The Lion in Paradise

by Brindle, Nathan C.

  And she was back on the pad at the residence in Jadida. She picked up the comm again and dialed Delaney. "Del, I'm back at the residence. Where are you?"

  "Almost there. We figured that's where you'd rotate back. Five minutes."

  "Okay."

  She drummed her fingers impatiently on the seat arms until she heard banging on the outer hatch, which she released. A moment later, Delaney and Harbinger entered the cabin, Harbinger stayed back to close the inner hatch, and Delaney ran forward to hug her mother.

  "I take it Grumpaw is bringing the Bandersnatch," she teased.

  Ariela sighed. "Yes."

  "Okay, so I think Harb will take the turret and I'll handle the side guns and sort of act as spotter for you." She craned her neck at the upper forward port, and then looked around. "Looks good; plenty of peripheral vision, except of course to the rear, but you have cameras for that, right?"

  "Yes, you can pull them up in the seatback holotabs."

  "Okay. Harb, you want to go up now or wait till we get in theatre?"

  Harbinger shrugged. "I'll wait." He took a seat behind Ariela, leaving the starboard seat for Delaney so she could put eyes on her mother during the flight. Her mother, for her part, had a rear-view mirror so she could see what was going on in the back seats.

  "Strap in," ordered Ariela. "I can't rotate out there without a navigator; no preset, and it takes me too long to do it. So we'll have to fly the long way."

  As the two followed her instruction, Delaney filled her mother in. "FTSA is on their way to the research station. They took the three transports we got from Space Force and they're flying out there now. The plan is to ground there and put the medics and the ground-pounders out to handle any leakers who get through. The pilots and gunners will take the transports back up and handle close support, and also act as a reserve if two pinnaces can't handle the whole job. I dunno, though, Mom, you may want to give in and call the frigates to get SFM dropships involved."

  "I purely hate dealing with those two," groused Ariela, as she noted they were now strapped in, and took Tumtum up. "And I have ever since my first mission. But, we'll see. Dropships can be down here in less than five minutes, and the frigates stay in geosync over this general area anyway." She looked in the mirror at her daughter. "And who in heaven's name gave you those orders?"

  "I did," said Delaney, smoothly. "Our original FTSA operations brief for our stay here was very vague, as one might expect from the general who wrote it, and our chain of command is not through anyone currently on planet. We had specific orders from you, which were carried out to the letter until it became clear we'd hit a dead end. So I reverted to our original brief and ordered FTSA to defend the research station at First Water." She reached forward and tapped Ariela's comm with hers; they both beeped. "That's my memo containing my reasoning for the change of plan, and the op plan for this new mission."

  "You were never an NCO. Who corrupted you this way?"

  She grinned. "Harb. He's my mustang." She reached over, took her husband by the arm, and looked adoringly at him. Harbinger chuckled, and patted her hand.

  Ariela snorted, then, and almost broke out laughing. "You two are too cute by half. Very well, I approve this new plan, even though I haven't read it. Not much I can do about it, in any case, besides the fact your CO is headed in-theatre."

  "Cool. I wonder if Grumpaw's going to get in the turret and let Great-Uncle Chris fly."

  "I don't know, but I do know General Buford decided to horn in on the fun, too."

  "Seriously?" Delaney and Harbinger looked at each other.

  "Wow."

  "Yeah, that's kind of what my reaction was," replied Ariela, as she banked Tumtum to come around south of the station. She noted the three SF transports were already there and the three FTSA teams were unassing and taking up firing positions around the base of the building. She saw the three medics heading for the main hatch, where it appeared Dr. Smith was waving them in – at least she assumed it was Smith, since he was using the boonie hat to do the waving. She gulped a bit as she recognized Lyn's black hair. Too much family in this clusterfuck, she thought.

  She heard a sonic boom then, muted by the ship's hull, and looked around to see RV Frumious Bandersnatch hovering about a hundred feet away. The radio crackled with her father's voice. "Ari, we're here."

  "Hard to miss you, sir," she laughed. "And I'm glad you near-missed us."

