◆
"I hate when she does that," seethed Delaney. She put the comm back in its pocket on her vest, closed her eyes, and concentrated in the general direction of the "mosque".
"Oh yeah," she breathed. "Harb, that place is full of munitions. I see carbines, ammo crates, a couple of Barretts like we took off that sniper, grenades, claymores . . . where in hell are they getting all this stuff? Anyway, Mom said this is covered under the ROE and we can raid the place, just make sure we take plenty of video and don't let them destroy it all before we take them." She concentrated again, in afterthought. "Yes, there's a 'blow it all to hell' charge set right in the middle of it . . . and I've just snipped the wires to the primary detonation system, and the radio backup system no longer has an antenna or a power supply." She opened her eyes and looked at Harbinger. "But we need to be careful nobody is in a position to shoot at it or toss a grenade at it. It's not inert, it's just disconnected."
Harbinger was smiling; both teams, on the other hand, were looking at her like she had two heads.
"Someday," her husband said, wryly, "maybe you'll see fit to read me in on all this crap you can do. Okay, Marines, did you get all that?"
"Oorah, Six," chorused both dismounted teams.
"Three Six, listening?"
"Oorah, One Six, what do you want us to do?"
"Take off, cover us from above, keep an eye out behind the building for stray RIFs. You may fire to disable, and you may fire to take down inbound vehicles. Try to keep casualties low; you know how the Colonel loves to have actionable intelligence from interrogation."
"Three Six acknowledges."
"Execute," said Harbinger. The transport slowly lifted off and headed down the street. He continued:
"Teams One and Two, we will enter the building without further ado and ascertain the validity of the intelligence report. Prevent any attempt to blow the go-to-hell charge. Sergeants Smith and Foster, your primary assignment is to make that charge fully inert; the detonation button and the backup radio detonation circuits have been disabled."
"Oorah, Captain," replied Smith and Foster.
"Now, ready arms, forward march, and stay frosty."
The two teams moved out, carbines at ready.
They were, of course, being eyed from both sides of the street by increasingly-nervous groups of RIFs, some of whom were backing away and into the buildings. A couple held phones to mouths, obviously reporting to someone.
Finally, about fifty feet from the entrance, a man dressed as a mullah came running out, waving his hands, shouting (in English), "Stop, stop! Come no closer, this is a mosque, a place of prayer!"
"Teams halt," shouted Harbinger. "Arms to remain at ready. Mullah, what is the meaning of this?"
"Captain, this is a holy place. You cannot enter. You must request permission."
"Which you will deny."
The man looked even more nervous than the RIFs on the sidewalks. "Unfortunately, yes."
Harbinger stared at him, nodding slightly. "You're not a mullah, and you're not in charge," he stated, flatly.
"Besides which," interjected Delaney, coolly, "I know what's in that building, and it's no mosque. The Daughter of the Lion of God knows what is in your heart, hardcore. Get out of the way before we remove you."
Foster swung around, aimed at a RIF on the sidewalk to her left, and fired one shot. The RIF collapsed, dropping as he fell a device with a big red button on it.
"You should not have done that," protested the "mullah".
"Why not?" asked Delaney, unfazed. "Someone's in there right now, jabbing at a button that's not doing anything, aren't they? I repeat, get the fuck out of the way or you will join your friend, over there, in Hell."
The man pulled a pistol and started to point it at her, screaming some shit in Arabic that Delaney didn't understand. Hmm, actually, that sounded like Pashtun, she thought, since she actually knew some Arabic.
Four M11's barked, and he fell on the pavement.
That language, she did understand. And approved of its usage.
"Move out," ordered Harbinger. "Weapons free. FTSA3, that goes for you, too."
"I'm going to try to remove the charge," grunted Delaney, already deep in concentration.
"No time, we're moving in," replied Harbinger, grabbing her arm and jolting her out of her trance. "Let's go. We'll stop them."
"But Harb—"
"No buts, Delaney! Let's go!"
