"So if I get up on 146.52 MHz simplex, I should be able to get them to listen?"
Delaney shrugged. "If they use that for a calling frequency. I don't know; spaceport ops might. But let me make a different suggestion – if you want to reach all the RIFs, you might be better off relaying through the dropships, and letting them play what you have to say on their external speakers." With a grin, she continued, "It's not exactly 'Ride of the Valkyries,' but it might be just as effective."
A dropship roared overhead, followed closely by three more in formation. Ariela's comm buzzed, and she picked up. "Go for 1/1 Actual."
"1/1 Actual, this is Drop One-One Actual, from United States. We have all dropships from both frigates in the field; the techs were just buttoning up Drop One-Six when the call came in. We're dispersing four ships to each of the six RIF groups. Please be advised, dropships from the President will be identifying as Drop Six-One through Drop Six-Twelve. Do you have further orders for us, over."
Ariela smiled. "Oh, One-One, do I have orders for you. Stand by while I get back into my pinnace and I'll contact you via normal channels."
"Drop One-One on the side and holding for further orders, ma'am. Semper Fi."
"Semper Fi, One-One. Be right back with you."
She ran for the airlock, grinning.
Chapter 8
A Kind Word And A Plasma Cannon Beats A Kind Word Alone
A mass of men moved slowly across the desert floor. Most of the irregulars were on foot, while their officers and leaders rode mostly in various and sundry "technicals" cobbled together, as on Earth, from old compact pickup trucks – mostly brands unrecognizable in the United States, but daily drivers in North and South China, as well as much of the poorer sections of South and Southeast Asia.
It was another typically hot and dry day on al-Saḥra'. The temperature was easily in the low 100's, there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the only way to keep one's skin from drying out was to keep it wrapped up in Bedouin-style clothing.
The irregulars looked up at the sound of something thrumming through the air. Four American dropships were hovering just ahead of their line of march.
Just . . . hovering. Not even sparking static electricity off of their plasma guns. In fact, their guns weren't even run out.
And the infantry trudged on, fatalistically, each step taking them closer to their imagined doom.
"What are they waiting for?" asked the colonel in charge of this particular flank of the RIF army, exasperated. "They should get it over with and fire."
"Certainly," said the mullah they'd been saddled with as a sort-of political officer. "And then we would be dead, martyred, resting in the arms of Allah, peace be upon Him. But He would ask why we allowed ourselves to be so used, while not fighting back, would He not?"
"As you say," grumbled the colonel. "But our orders are not to fight them unless they fight first."
The mullah waved this off, nonchalantly. "Orders can come from a Higher Power," he replied.
The colonel rolled his eyes, making sure the mullah could not see him do so, and thought, Fool. If I had my way, you would be shot through the head and dumped into the dust, and we would surrender in the face of these insurmountable odds.
He knew even a thousand men armed with Chinese AK-47 variants, along with a few beat-up technicals sporting Chinese knockoffs of the venerable US M-2 Browning machine gun and other light infantry weaponry, had zero chance against a single SFM dropship, let alone four of them.
The mullah, like most zampolity throughout history, didn't have a clue. On the other hand, despite what the hardcores were pleased to call an education, he could barely read the Qur'an, or tell an original sermon, either. His family were Iranians (explicitly not Persians . . . they were old-line Shiites, originally from down around Isfahan before the Great Exile), and his first language was Farsi; he could speak Arabic tolerably well, but his reading ability in that language was mediocre at best. And since the Qur'an was written and printed exclusively in Arabic on al-Saḥra', well . . . he'd been lucky to get a plush political job where it wasn't strictly necessary to be well-read in Arabic.
The little handheld radio hanging from the colonel's kit crackled. Startled, he looked at it; he hadn't expected to hear from the other commanders for some time, yet.
"Okay, this is about the quadrillionth frequency we've tried," came an American voice, in English. "Are you assholes up on this net or not?"
The colonel would have ignored the insult, but the mullah waved irritably at the radio. "Answer him."