  He sighed. "I'll never live down that 'nearly missed us' business with the Proven's plasma beam, will I?"

  "No, sir, you will not. At least, not so long as Kat and I remember it."

  "Fair enough. Now. Have you contacted either of the picket frigates, or are you still too pissed off at their captains to bother with them?"

  Ariela laughed again. "Wow, Dad, you really can read my mind."

  "Hrmf. On certain things, yes. Though I would have thought you might have moderated your attitude toward Captains Farage and Green in the last nearly eight decades."

  "Why are they even still commanding the frigates?"

  "Why is LaForrest still commanding the Constellation? Why haven't I retired again since being shanghaied back into the service in 2044? It's what we do, dear." Wolff paused, clearly in thought. "Do you know what LaForrest told us during the mission to save your timeline?"

  "Depends on the context, I suppose."

  Now Wolff laughed. "He said all six of the frigate captains, including himself, were assholes, and that's how they'd gotten to where they were. The competition at that point was – and still is – over who will eventually be named Admiral. Do you know, they still don't have an Admiral? And there's a reason for it; Buford thinks they're all assholes. Competent ones, but assholes nonetheless; and he won't allow any of them the satisfaction of permanent flag rank promotion." He paused while obviously listening to someone aboard the Bandersnatch. "Oh, sorry, sir – was I supposed to keep that to myself? Oh well. Mark me down for a demerit. But everybody knows it."

  "Tell the General I said 'hi'. So, what will you do when you take over for General Buford?"

  "Find someone else in Space Force who's deserving and promote them to Admiral. I don't have time for that kind of bullshit, and I don't want to be their acting Admiral as apparently Buford does."

  "You surprise me. I would have thought you would have said LaForrest or Macdonald, since you have good rapport with them."

  "Oh, hell no. And they know why, because, again, I'm not going to give any of the current commanders the satisfaction. It's nosed around Space Force I'm something of a bastard, you know."

  Ariela kept herself from guffawing only by main strength. "I had no idea, sir."

  "Careful," growled her father. "If it weren’t for the whole nepotism thing, I'd appoint you."

  "Noted. But anyway, sir, I have not contacted the frigates because I still am not entirely certain we'll need them."

  "Possible. Are your people in place?"

  Ariela looked over at Delaney, who gave her a thumbs-up. "Yes, sir."

  "Then why don't we slide over and take a look at this rabble who think they can take on the US Space Force Marines."

  "Aye, aye, sir. If you'll follow my lead, I'll take you right to them."

  Ariela played the console. Tumtum fell off, then, and banked to starboard, heading generally back toward Jadida; the Bandersnatch followed.

  "Uh oh," said Delaney.

  "That doesn't sound good."

  "It's not." Delaney pointed out the port side. "There's another group out there, see 'em?"

  The radio crackled again. "Is that them off to port?" inquired Wolff.

  "No, it's not," replied Ariela, trying to get eyes on the new group while paying attention to where she was going. "Seems to be another group. Not sure where they came from."

  "Tell you what – we'll trace them back, shouldn't be too hard to see their tracks, even in this God-forsaken gobi bullshit. I'm guessing they came out of one of the tunnels. Back in a few."

  "Tumtum acknow
ledges," said Ariela. "We'll continue on to the original group's location."

  "Mom, you've got another call," said Delaney, who was monitoring various and sundry things from her holotab. "Different frequency – it's from upstairs."

  "Put them through."

  "United States actual to USSF Tumtum," came through the speaker. "Is that you down there heading toward the group from the city?"

  "Tumtum actual to United States actual," replied Ariela, rolling her eyes. "Yes, it is. RV Frumious Bandersnatch is heading toward the other group we just spotted."

  Captain Farage was silent for a moment, then he spoiled everyone's day. "Colonel Wolff, you have six groups converging on First Water, not two. They seem to have come out of nowhere, so we're assuming they came out of the tunnels."

  "Well, shit. Thanks for the heads-up, Captain. Wonder if I can speak to Lt. Col. Rasmussen, please."