She acquiesced, following him and the rest of the ground teams to the front "door" of the "mosque", which by that time had been closed, tightly.
"Now what?"
"Blow that door," directed Harbinger. Instantly, Foster and Smith slung their carbines, pulled out plastic explosives (Foster) and detonators (Smith; anyone with sense knew you split that shit up), and got to work at the left bottom corner of the door. Thirty seconds later, they sprang to their feet. "Everybody back," yelled Smith. "Ten-second timer, starting NOW!" He pushed a plunger on a long wire, and dropped it on the ground as he bolted.
The teams beat a hasty retreat, about fifteen yards away. They knew the charges were shaped, and they weren’t disappointed as the explosives blew and the door buckled in at the corner.
Actually, it was even more spectacular; the corner buckled, there was a hideous metal-on-metal groan, and the whole door came crashing down, flat on the ground.
"Nice work," grunted Harbinger. "Now, charge!"
The two teams roared into the warehouse (for that's what it really was), carbines at ready and set to burst mode. There were a few "pop-pop-pops" and several RIFs who were pointing guns back at them fell.
"We need better sound effects," complained Delaney.
"What? Like, 'dakka-dakka-dakka'?" Harbinger asked, grinning.
"But that's heresy . . . Harb, dude at 1 o'clock, grenade!"
They both swung their carbines up and riddled the would-be grenade thrower. "Grenade on the ground!" shouted Harbinger.
The grenade exploded.
Luckily, it wasn't close enough to anything else to start a chain reaction, and definitely not close at all to the "go-to-hell" bomb.
"Harb, let me deal with that charge!"
"Wait. See if Foster and Smith can disarm it." The two sergeants were already there, pulling the casing off and examining the innards of the big bomb.
Foster pointed, Smith nodded, and wielded a pair of wire cutters he'd pulled out of his vest. Foster looked back. "Bomb disarmed!" she shouted.
"Stupid design," added Smith.
"Hands the fuck up!" bellowed Conyers, from the back of the warehouse. "Don't even think about making a move for that door!"
"Team Two, start making video," ordered Harbinger. "Team One, close on the back of the warehouse. Team Three, land in front of the warehouse, unass your troops except for gunner and pilot. Keep the RIFs out." He looked at Delaney. "Call your mom. We're going to need a big transport to move this stuff out, and more troops to secure it till we can."
"Will do," nodded Delaney, getting out her comm. "Good job, Harb. All three teams were impeccable. Should be an easy after-action."
◆
A couple of hours later, the street was choked with FTSA3's transport, the big cargo hauler Ariela had ordered up from the spaceport, and the Tumtum. Space Force ratings in armor were wheeling munitions from the warehouse into the back of the hauler.
The locals had deserted the street, though it was clear they were watching through upstairs windows. One of the USMC platoons on city patrol had been brought in for security, and were carefully watching the buildings, so unless a crazy/suicidal RIF wanted to have an entire building blown up underneath him, there wouldn't be any more sniper incidents.
"Good thing we insisted on the streets being built so wide," observed Ariela. "Though we'd already built this part of town for the RIFs before we started shipping them in, so they didn't have much to say about it."
"Ma'am, as a point of information," said Harbinger, "I seriously doubt this
is the only such armory they've managed to put together. The Older City is a big place, with lots of warehouses just like this one."
"I agree," added Delaney. "There's not enough here to put up more than a token resistance to the 1/1, or to the two USMC MEUs that are still stationed here. There must be more, elsewhere; and in point of fact, we still don't know enough about their cave extensions from 80 years ago. There could be weapons staged all through the cave network. Which would be particularly bad," she went on, "if they were planning to use them against the terraforming effort."
"Then that is your next project," Ariela told her, decisively. "I've already cleared it with General von Barronov and we both think your ability to suss out what might stored in a particular location is going to be critical to that." She sighed. "I wish your sister Raven had any interest at all in this kind of work, though I have no idea if she has the talent or not."
"Maybe we should ask her," replied Delaney.
