A gold ring with a diamond.
"Oh!!!" shrieked Ariela, in surprised delight. She picked up the ring, and admired it, then looked at Fox.
Mei looked at Fox, as well. "Creative," she smirked.
"Well," replied Fox, modestly. "Ari, I would get up and kneel before you, but I let the two of you sit on the outside so as to have easy access to the restroom. Will you accept a proposal even so?"
Ariela snorted. "When have I ever stood on ceremony?"
"More often than you seem to remember," grinned Fox. He got serious, then, and took her hands in his, wrapping her left hand around the ring. "Ariela Rivers Wolff, I having obtained your mother's permission, and your father's approbation, and having paid the appropriate bride price of two hundred silver coins over to your father's solicitors in escrow, will you marry me?"
"Which mother and father?"
Fox looked askance. "Your real mother and real father. The Major took me to see them about a week ago. I also have the Major's approval, as well as that of Mrs. Major Wolff. And an official dispensation from General Buford, countersigned by the President, allowing me, a mere E-5, to marry you, a lofty O-1."
"Don't be sarcastic. Besides, I knew you before I was ever an officer. Or a Marine."
"True enough. Come on. I'm dying, here. Will you marry me?"
Ariela considered. "Well . . . I know you'll always protect me. And you can cook. Even if it's just MREs."
Fox acted wounded. "You just wait till I cook you a steak dinner with all the trimmings. You'll learn to mind your tongue."
"And Real Dad and Other Dad like you, so that's a plus," Ariela went on, ignoring him. "Did Mom ask you if you were Jewish?"
"Of course, and of course, I told her yes. And conversed with her in Hebrew and Arabic for several minutes while your dad looked on with great approval. He already knew I was fluent in Japanese."
Ariela nodded. "That's important, in that household. He watches his anime in the original, with the English captions off. How I learned to speak Japanese."
Mei reached past Fox and bopped her on the head. "Ari. Girl. The man asked you to marry him. Tell him yes or no, before I have to hurt you."
Ariela grinned, flung her arms around Fox, and kissed him hard, on the mouth. When she came up for air, she looked into his eyes, smiled in that soft way she had, and said, "Fred Fox, or whatever the hell your name really is, yes, I will marry you."
And she started kissing him again, to Mei's combined delight and chagrin. "Hey! You two! Get a room! Or the back seat of a car! Or a park bench! Oh, to hell with it," she sighed, finally. "I'm going to drink my tea while it's still warm." She signaled the waiter. "They're going to need a warm-up. Of the tea, I mean . . . "
A couple of hours later, the three of them walked up a dropship ramp at the small ground-to-orbit port just south of town. The dropship would take Mei up to the Constellation, which would in turn transport her in style to Mars geosync.
"Give us a minute?" asked Ariela, of Fox.
Fox nodded. "Mei – General Lai, best of luck. We'll see you now and again, I'm sure; and of course we hope you'll be able to return for the wedding." He placed his hands together, and bowed slightly; then straightened, and snapped her a salute, which she returned, with a smile.
"Thank you, Fred. Sergeant Fox. I will certainly be back for the wedding."
Fox nodded again, turned away, and went back down the ramp to the tarmac, where he disappeared into the car.
Ariela looked at Mei. "You know I love you, right?"
Mei laughed. "I do know that. I love you, too, my little sister, and I will miss you terribly. And I will always remember our 'fling', as it were. And I will come back for your wedding, and we will visit back and forth, I will be godmother and aunt to any children you have, and you to mine, should I have the fortune to meet a man as handsome and charming as Fred, and we will never lose touch because our souls are just as entwined as yours and Fred's."
"Feeling alone and frightened," observed Ariela, "will do that to people. I'm glad we were able to get each other past that phase."
"As am I." The two women hugged, fiercely, then stood apart, smiling tearfully.
"Mei," began Ariela, hesitantly.
