by Dan Cragg
“Ah, one moment, please!” Gobels stuck his foot in the door.
“We know he’s here, Miz, ah, I didn’t catch your name?” When Treemonisha refused to answer, he rushed on, “You must give him to us or there will be very unpleasant consequences, madam!
There will be legal action and law enforcement involvement—”
Despite her advanced age, Treemonisha was a big, strong woman, as people are who live their entire lives on farms. She shoved the door hard and was rewarded by the pleasant sound of something breaking in Gobels’s foot. He screeched in pain and terror and stumbled backward into Fogel.
“How do you like it, you perverted bastard?” she shouted, and with her right arm she grasped the pump shotgun sitting just inside the door, worked a round into the chamber, and leveled it at the pair. This time her finger was inside the trigger guard. “Now git the hell off my property, you two, or I swear by God I’ll put a hole through you so big you can drive that landcar through it!”
The door slammed solidly shut behind the two as Fogel helped Gobels stumble back to their landcar. Once inside the vehicle, Fogel said, “Good thing we planted that tracer on the little shit, otherwise we’d never have found him.”
“We’ve got to get him back, Pensy!” Gobels raged, pounding the dashboard in frustration. “We’ve got to!”
“Well, goddamn, boss, how we going to do that? That old bitch’ll blast us for sure with that antique of hers! Besides, we can’t go to the authorities. Shit, we’d be in it up to our necks if they ever found out what we did with our specimen, didn’t turn him over like we were supposed to. Best we just wait. One of these days he’ll come out and we can snatch him, no problem.”
“We’ve got to get him, Pensy. Oh, goddamn, she broke my fucking foot!” Dr. Gobels groaned. “We’ve got to get him and right now! We are on the verge of the greatest scientific breakthrough since—”
“I don’t follow, boss.”
Gobels shook his head. “Remember those DNA samples we sent off to be run?”
“You got them back? You didn’t tell me?” Fogel looked hard at Gobels, a small flame of anger beginning to burn way down inside him.
“Well, I was going to. I am telling you! We’ve got to get him back and we’ve got to do it right soon!”
Fogel held up his hand. “Damn me if I’m going back to that place. No! Your specimen is not worth getting shot over!”
“It is if you’ll just listen to me for a second!” Gobels protested.
“Why, then?”
“The Skinks! I know what they are!”
EPILOGUE
Headquarters, Task Force Aguinaldo, Camp Swampy, Arsenault General Anders Aguinaldo stood at the window looking out into the rain. It would be light soon. Why, he wondered, did military crises always seem to occur during the hours of darkness?
He had just been awakened by the shift officer in the communications room. The flimsy he held loosely in one hand bore stupendous news.
Aguinaldo breathed deeply the fresh aroma of wet, growing things. A cool, damp breeze swept through the open window just as one of the ubiquitous flying insectlike creatures disintegrated in the electrical field that served as a window. That’s what they do, he mused silently. Skinks flared up when hit by a blaster, he reflected. “The more the merrier,” he whispered. Someone entered the room behind him. Aguinaldo did not need to turn around to see who it was. He held up the flimsy of the message that communications had delivered to him only a few minutes ago. “Read this, General,” he said without turning around.
Lieutenant General Pradesh Cumberland, Deputy Task Force Commander, took the message and read it. The rain drummed even harder on the roof. A flash of lightning stabbed through the air just over the trees. Aguinaldo counted silently, One thousand one, one thousand two, one thou—a clap of thunder rolled over the building.
“Buddha’s Blue Balls!” General Pradesh whispered behind Aguinaldo’s back. He meant the contents of the message in his hand, not the thunder. “That thing this ensign’s men captured was a Skink, no question about it. According to the string-ofpearls surveillance, there are plenty more where that one came from.”
Aguinaldo turned away from the window and grinned. “Our marching orders, General.”