Rolling his eyes again, the colonel picked up the radio. "What do you want?" he asked, also in English. He liked to think his command of the language was pretty good; he'd spent years studying it. Most of the Islamic officers did.
"Finally. Would it have killed you fuckers to use the standard VHF calling frequency? It's not like you can hide from us. Anyhow, we've been tasked to ask you to stand down and go back to the city – after you dispose of all your weapons, ammunition, and other ordnance right here in the desert. You can keep the vehicles and any personal sidearms. There's no wiggle room in that 'ask', by the way – it's really not an ask, it's a demand."
"What if we refuse?" asked the colonel, not sure he'd like the answer.
The American sighed. "Look. Our CO really wants you to just set your stuff down and go back in peace. She said so. She refused to let us even run the guns out unless you morons actually had the audacity to open fire. And she said, if you said no, she was going to talk to your troops and see what they thought of the idea."
The colonel laughed. "Good luck with that," he said. "I'm the only one in the regiment with a radio."
"Yeah, we know; we already scanned the area, but that's immaterial. So, what? You gonna stand down or do I sic the Lion of God on you?"
"Good luck again. Very few of these men understand English."
"Aaaand that's not a problem, either. Okay, Colonel Wolff, I guess this bunch is as intractable as the rest. Channel's yours. Switching outputs now."
The radio clicked and went to static; he'd obviously stopped transmitting, thought the colonel, as he adjusted the squelch to quiet the transceiver.
Then he heard another click. Except it was more like a
CLICK
followed by a bit of feedback squeal and hum, as if a giant microphone had just been switched into a giant speaker.
"Oh, no."
"What?" asked the mullah, sitting up and really taking an interest in the proceedings for the first time.
"She's got a PA, a big set of speakers, and a big amplifier. Actually, four of them. And apparently she speaks Arabic and knows how to use them."
◆
"Is this thing on?" were Ariela's first words. Then she smacked herself in the forehead and groaned. Thankfully, she'd unkeyed before she did the latter.
"Nobody's perfect," said Fox. He'd just arrived with the 1/1 about ten minutes before, and been hustled over to the Tumtum for navigator duties.
"I hate this shit," she groused. "I never know what I'm going to say till I say it."
"Then you should probably get on with it," replied her husband.
"Gee, thanks for all the support."
"No charge." Fox looked at her, and grinned. "As always, you'll do fine; you just need to start. Think about what you told the mullah, back in the office. That was a fine speech you gave him, as I recall."
So she closed her eyes, composed herself, keyed up the microphone, and started speaking Arabic.
"Bism Allah al-rahman al-rahim . . . "
◆
"In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful . . . "
The mullah's eyes went wide. "Infidel! She is giving a sermon?"
The colonel couldn't help it. He started laughing. The mullah started to say something, and he held up a hand. "Don't," he managed. "If you cannot see the humor in this, just shut the hell up."
"All praise is due to Allah. We praise him, we seek His help, we seek His forgiveness, and we seek
refuge in Allah from the evil within ourselves and our evil deeds. Whoever Allah guides, there is none to misguide him. Whoever Allah leads astray, there is none to guide him."
The mullah seethed, but kept his mouth shut, other than to say, "She is leaving things out."
"Of course she is, you fool. She is not of the Faith. Why would she say things she does not believe?"
"Allah Almighty said, 'Fear Allah and speak words as befitting. He will amend your deeds for you and forgive your sins. Whoever obeys Allah and His messenger has achieved a great triumph.'
"But this is not a sermon, as the faithful among you may be thinking. I use the formulation to show you I am not a prophet of vengeance. As my faith teaches me, vengeance belongs to Allah alone.
"I have come today to ask you, in Allah's name, to stand down your advance on our research station and its personnel. I have said many times to Mullah al-Mubarak, why is it necessary to try his people in the desert wastes? Allah does not require this of you. Allah wishes you to live in peace and plenty, to love and laugh, to sit under your fig tree and enjoy the life He hath given you. His test of you can be accomplished in other ways and does not require you or your families to suffer in a desert, or to die for His cause.