"Of course you may," replied Mei, divining her wish. "I have never asked, because I believed a time would come when you would wish to give me this gift without me asking. Please, Ari. It would make me so very happy."
Ariela reached up and touched Mei's head with her hands. Mei closed her eyes. "I bless you in the name of God, I give hope to your people, and I bring them healing and life," said Ariela, softly, then pulled Mei in and kissed her on the cheek.
The usual reaction, thought Ariela, was to reach up and touch the spot she'd kissed. Mei didn't fail her; she did exactly that, and looked at Ariela, wonderingly.
"I don't know what you do when you do that," she said, "but I felt that like I have never felt anything before. You have a true gift, Ari love. Use it always in good health and happiness."
"Be well, Mei. And be careful. Mars may look like a beach, but there's no air."
They both laughed, then with a nod, but without further ado, Mei turned and walked through the hatch, disappearing into the dropship. Ariela looked after her, somewhat longingly, then turned herself and followed in Fox's footsteps back down to the car.
"Ready?" asked Fox, as she belted in.
"Yep," said Ariela. She looked at him. "I love you."
"I never doubted it for a minute," said Fox, "but I also know how much Mei means to you, and how much you mean to her. She'll always be part of our family, no matter how far apart we are; I promise you that."
Ariela snuffled a bit, then leaned over and put her head on her fiancé's shoulder. "I don't deserve you."
"Sure you do, Ari. Hell, you probably deserve better. Don't run yourself down." He kissed the top of her head. "Okay, Brown, we're ready to go home."
Sergeant Brown gave them a wave in the rearview mirror, and putting the vehicle in gear, moved away toward the airfield gate.
"Wanna go to the beach when we get back?"
"Sounds like an excellent idea to me, dear . . . right after we show your folks your ring."
"Eh. They can wait. The beach can't. Because next week, we have to go to Washington to talk to the boss. And then, who knows how long it will be till we see the beach again."
"Whatever you say, love." He kissed her head again, and settled back for the ride.
Ariela sighed, happily, and snuggled closer.
Chapter 14
Party Planners Я Us
And a week later, they all sat, waiting, in the White House SCIF. At the stroke of 1000 hours, the door was opened by a tall gentleman in a dark suit, wearing a headset, who nodded and backed away from the door. In his place, followed by the Chief of Staff, entered the President. "Stay seated," he said, instantly, before anyone could so much as rise from their place. "You all know who I am and what I represent, let's not waste time on useless calisthenics." He grinned, and that elicited a nervous chuckle from the group – the President was well-known to be one of the most buff and physically-active men, other than possibly Theodore Roosevelt, ever to hold the office.
The Secret Service agent poked his head in. "Everything okay, Mr. President?"
"Everything's great, Bill. I apologize for not letting you in the room, but this is well above your pay grade. Besides, I'm sure you've already been through here with a fine-toothed comb, and vetted all the participants to a fare-thee-well."
"Not a problem, sir. We understand the need, even if we don't like it. And yes, sir, the room checks clean and everyone here is good."
"Good man. David, here, will knock when we're ready to come out."
"Understood, sir. Have a good meeting." The agent closed the door and the latch slid home. A small sign above the door lit up: SECURE.
"Good morning, everyone," said the President.
"Good morning, Mr. President," came the group reply.
"Good morning, everyone," said Admiral Clausen, with a smile.
"Good morning, sir," came the reply.
"I'm actually retired, but the President never tells people that," he chuckled.
"That's all right, Admiral," replied Buford, likewise chuckling. "We can always get you back in if we need you."
"Give me a call in five or six years, General. I might take you up on that. Space Force is getting pretty exciting, from what I hear."
"It is that." Buford turned to Ariela as the President and Clausen sat down. "Lieutenant, this is your show. Mr. President, Admiral Clausen, this is Second Lieutenant Ariela Rivers Wolff, M.D., Ph.D., Lion of God. You may have heard of her."