“It’s dry on this Haulover place, I assume?” Pradesh grinned as he handed the flimsy back to his commander. Aguinaldo laughed outright. “I don’t know, and I don’t give a kwangduk’s scraggly ass! Get the staff and my commanders up here right now. We’ve got a long day ahead of us. Meanwhile, I’m going over to communications. I have a message of my own to send out.” He punched Pradesh lightly on the chest as he passed by. The mission Task Force Aguinaldo had been preparing for so hard and for so long was on. Comm Shack, Task Force Aguinaldo
“Goldie,” Aguinaldo shouted as he stepped into the task force communications center, “put your dirty pictures away, tell yer ne’er-do-well communicators to get their fingers out of each other’s asses, and get cracking!” “Goldie” was Lieutenant Nate Goldfarb, one of the three shift officers assigned to the communications center.
“Maybe I should have held that message up until after breakfast, General,” Goldfarb quipped. He had been the first to read the message so he knew what was coming.
“You knew precisely that this was going to happen,”
Aguinaldo replied. “I know because all you guys were pretending to be very busy when I came through the door just now. Not your usual posture, I regret to say.” He grinned at the enlisted communicators. “You warned them I was coming.” He chuckled as he sat at an empty console. The enlisted clerks grinned. Aguinaldo always poked lighthearted fun at them when he came in, a habit he’d developed since taking command of the task force. Another habit of his is that he did his own writing. Other officers would dictate their communications, then change them several times before sending them and raise hell if a clerk made a mistake trying to translate the verbal garbage that most of them passed off as military writing. Not Aguinaldo, he wrote his own message texts.
“Look over my shoulder as I write this, Goldie. You figure out the exact quadrant where this Haulover place is and address this directly to President Chang-Sturdevant, Ultra Secret, Eyes Only, NODIS. I don’t want any further distribution beyond the people it’s addressed to—and address them by name. Info addressees: The Honorable Marcus Berentus, Minister of War; General Alistair Cazombi, Chairman, Combined Chiefs. That’s it.”
“You don’t want to info anybody else, sir? Chief of Naval Operations? Chief of Army Staff? Commandant of the Marine Corps? Our staff, originating command who sent the alert message?”
“I trust the president and her highest military advisers to decide who among that Heptagon bunch needs to know what’s in here. They’re all a bunch of chairborne warriors back there; this needs to go to the fighting commands. But first the Old Lady. My staff and commanders are already coming up here. I’ll tell them personally. We’ll take care of the other commands with a separate message. I want you to attach this through a back channel to our fleet commander with my personal instructions to get it into a drone and on its way immediately. Naval liaison will know all about this when I get with the staff in a little while. All right, open your dictionary, I’m only a former enlisted Marine they kicked upstairs so he wouldn’t wreck the Corps. Here goes.
“ ‘1) MADAM PRESIDENT, I HAVE THE HONOR TO INFORM YOU
THAT THE ENEMY HAS BEEN SIGHTED,’ insert the place and planetary particulars here, Goldie, ‘THERE HAVE BEEN SIGNIFICANT
CIVILIAN AND SOME MILITARY CASUALTIES,’ add in what that ensign reported about casualties on Haulover, ‘ENEMY STRENGTH
ESTIMATED BY NAVAL FORCES IN ORBIT AROUND HAULOVER MINIMUM 10,000 PERSONNEL; ENEMY INTENTIONS REMAIN UNKNOWN
AT THIS TIME, BUT GIVEN HIS WELL-KNOWN PRACTICE OF HIDING
AND FORTIFYING TROOPS AND POSITIONS, I FEEL THIS ESTIMATE
(10,000) IS TOO LOW. THEREFORE, I AM DISPATCHING A RELIEF
FORCE S
TRONG ENOUGH TO DEAL WITH A FULL-SCALE INVASION
AND ATTEMPT TO OCCUPY THE PLANET HAULOVER AS A STEPPINGSTONE TO MORE IMPORTANT AND LUCRATIVE TARGETS IN HUMAN
SPACE. ADEQUATE FORCES WILL BE HELD IN RESERVE TO DEAL
WITH CONTINGENCIES. ENTIRE TASK FORCE IS ON ALERT FOR IMMEDIATE DEPLOYMENT. YOU SHALL RECEIVE PERIODIC UPDATES.
“ ‘2) I AM INFORMING CONFEDERATION MILITARY COMMANDS
AND POLITICAL ENTITIES OF HAULOVER INCURSION BY SEPARATE
MESSAGE.