  "She's scrambling our full complement of dropships now," said Farage. "They were all back up here for servicing while the ground training maneuvers are going on. Why didn't you call me earlier? We didn't even realize there was something untoward happening until the Bandersnatch popped out of rotation down there." He sounded somewhat accusatory, and Ariela for once didn't really blame him. "I've also been in touch with Captain Green, and she with Lt. Col. Taniguchi, and he's scrambling, too. They're under your command, Colonel, so I'll let you direct them if you like; but I think our Marine Flight Operations people might be able to handle that task better from our vantage point."

  "I concur. Just link me in with MFO on the two frigates – or actually, Major Fox will call them, I'm busy piloting this bus," replied Ariela. "By the way, Captain, I should inform you, General Buford is aboard the Bandersnatch and intends to get some gunnery practice while he's here."

  Farage snorted. "Well, isn't that just the icing on the cake. I'll call the Bandersnatch. Yes, by all means, have Major Fox call MFO United States. They're ready to drop any time and they are in operational control of the dropships from both frigates. Do you have any further surprises for me?"

  "No, sir, I do not," said Ariela, feeling a little guilty. "Please accept my apologies for not bringing you and Captain Green into this mess sooner, but we thought it was just one group, then it turned into two, and now it's clearly out of the ability of two pinnaces and three FTSA fire teams to handle. We greatly appreciate your better intelligence and your diligence in scrambling flight operations."

  "Well, thank you," said Farage, somewhat surprised at her tone – he was used to much more acrimony by this point, in their normal conversations. "If that is all, I will leave you to it, Colonel – but let us know if you need any fire support from above."

  "I'm hoping that won't be necessary," Ariela said, "but after all, we're talking about RIFs. Thank you again, Captain. Tumtum out."

  "I have MFO on the line, Colonel," reported Delaney, all business.

  "Have them drop evenly against the six reported enemy groupings," ordered Ariela, still paying attention out the forward port. "Get them into position and I will broadcast a stand-down order to the six groups. Assuming they're listening, of course. I don't expect that to stop them, but I have to try."

  "Aye, aye, Colonel."

  "Bandersnatch here, von Barronov on the line," came from the radio. "We just heard from Captain Farage. Do you want us to get in touch with MFO?"

  "Yes," replied Ariela. "Make sure they have your IFF, but bottom line I suspect we're both going to head back to the station and provide close air support for FTSA rather than try to mix it up with the dropships."

  "Roger that. We see another big cloud of dust coming from what we think is the maneuver area. They seem to be in a hurry." Von Barronov sounded like he was chuckling.

  "That will be the 1/1, under Greg Sherman. Hubs is with him, assuming he was able to find transport from Jadida – which I don't actually doubt. I told him – well, Delaney told him for me – to get them on their horse and headed for the station. Sounds like they're going balls to the wall, which is great; I expect they'll beat all of the RIF groups by a wide margin."

  "Smaj on the line, says yes, that's them," reported Harbinger, comm to his ear. "ETA at the station is about thirty minutes."

  "Did you hear that?"

  "Yep. Okay, we'll rendezvous there. See ya."

  "Tumtum, out."

  Ariela banked the pinnace in a wide curve and reversed course back to the station. "Del, call your people, let them know."

  "Already on it."

  "I have the station in sight. We'll be down momentarily. Take hold, take hold, take hold, I'll be braking hard and stopping fast."

  She drove Tumtum hard until she was about a hundred yards out, then flipped the ship end for end and poured on the figurative coal. Very little of that got through the inertial dampers, but, she thought, it was always a good idea to assume the worst. The ship did, however, stop on a dime; she eased off on the contragravity and Tumtum settled slowly to the ground, with nary a bump or a jar.

  "Out," she said, peremptorily. She unbuckled and followed her daughter and son-in-law to the airlock. They touched feet to ground just as the Frumious Bandersnatch landed about a hundred feet away, having approached a bit more sedately.

  After a moment, from the other ship's airlock emerged the three generals. "That was some piece of flying, girl," grunted Buford. "Maybe your father is right about who ought to be Admiral of the Fleet."