"I'm going to leave her alone," said her mother. "I had enough of having my life planned out for me when I was younger, and now that I'm older and still seem to have it planned out for me, I don't feel any better about telling either of my daughters what to do with their lives."
"But you'll cut orders for my teams and me to do things," teased Delaney.
"That's different and you know it," smiled Ariela. "At least we both signed up for this."
"Harb, go see what's going on with the loading," said Delaney, nudging him. "I want to talk to my mother alone for a moment."
"Oorah, Major," said Harbinger, with a grin and a mock salute. He walked over to the hauler and started talking to the SF ratings and their CPO.
"Mom, when are we going to read Harb all the way in?" asked Delaney, plaintively. "He already knows I can see things and do things nobody else can do. Well. Except you, I guess, but that's another story. I want to talk to him and give him the whole story."
Ariela shook her head. "It's not time."
"When will it be time?"
"I don't know, Delaney. Do you really think Harb needs to know about the Darkness and all the crap that goes along with them? Remember what Professor Smith said – as we bring people into the new corps, we probably need to tone down the end-of-the-world stuff."
"But he needs to know about the Mesh," said Delaney, stubbornly. "I can't just have these witchery powers and not explain them to him. Because they're not witchery powers at all, they're simply an application of quantum jiggery-pokery that lets me see beneath the surface of . . . of . . . shit . . . Creation? And manipulate small parts of it. I dunno what to call it."
"It lets you see and manipulate the Mesh that makes up the quantum Universe," replied Ariela. "At least, that's as close as Beam has ever been able to get to explaining it to me. And now you've made me have to roll for sanity."
"Too bad it's not actually a game."
"Yeah." Ariela sighed. "I think that every time I wake up from a dream where I'm just a plain old housewife with a passel of kids and married to a successful businessman."
"Heh." Delaney chuckled. "Talk about taking a SAN roll. That life would drive either of us completely nuts in no time."
"Ain't it the truth. Well, Major, you have your orders. Or will, as soon as I transfer them to you."
"Aye, aye, Colonel. We're on it."
Chapter 6
In The Desert's Depths
"It would be simpler if you would just tell us how you plan to drill the wells," opined Dr. Armand Bisset, mopping his forehead with a disreputable handkerchief.
He was glaring again, noted Ariela, with an inward sigh. They were back at First Water, trying to build bridges. Bisset seemed more intent on burning them, but . . .
"Dr. Bisset," she replied, "let me ask you a simple question, and the answer to that question will determine what I can tell you about it. If you look down, and look very carefully, with great concentration, what do you see?"
Bisset rolled his eyes, but complied and looked down at his feet. "I see my feet. I see dust. I see hardened mud with various inclusions, said mud having once been a sea-floor. What the hell do you expect me to see, Colonel?" His voice dripped with scorn.
"You cannot see beneath the surface?" she asked, quietly.
He looked up at her, suddenly, eyes blazing with anger. "No! And neither can you! Bah! This is a ridiculous exercise, Colonel, and you know it!"
"It is not," she replied, in that same, soft voice. "I can see strata, many hundreds of layers of hardened sediment, all the way down to bedrock lying several hundred feet below where we stand. And there is limestone, sandstone, much porous material containing gigatons of water, locked up and under extreme hydrostatic pressure, with most of it lying nearly two miles beneath our feet."
"Meaning you've read our draft survey."
"No." Ariela shook her head. "I've known this since before your expedition arrived; almost since the first time I orbited the planet, back in 2047. But I am unable to say how I know to anyone outside of the security compartment I've mentioned repeatedly." She sighed again, this time audibly. "Dr. Bisset, in centuries past I probably would have been known as a dowser, or a water witch, except that unlike many such who were frauds carrying a forked stick or some other supposed instrument of divination, I can without fail point to a particular place and say, 'Dig or drill there, to x number of feet,' and voila, water would have been found at the depth I specified. But my talent goes far beyond that. Would you like a free sample?"