“ ‘3) RESPECTFULLY REQUEST ALL SCIENTIFIC AND EXPLORATORY
ASSETS NOW BE CONCENTRATED ON DETERMINING POINT OF ORIGIN OF ENEMY FORCES.
“ ‘AGUINALDO.’
“What do you think, Goldie?” Aguinaldo looked up at the lieutenant.
“Deathless prose, sir.”
“Okay, next message.” His fingers flew over the keys. “I want this to go to the commanders of all the Confederation forces with info to the chiefs of all the armed forces of all the Confederation member worlds. Info the president, Berentus, Cazombi, the service chiefs:
“ ‘1) THIS MESSAGE IS A WAR WARNING.
“ ‘2) RETRANSMISSION IS AUTHORIZED TO COMBATANT COMMANDERS ONLY.
“ ‘3) AN ENEMY ALIEN FORCE HAS LANDED ON,’ give the particulars here, ‘ESTIMATED STRENGTH OF INVADING FORCE ESTIMATED
TO BE AT LEAST CORPS SIZED, AS MANY AS 100,000 PERSONNEL.
“ ‘4) YOU ARE HEREBY ORDERED TO DEPLOY, TWENTY-FOURSEVEN, ALL RECONNAISSANCE AND SURVEILLANCE ASSETS IN
YOUR RESPECTIVE AREAS OF OPERATIONS. REPORT TO THIS HQ
IMMEDIATELY, REPEAT, IMMEDIATELY ANY SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY. NO INCIDENT IS TOO INSIGNIFICANT TO REPORT. LOCAL COMMANDERS HAVE FULL DISCRETION TO USE DEADLY FORCE AGAINST
ANY THREATENING ENTITIES DETECTED IN THEIR AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY. PLACE ALL COMBAT, COMBAT-SUPPORT TROOPS, AND NAVAL FORCES UNDER YOUR COMMAND ON ONE-HUNDREDPERCENT ALERT.
“ ‘5) ALL MESSAGES GENERATED IN RESPONSE TO THIS ORDER
WILL BE CODE NAMED “HAULOVER,” GIVEN FLASH PRECEDENCE, AND ADDRESSED TO ME PERSONALLY.
“ ‘6) STAND BY FOR CLARIFICATION AND FURTHER ORDERS AS
THIS SITUATION DEVELOPS.’ ”
Lieutenant Goldfarb’s eyebrows arched. Flash in communications code meant imminent enemy contact, and never having been on the cutting edge of a war, he’d never seen such a message. “That’ll get their attention,” Goldie whispered. “It might also get some innocent folks fried.”
“I’ll take that chance. Goldie, after this goes out you’ll be getting a flood of incoming messages. Give joint action to G2
and G3, info everybody else in staff and command. Now, I want this next one sent directly to that ensign on Haulover, Daly, with info to his chain.” The message read: HOLD THE LINE. HELP IS ON THE WAY. AGUINALDO. Headquarters, Task Force Aguinaldo
“Bitch of a morning, eh?” General Pradesh Cumberland chuckled as he sipped his coffee. The task force staff and commanders had just departed the headquarters briefing to begin their troop deployment missions. Aguinaldo stretched and yawned. “Why does all this always seem to happen between taps and reveille? Why can’t wars start at noon?”
“That was the quickest staff meeting we’ve ever had. I think it only took fifteen minutes to write the operation order for those troops.”
“I think this is it,” Aguinaldo said. “Haulover is an ideal
place to start a world-hopping campaign. Fine. We’ll draw them in and then kill them once and for all. And sooner or later, we’ll find out where they come from and shake their nest to pieces.” He grimaced, smacking a fist into a palm with a dull whack to emphasize destruction of the Skink “nest.” “But they aren’t stupid,” he mused. “They know as much about us, more in fact, than we know about them. Our weapons and tactics, how we think, how we operate. We bloodied their noses on Kingdom. They’ll have learned from that. You bet they’ll have some surprises for us this time.”
General Anders Aguinaldo was right about that.