"He knoweth your inmost thought, as do I. He will ask you when you enter his realm why you fought so hard against His desires for your people. Will your answer satisfy Him? Or will you lay down your arms and stop fighting against what my people are trying to do for yours? For it matters not what you do here today; lo, verily, the waters will rise, these desert depths will fill, and the planet will slowly become green and full of life. It is a true prophecy; I have seen this vision, afar off in the future. A blue and green jewel twinkling in the light of al-Manfaa – no longer the star of Exile, but al-Bayt, the star of Home.
"But will it still bear the sons and daughters of Islam as its citizens? For as I have told Mullah al-Mubarak, as surely as the sun will set, and, come the morn, will rise again in the East, change is going to come to al-Saḥra' – and it cannot be prevented. No army of any size can prevail against the Will of Allah. Thus sayeth the Lion of God, who has seen and prophesied this all. Go now in peace, I pray ye, my brothers, and do not force me to strike you down. Amen."
The speakers clicked off, loudly.
The radio came back to life. "Colonel Wolff has graciously allowed you six hours to make the decision to turn back. This is your one and only chance to do so. Drop One-One, out."
The four dropships spun around on their vertical axes, and slowly headed back toward the research station, eventually disappearing into the distance.
"So," said the colonel, impassively. "Six hours. You think we should follow them?"
"Of course," shouted the mullah. "We have been tasked with destroying the station. Do you really think they will destroy us all?"
"Yes, I do," replied the colonel. "From space, with their kinetic kill weapons, if necessary; the Pournelle-3 I believe they call them. However, you are correct. This is our task. I suppose we should be happy to martyr ourselves to show just how helpless we are against the Americans. Six thousand of us in the six groups, basically a rag-tag army of irregulars, against six hundred of their premier warriors, just off of a training exercise in this very desert? Anyhow, I think that is the strength of their 1/1 Space Force Marines. Should be a cakewalk, sure." He exhaled. "For them."
"You will not say this to the troops!"
"No, I suppose I shan't. But they heard her. Are you telling me she did not impress you at all? She certainly seems to have impressed the men." He idly poked a thumb out the window, where the troops in sight seemed to be gathering in small groups, muttering, and glancing from time to time at the HQ technicals.
"I will go and talk to them." The mullah started to lift the door handle, but stopped when the colonel put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Don't," warned the colonel. "Believe me when I say, if you step out there now and attempt to cajole them into marching on, they will cut you down where you stand. They are not interested in hearing a political officer's arguments that Allah will lead, if only they will follow. These men are hard-headed and undisciplined; that is why we call them irregulars. This is not your mosque where you are giving a Friday sermon, inveighing against sins upon which Allah frowns, to which all will nod approval. This is a very real situation where control of the battlefield is not in our hands, and in which Allah, peace be upon Him, will not raise a miracle-laden finger to change the clearly-obvious outcome."
"You dare blaspheme." But the mullah did not move, looking out the window at the assembled men with a new appreciation of just how close he had come to a sudden and ignominious death. The man was not stupid; he was, the colonel thought, merely ill-educated and probably brainwashed to some extent by his madrassah education.
The colonel shrugged. "It is not blasphemous to speak the truth, mullah. When did Allah last look down and change the outcome for His faithful? Certainly not since our forebears were rousted from their lives on Earth and transported to this Jahannam of a planet. He seems perfectly happy for us to suffer here and beg for what scraps we get from the Americans. Yet we are told – and offered convincing proof – that our compliant co-religionists on Earth are well-treated and part of a growing society which is tolerated and accepted among other Earth-side nations as equals. Whom, mullah," he asked, staring through the windshield of the technical, "would you say Allah has truly favored?"
◆
Two hours into the six-hour grace period, Fox reported, "None of the six groups are moving. They also do not appear to be disarming."
Ariela sighed and stretched. "Major Fox, have MFO recall all but one of the dropships assigned to each group, then rotate them once an hour, then send all of them back into position for the curtain at the six hour point. I don't want them getting fatigued or running short on supplies."