"I think you should listen to her," advised George Smith, who had also come out of the pleasantly-cool remote sensing station into the hotter-than-hell desert basin to hear what Ariela had to say. "And before your face gets any redder, too."
"Bah," said Bisset, again, but mostly just to let air pressure out of his lungs. "What sort of 'free sample' are you offering us, today, Colonel? Do we need to move so one of the frigates can send down some sort of particle beam?"
Ariela smiled, gently. "No, Dr. Bisset." She closed her eyes and concentrated for a moment, then, reopening her eyes, looked at him. "Give it about another thirty seconds; takes time for it to get here."
"This is preposterous," started Bisset.
"Wait," said Smith, not unkindly. "Just be patient for a change, Armand, and wait."
A few seconds later, a spot of dust at their feet shuddered and darkened. A tiny spring of water burst out of the ground, and rose under pressure to about five feet in height, sprinkling the ground beneath it.
Bisset, astounded, looked at her. "What have you done?" he gasped. "How have you done it?"
"The same as I did a couple of weeks ago," Ariela told him. "But with control and care, this time. Before, I was only thinking of how to do it, and it happened. This time, I made sure to set the parameters carefully before I executed the design."
"But how is this possible?"
"Look down again," entreated Ariela. "Look carefully this time. Consider what is below the surface, and what must be happening to bring this small stream of water up from a depth of nearly two miles. Dr. Bisset, are you familiar with the musings of Pythagoras and Plato on the nature and structure of the physical universe?"
"Of course, Colonel, but what does that have to do with this, this, whatever it is you claim to be doing?"
"Pythagoras," said Ariela, unconsciously (and more-or-less) quoting her father, "took the position that the essential nature of all things is accurately described by mathematical formulae and proofs, these being eternal truths that didn't change simply because someone, or some god, had a contrary notion. And Plato said our knowledge of those truths was innate, as opposed to experiential, and we had to bring ourselves to a conscious experience of that innate knowledge through logical introspection, or something along those lines." She smiled, slightly. "I'm not a philosopher, so I rely on others to explain to me what the ancients thought."
"The others are not wrong," allowed Bisset, thoughtfully, "but interesting your beginnings of an explanation for this phenomenon are rooted in anci
ent Greek thinking. Perhaps I am not giving you sufficient credit."
Ariela thought, but did not say, Boy, ain't that the truth.
"So you are saying I can divine what it is you are doing by simply considering, logically, the means by which you are manipulating reality?" The professor looked askance, and shook his head. "I can't believe what I'm saying."
"I'd say that's close, but I'm not manipulating reality. Reality is what reality is. But there is a structure in space-time, and that is what I am manipulating."
Bisset sighed, closed his eyes, and concentrated on the ground again. "A structure. What would this structure look like in terms a human being could discern . . . given the invocation of Pythagoras, there must be a geometrical aspect . . . and Plato, with his shadow world and ideal forms . . . " His voice trailed off. "Damnation," he swore, quietly, under his breath. "Is that what you see?"
"Well," said Ariela, with some humor, "you'll have to describe it. I can't read your mind, of course."
"A grid, across the surface, with a bit of an indentation where that stream is bursting out. It must go farther down, but that's all the detail I can see." Bisset opened his eyes, still thoughtful, and looked at Ariela with new respect. "It makes sense. And you can see even more. Is this something that can be learned?"
"Indeed it can," she replied, "but we have to read you in first, and there are other things to consider. First of all, you won't be able learn to do what I just did," she pointed to the little sprinkling stream she'd called up, "today, tomorrow, or any time soon. It may take years. Second, there's more to bringing all that water to the surface than meets the eye, or is considered in your draft survey – which as a matter of fact, I have read." She shrugged. "But I already knew what was in it. The point is, we can't simply open a bunch of wells all over the planet and let the water start flowing up willy-nilly. There are too many factors to consider, such as, what will that do to the planetary rotation, what will it do to the axial tilt, will it change the gravitational constant at the surface – all kinds of little nits, picks, and fiddles that even our fastest computers can't deal with, unless we run this operation over several millennia."
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