"Yes," acknowledged the President, "and I have a little something for her, if David will be so kind as to pull it out of his briefcase." Clausen opened his case, pulled out a 12x15 cardboard envelope, of the sort usually called a "flat", and handed it to the President.
"This," the President addressed Ariela, "is the set of formal credentials naming you Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America to the Confederacy of the . . . Shizzle. Of course, the credentials spell out their name, but I'm not even going to attempt to pronounce it properly. As I understand it, you say 'Shizzle', and they hear whatever it's supposed to be. Correct?"
"Correct, Mr. President."
The President stood. "Please rise. David, you've got a Bible in that case, right?"
"Aye, aye, sir." Clausen also stood, holding a small presentation Bible.
"Deuteronomy, chapter five, the last verse," requested Ariela. Clausen opened the Bible, paged a bit, found it, and read it.
"Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess."
Ariela nodded. "It's very close to what I told our uptimers when I gave them the blessing," she said.
The rest of the group stood as Ariela laid her left hand on the Bible and raised her right.
"Say I, state your name, then repeat after me," said the President.
"I, Ariela Rivers Wolff . . ."
"Do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
"So help me God," finished Ariela, fervently.
"Congratulations, Madame Ambassador." The President shook her hand, and motioned for her to take her seat. Everyone else followed suit.
"Now, Madame Ambassador, I understand you have a briefing for us regarding what we're getting into with this negotiation, as the Shizzle call it."
"I do, Mr. President. The Shizzle – " Ariela still hadn't really gotten used to calling the Xzl5!vt that, but after two attempts, resulting in a chipped tooth subsequently fixed by a ToothNano, and the same tooth chipped again and fixed ditto, she had little choice – "The Shizzle want to meet us at some ancient mountaintop shrine on their planet. They say it is their normal place for negotiations – neutral because reasons, and they weren't clear about the reasons. It has a distinguishing landmark, a clear, cold, mountain spring providing what is believed to be the purest water on the planet."
"Shrine, my ass," snorted Wolff. "It was probably a distillery. Sorry, Mr. President."
"No apology necessary. They sound like my kind of people."
"To them, an ancient distillery would be a shrine," Ariela pointed out. Wolff waved it off, conceding the point.
"They don't conduct diplomacy the way we do," she continued. "They come to the table armed to the teeth – literally. Fighter aircraft, ranged weapons, plasma rifles, projectile weapons, swords, pikes, for all I know sticks and rocks, you name it. It's only gotten worse as weapons have modernized . . . but they have banned missiles, orbital kinetic weapons, biological agents, and nukes. The last, after nukes were actually employed during the last war, but on the battlefield, not at the negotiation . . . obviously. Moving on. Their diplomats eschew modern weapons, but wear these ceremonial blades that look like oversized kukris." She displayed a hologram of one in the middle of the table. "Since I don't need another visit to the dentist, we'll just agree to call them kukris."
Mumbles of agreement were heard. Nobody wanted to try to pronounce eywcp%oa@j4aqki if they didn't have to – even if they could.
"And of course they have hands and feet full of claws which we can hardly ask them to remove. And big, nasty teeth as previously noted. Unfortunately, I was unable to get them to see reason and agree to negotiate on Earth terms, that is, unarmed. It's apparently their custom to resume warfare immediately if negotiations break down – by which I mean, if one of the ambassadors kills the other ambassador, then all hell lets out for noon, and they fight all the way back to wherever the battlefield happens to be."
She seemed remarkably calm for someone who was going to be one of those two ambassadors.
"This seems illogical, because our two peoples are not at war, but it is the way they insist the negotiation must take place. They claim to be the aggrieved party because we did not solicit their permission before entering what they consider to be their space." She laughed. "As if there was a way to do that beforehand, or as if we even knew they were there in the first place. We were surprised to find planets at HD 167818, let alone people."