  "With all due respect, General, not just no, but hell no," riposted Ariela, laughing. "I have better things to do than play babysitter to those six psychos."

  "Hrmf. Well, John, I guess you'll have to keep looking."

  Wolff nodded. "There is another."

  Ariela rolled her eyes. "Whatever, Yoda." She looked around; as she figured, the three FTSA teams had gathered, and were (apparently) waiting for pearls of wisdom to drop from her lips. "Look, I'm not your commander," she said. "That would be Major Fox. But the bottom line is, the 1/1 are on their way and should be here in under half an hour. Presuming as always that every Marine is a rifleman, that should give us around 600 effectives inbound for the defense.

  "On the minus side, there are six RIF elements converging on the station. The two frigates in orbit are sending all their dropships down, and on my orders, they will split as much as possible between the six RIF elements and try to slow them down, if not in fact force them to stand down. We calculate that there may be anywhere from 3,000 to 6,000 RIFs inbound."

  She expected a bit of indrawn breath, if not indeed actual gasping, and she wasn't disappointed.

  "I don't know exactly how many dropships are coming, but there should be at least twenty. Depends on how many are in the shop for maintenance; there could be as many as twenty-four if they're all online. You can do the math in your heads on that. We also have the two pinnaces, but their armament is pretty limited; in some ways, we'd do better with someone hanging out of the airlock with a heavy machine gun." There was some laughter; Good, she thought. They're in a mood to break things and kill people.

  "Finally, we've been promised support from orbit, but I want to try to avoid that," she said, "because it's just not healthy for us to be around when Rods from God are dropped. And I think by the time we're so deep in the soup we need them, it will be too late anyway."

  "What's our job here?" asked Delaney.

  "I want FTSA to handle close-in defense where possible," Ariela replied. "If they break through, keep them away from the hatches, particularly that big garage-door hatch in the back. Note that we are going to take the pinnaces back up, for whatever good they will be able to do, because on the ground they're just sitting ducks. But by the time the RIFs get here, we should have ourselves a nice little defense in depth from the 1/1 Marines.

  "This is not to say," she went on, "that I'm not going to try to stop them peacefully, first. But I'm sure they think their numbers are such that they can overwhelm us; and I saw that one weapons cache back in Jadida. They certainly have sufficient resources to
make a good try at that. The question is, what's their training been like?"

  "We've been undercover, watching them, so I can answer that," said Harbinger. "For shit. The RIFs don't train, they trust in Allah."

  Wolff barked a laugh. "Indeed. 'Insh'allah' is their motto. As I said many years ago, they are hardly sons of Martha." He looked around at the Marines. "At the same time, don't get cocky, Space Marines. You have no idea what they're capable of – for instance, this insurgency, which has come as a complete surprise to everyone, it seems."

  A muted BOOM sounded in the distance; Ariela thought it might have come from the north, but the mountain to the west reflected sound oddly, sometimes. "Like that," she said, mouth quirking up in a smile. "Give a RIF something that goes 'boom', and he can't prevent himself from using it to make 'happy fire'. All right, Marines, you have your orders. I turn you back to your CO and unit commanders. Semper Fi!"

  "Semper Fi, oorah!" shouted the FTSA members.

  "FTSA, move out," directed Delaney. "One, on the garage hatch. Two, on this hatch in front of us. Three, take the hatch on the other side of the station. Get linked into the combat net if you aren't already. Move!"

  "OORAH!"

  "Del," said Ariela, as the Marines dispersed, "do the RIFs have a radio net up, or are they just following leaders blindly?"

  "I think the leaders have a net," said Delaney, thoughtfully. "But the ionosphere here is so damn weak, they probably won't use it to coordinate until they're in sight of the objective, and of each other. We only get through on their frequencies because we have repeater satellites in orbit. They can't use those, of course, so they're stuck with line-of-sight on the old UHF and VHF frequencies. Unless, of course," she mused, "the fucking Chinese gave them HF radios. But we monitor all frequencies – I mean, the radio people at the spaceport and in orbit do that, of course – and there's never been any indication they're using, say, 20 or 40 meters. Or anything at all below 6 meters, for that matter."