane Sidhe and our human friends can go on as they have been. But your analogy interests me. Would it be possible for me to ask for some time to contemplate it without offending you? I do not know what may be done with it, but there is a leaf just beyond the reach of my hand. Alone, perhaps my thoughts can climb the tree." He stood and almost turned, stopping and putting a hand on O'Reilly's arm, instead.
"You do realize that I do not turn away from you or your species, that my need for contemplation is genuine, do you not?" The slight tilt of his head evinced concern.
"You don't have to prove yourself to me, old friend. I trust you." The priest withdrew and was gone.
* * *
Titan Base, Fleet Strike Detention Center, Wednesday, June 19, 10:00
General James Stewart's doctors were none too happy to have him up and about the morning after being gut-shot. He had given them little choice. When they had waked him briefly to ask about certain necessary arrangements while he was undergoing regen, he had instead ordered them to stitch what could be stitched, and use surgical synthetics for what had to be patched. While true regen on the stitched parts could be continued with injections, the synthetics would have to be removed and would cause the regeneration process to ultimately take twice as long as it should.
The doctors had been even more unhappy when General Vanderberg had refused to allow them to overrule the general on medical grounds. But then, the military medical profession was pretty much agreed that general officers made lousy patients.
So here he was this morning, looking down at Sind. . . . Sometime in the night Mata Hari had been abbreviated by the watchers to Mahri. He supposed there was some logic to having something to call her. For him, it only underscored the pain of not even knowing her name.
Two tall robed figures trailed by a couple of Indowy—strange sometimes how quickly humanity had gott
en used to little green men—were approaching him, or the line of seats placed near him. Apparently, they had some interest in him, since they were stopping by his wheelchair, ignoring the medic hovering behind him with syringes full of medical nannites.
The Tir Dol Ron, and the Tir Dad Lin, according to his AID. He knew enough not to laugh or smirk or even show surprise at the Darhel with the funny name. One was the trade minister and the other the minister of education, who actually handled propaganda and public relations, such as it was. What they really were were cabinet level officials of a Galactic Federation where the Cabinet ran the show. In the words of Sergeant Franks, to whom he owed at least a mental apology, the V-est of IP's.
"We wish to express our appreciation and approval for the apprehension of this person. We would like to assure you that you have greatly enhanced the interests of Galactic Security. We are certain that you have a bright future within the Fleet Strike Organization." The voice was so beautiful he barely restrained the urge to vomit. The Tirs appeared to be waiting for something from him. When he merely nodded silently, the Tir Dol Ron started to lift one corner of his lip, revealing the edge of a very pointed tooth, but his eyes flickered to Stewart's injuries and he appeared to relax. The two turned abruptly and proceeded to a pair of the seats, hesitating for a moment while the Indowy with them moved the seats closer to the glass.
Below, "Mahri" was still dancing frantically, nonstop, in the fluorescent orange jumpsuit that had replaced her grays. It made his chest hurt.
* * *
When the Fleet team came trooping back in, Stewart watched them from behind his best poker face—and his best was very good indeed. Tartaglia, perhaps anticipating his new CO's likely needs, had sent Baker home for sleep around zero hundred, electing to stay in command of observation through the night. Consequently, when the medic wheeled him in this morning, Baker had been here, bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to brief him in person. Experientially, Beed's paranoia hadn't been a total loss. Following Baker's lead, Stewart had handed his AID to the Medic and ordered the visibly unhappy man to take a walk.
At that point, Baker had been free to fill Stewart in with a complete no-shitter on each of the Fleet personnel, the Darhel delegation, and events of the night before. Which meant that when the Fleet platoon, plus fresh meat and Dr. Mengele, came trooping in, he knew who was who.
Baker was in his forties. Old enough to think he'd seen the world and be mostly right, but remarkably sheltered in some ways. In Baker's world the MP's and the good soldiers were the good guys, and the tongs and the scumbags were the bad guys. You prosecuted one, and the other helped you. Well, more or less.
Baker had no idea what was coming. Or if he did, it was just at the level of a slight foreboding that he shrugged off. Stewart, with his considerably more complex understanding of the world knew exactly what was going to happen, and exactly how little power he had to stop it.
He was also going to have to watch Baker and protect his ass. Underneath an agent's gruff exterior, Baker really was the boyscout Pryce had pretended to be. It had been an asset in his work with the tongs, rendering him amazingly incorruptible. In the present situation, it was more likely than not to get him killed or at least ruin his career when he decided he needed to Do Something.
Preventing that from happening was just one of the extra little complications life just loved to throw his way. In this case, he welcomed the distraction. He'd been sent to catch the spy, and he'd caught her. What he hadn't expected was to be involved. On the other hand, getting involved with anybody in the office, in the circumstances, had been damned stupid and his current feelings were his own damned fault. Including the guilt. The girl had sacrificed herself to save his hide, and wasn't that a fine thing for a man to have to live with.
He couldn't help swallowing heavily as the goon squad disappeared around the corner towards the lifts, reappearing shortly in the room below.