"Yes, ma'am." Delaney started talking quietly into her headset microphone.
The radio crackled. "Ari."
"Yes, Dad."
"I'm not getting any shooting done, here. You promised me shooting."
"Patience, Dad. You really think they're going to turn around and go back?"
"Wouldn't put it past the cowardly sons-of-bitches."
"They have four more hours."
"You should have given them fifteen minutes and then started in on them."
"Right. And that's why I'm in charge here, and you're just a visitor, today, General."
There ensued a short pause.
"Okay. So that's the way you're going to play it. We're taking off to do some scans and take some target practice out over the Rift. Carry on, Colonel."
The radio went to static.
"He's not really pissed, you know," said Fox.
Ariela laughed. "No. Well, he is, but he knows I'm right and he's wrong. Vice-Commandant or no, my orders for the deployment of the 1/1 on al-Saḥra' are clear this is an independent command. It has to be; he's normally not less than a hundred light years away from al-Saḥra', and it takes a week, plus, minimum, to get an answer to a question, or a response to a report from HQ on Earth. So that's the way it works, because it has to, and legally that's in force even if he wanders out here to look over my shoulder." She sighed. "Besides. He horned in on this expedition after he refused to simply come along with me and handle the Tumtum's guns. And General Buford hasn't any better excuse."
"Colonel," said Delaney. "Not to break into your pissing match with Grumpaw, but our eye in the sky says five of the six groups are on the move again. They're heading right for us."
"Really?" asked Ariela, somewhat surprised. "Was there radio coordination?"
"Seems like it. The frigates never heard it, but that's not entirely surprising. Running recordings back, I can hear some fragments, but nothing that's obviously conversation. Either they're using some sort of spread-spectrum algorithm, or they're using highly-directional antennas. We didn't consider either case because, well, they're pretty te
chnologically backward when you get right down to it." Delaney shrugged, as close to a mea culpa as she was going to offer. "Of course, along with all the other crap the Chinese gave them, they could have gotten it from them."
"It's okay," said Ariela. "As they got closer, they could have simply used couriers and skipped the radio altogether. But we'll want to crack that scheme if we have to keep this up – and then let them know we cracked it. Fred, notify the troops we have resumed movement."
"Aye, aye, ma'am."
A few minutes went by, then Delaney tapped Ariela on the shoulder. Ariela looked around.
"I called Grumpaw," Delaney explained, "and he said he and Great-Uncle Chris would start the encryption cracking. They have that gigantic storage array they got from Beam, and I have no idea what they've done to the computers aboard the Bandersnatch, over the last few years; I'm not sure even they can explain it in terms we could understand." She grinned. "But he's not mad now, they have something to do, and even General Buford is helping them with it."
"Let me guess. They're rotating back in time to make recordings."
"Got it in one. And they already did."
Ariela shook her head. "They do love playing with their toys."
"And that's not all they're going to do."
"What?"
◆
After about an hour, the men had cooled down somewhat, and the mullah had gone out among them to see what he could salvage. And somehow, the colonel grudgingly admitted, he'd managed to get them to focus back on the mission. A few dissidents had tried to stand their ground, but that had not gone well for them. He assumed Allah was welcoming them even now.
He'd used that hour to consider just how they could pull a victory out of their ass against the Americans, and had used the special encryption gear they'd gotten from the South Chinese, before the embargo, to talk to the other commanders. The consensus was, they were still screwed, but in the process of the Americans getting a six-course dinner, they were still going to try to get a felafel-and-kebab lunch out of the deal. One of the other commanders had hinted about the existence of a seventh group, still hiding in a section of the tunnel complex quite close to the station; it was thought they might be able to surprise the Americans from inside their own lines if things really went awry. The colonel had openly guffawed, pointing out the Americans' scan would quickly find the seventh unit as soon as it started pouring out of the tunnels, if not before, but the very idea this would be a problem was waved off by the other commanders, who had already jumped off and were on the move again. He, on the other hand, decided to hang back to see what happened, first.
The Lion in Paradise Page 11