"I don't see a problem," grunted Buford. He glanced at the President, who rolled his eyes, but nodded agreement anyway.
"Go ahead, General," he said. "If they won't use our rule book, we'll just make them live up to theirs. You are authorized to use whatever force level you consider necessary to equal theirs. I'll sign a formal Memorandum of Understanding to that effect as soon as I get back to the Oval Office." He glanced at Clausen, who nodded and started typing a text on his secure comm, which would get that ball rolling as soon as they left the SCIF.
Buford inclined his head. "Thank you, President Reynolds."
The President got up, followed by Clausen, motioning everyone else to stay seated, stretched, and said, "General, Major, Madame Ambassador, and all assembled, this is fun, but unfortunately I have another meeting – and I do mean unfortunately. But it looks like you have this one well in hand. Don't hesitate to ping me if there's something else I need to sign off, but for now, I will have to leave you to it. Thank you all for your dedication to the project." Clausen knocked at the door of the room, triggered the latch and opened it, and the President waved and walked out, Clausen following him and the door closing and re-latching behind them. The SECURE light came back on.
"I've always thought a blogger would make a good president," observed Wolff.
Buford's eyes gleamed, but he said nothing.
"So what are we going to do?" asked Ariela. "Negotiating from strength is one thing in diplomacy, but we don't hold all the cards, here."
Buford looked at Wolff. "Major, your thoughts."
"We go in," started Wolff, "with a platoon of Space Force Marines. The Bandersnatch, and two drop ships. We get there first. Take up positions on half of the available space; we want to be polite. And we go in armed to the teeth. I'd suggest taking the weapons platoon, but I don't want to overdo it. I go in as Ari's aide. Armed with an M11. Ari carries her 1911. Ari, do we have plans of the place? A map?"
"Yes," Ariela nodded. She consulted her holotab, made a choice, and a schematic map of the venue was displayed on the big screen.
"So basically, we're going to do this Retief-style," said Wolff, eliciting more than a few chuckles and a
couple of uncomprehending stares from the others in the room. "Or Mattis-style, for those of you who don't read science fiction. In other words, 'be polite, be professional, but have a plan for killing everyone you meet.'
"Okay, Dad," sighed Ariela, "but I'm not going to open negotiations with, 'I come in peace, I didn't bring artillery, but I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all.'" She smiled impishly, with a twinkle in her eye.
That got a roar of laughter from everyone in the room, Buford included.
"Maybe you should," the general chuckled. Ariela shrugged, but looked thoughtful.
"Getting back to the map," said Wolff, with a grin, "we'll place our Marines on one side of the clearing leading up to the shrine building – the wellhead, I believe – and the drop ships will fly a pattern around our half of the airspace. My personal group, Fire Team Bravo from First Company, First Platoon – Staff Sergeant Adkins, Sergeant Fox, Sergeant Brown, Sergeant Kaczorowski, and Sergeant O'Rourke – will be on the main team at the shrine itself with me; we've done this kind of spec-ops work together before, and that's why they're here today. Moving on – Ari meets their delegation at the top of the steps into the shrine, holding her unholstered 1911, but not pointed at them. She can do that because she shoots lefty, she can still hold out her right hand for the greeting. I'm behind and to the right, in the aide's position, with M11 at high port. A couple of the sergeants behind us to prevent them from coming at us from behind. It looks like that's a cliff off the back, so they'd have to come up the cliff to get at us, but I figure those big-clawed bastards would have less trouble free-climbing than we do." As he mentioned a person or group of persons, the diagram lit up with positioning in various colors.
"Of course, this carefully-thought-out op plan will blow up in our faces as soon as we implement it," he added, "but it's always good to have a plan."
"What about dragons?" asked Adkins, seriously.
"Flying, fire-breathing, or both?" asked Wolff, equally serious.
Adkins considered. "Flaming halitosis, or clawed death from the skies? I'd like to pick one, sir, not both."
The Lion and the Lizard Page 19