He saw immediately why the SP's had one in the infirmary and two in the morgue already. Whether she'd heard them coming or was just in a favorable position, her departure from the dance was so fluid and seamless, there were two SP's on the floor before his brain had even registered that she'd stopped dancing. Well, sort of stopped.
This time one of the SP's was either a bit smarter or a bit quicker and managed to club her over the head, dropping her so they could strap her to the gurney while she was still groggy from the knockout.
It meant the guy hanging his head and taking a few sharp words from the chief, presumably for endangering her life.
Stewart didn't realize his hand had curled into white-knuckled claws against the arms of the chair until he felt his babysitter jab him with a hypo.
"General Stewart, sir, if you don't tell me when you're in pain I won't be able to manage it properly. Please tell me next time before it gets that bad," the medic said.
"Do you have something in that pack to counteract the wooziness, son? You'd better." Great. All I need is to have my inhibitions to saying something indiscreet, stupid, and entirely truthful dropped in this political minefield. The ache in his gut disappeared. The one in his chest didn't, but then, it had damn-all to do with his physical injuries.
The medic stuck something else in his arm and his head cleared almost immediately.
"Thank you. Son, if you ever again stick a mind altering drug in my conscious body without my permission, you can be prepared to receive your hypodermic as an enema. Sideways. Are we clear on that."
The man's lips tightened and it appeared he only just restrained himself from rolling his eyes, but he said, "Yes, sir," and his eyes dropped before Stewart's did.
When he noticed that her legs were strapped to the corners of the gurney, and they cut her prison jumpsuit off and removed it from under the straps in pieces, he broke out in a cold sweat.
The medic bent close to her ear, but the pickups in the room caught his voice clearly, playing it into the observation area.
"Why don't we avoid this part? What's your name?"
She tilted her head slightly away from him, staring up at the ceiling. She looked . . . bored.
Her expression didn't change when the chief motioned the first man on top of her.
Stewart started making a list of people he really needed to kill. The first man seemed to be having some sort of trouble. In any case, he was swearing in one of the Asian languages. The automatic, literal translation from the AIDs was fairly colorful. Something about monkey vomit.
The medic finally waved him off and moved between her legs, checking something before injecting a local of something into her thigh, checking his watch, waiting a few moments, reaching between her legs.
"Obviously, miss, you are not immune to muscle relaxants. What's your name?" he said.
After a few seconds of silence, he motioned the hapless sailor back into place.
The prisoner made eye contact with him and spoke.
"Sorry this is going to be about as exciting for you as screwing a soggy washcloth," she said.
"I like blondes." He grabbed a breast crudely.
"If you ate strong mint gelatin after the kimchee, you might meet more of them." The boredom on her face was absolute. He stilled suddenly, swearing again before backhanding her, scrambling off and back, his face flushed as he zipped and turned away. Her cheek reddened, but her head had never moved.
She laughed.
"Aw, too bad! Next?" If her sarcasm had been a liquid, it would have eaten a hole in the floor.
To say that the next sailor singled out by the chief looked unenthusiastic would have been an understatement.
"You'll need rape survivor therapy after this. The tongs can put you in touch with someone discreet," her voice was clinical.
"Chief, make her stop!" He looked to his NCO in rather embarrassed desperation.
Above, in the observation lounge, Baker spluttered into his coffee. Stewart had so far managed to keep him under control with a hand on his arm whenever he looked in danger of l
osing it.
The Darhel were virtually panting like overheated dogs, over by the glass. Stewart was glad he'd elected not to wear a sidearm.
The chief grabbed her chin and wrenched it around by main force. "You're being raped, you stupid bitch, don't you get that?! What's your name!"
"I'm not being raped. He's being raped. I'm just lying here watching amateur night."
In the lounge, one of the Darhel twitched suddenly, towards the glass, before rising and withdrawing smoothly from the room.
Below, the goon squad was withdrawing from the room, leaving "Mahri" where she was. Obviously, they were reevaluating their tactics. Poor hapless bastards. His heart just bled for them. Not.
* * *
Titan Base Freight Port, Wednesday, June 19, 12:00
Tommy was smacking his head against the heel of his palm, repeatedly, when Papa O'Neal came up for air from the Detention Center blueprints.
"Sunday, what in the hell is your problem?" The older man patted his pockets and finally came up with an empty pouch, sighed, and began digging through his backpack.
"Papa, I fucked up. I fucked up big time. It's been so long, I just never recognized him." His skin had gone a strange, sick shade of gray.
"Recognized who? Run it back to start, I'm not tracking it." He found a fresh pouch and absentmindedly cut himself a plug, turning and regarding his teammate with a patient expression.
"I should have known it was a setup. We would have known, if I'd been on the ball. Oh my God, did I ever fuck up."
"Son, if you don't start from the beginning, I'm gonna have to hurt you. Come on, take a deep breath and tell me about it."
"The beginning. Okay. Sarah, display the hologram of Lieutenant Joshua Pryce from our initial briefing." The AID obediently put the requested image in the air in front of them.