Read on for a glimpse of WINGS OF HELL
the next Starfist novel by The Grand Master sat at state on a raised dais in his hall. Idly, he watched as a diminutive female knelt before the low lacquered table sitting at his side in convenient reach of his hand. The female poured hot liquid from a delicate pot into a small cup on the table next to a slender vase that held a lone long-stemmed flower—the only ornament on the table. He continued to watch as she placed the pot on the table on the other side of the vase; then she picked up the small cup and delicately drank it down. Drinking complete, the diminutive female replaced the cup, sat back on her heels, folded her hands on her thighs, and waited as impassively as the four Large Ones stood to the rear of the Grand Master, swords ready in their hands to protect their lord from attack. Only then did the Grand Master look away from her and raise a languid hand in signal.
In response, a column of diminutive females appeared from a side entrance to the hall, each bearing a pot of steaming liquid, and went in precise order around the hall, kneeling next to small lacquered tables that sat between the pairs of Great Masters and Over Masters who knelt in ranks before the Grand Master. Each table held two small cups flanking a slender vase with a single long-stemmed flower. The females poured steaming liquid into the cups, then placed the pots on iron trivets that lay behind the tables on the reed mats that covered the floor. The Great Masters and Over Masters were the senior staff of the Grand Master’s corps, and the commanders of his major combat elements and their seconds.
Once all the Great Masters and Over Masters had been served, the Grand Master returned his attention to the female who had served him. When he detected no sign of distress in her countenance or posture, he nodded. She poured a fresh cup of liquid for the Grand Master. The Grand Master took the cup from her hands when she offered it to him, faced the assembled Great Masters and Over Masters, and raised the cup in salute. He waited a beat or two for the assembled upper-rank Masters to raise their cups in return, then spoke: “To our coming great victory!” He quaffed the steaming beverage, then held out the cup for the female to take and refill. The Grand Master’s voice was rugged and raspy; as with nearly all Masters of the Emperor’s army who attained such high rank, he had not exercised his gills in so long that they had atrophied, allowing air from under his arms, as well as from his lungs, to exit through his larynx, and affect his voice. When the Grand Master offered his toast, the assembled staff and major combat unit commanders replied in kind and quaffed.
“The Master, Leaders, and Fighters who attacked the Earthman Marines in their own lair did not survive their mission,” the Grand Master rasped. “But they killed or wounded many of the enemy. The survivors will have already sent a report on the encounter to their headquarters. The report will surely tell the Marine commanders that we are here, on this Earthman mud ball, and they will send more Marines for us to fight and kill.” He grinned, exposing pointed incisors. “We shall soon complete plans for the coming fight, and we will rehearse them until both our staffs and our fighting forces execute them flawlessly.
“This time, as never before, we shall defeat the Earthman Marines!”
Finished speaking, the Grand Master extended his hand for the female kneeling near his side to hand him his refilled cup. He raised the cup in another salute and roared, “Victory!”
WINGS OF HELL
355
The hall reverberated with cries of “Victory!” from his staff and senior commanders. Lieutenant General Pradesh Cumberland, Confederation Army, Deputy Commander of Task Force Aguinaldo, less formally known as “the Skink Force,” stood in the doorway of General Anders Aguinaldo, late Commandant of the Confederation Marine Corps, and cleared his throat. Without looking up from his console, Aguinaldo said,
“Come on in, Pradesh.”
Cumberland did so, shaking his head, wondering not for the first time how the Marine knew he was at the door. Or am I the only one who clears his throat instead of knocking? He closed t
he door behind himself.
“I’ve been going over the most recent personnel reports,”
Aguinaldo said as he finally looked up and waved his deputy to take a seat. He smiled wryly. “Ever since I sent that war warning to the commanders of Confederation forces, I’ve been inundated with requests—make that demands—from planetary presidents, prime ministers, dictators, and oligarchs that I immediately return to their control the forces they committed to the Skink Force, to defend their home worlds.” He snorted. “I even have demands from the senators from each of those worlds insisting that the units be returned.”
“But we—you—can’t do that!” Cumberland said.
“And I won’t,” Aguinaldo agreed. “We’ll need every one of those units by the time this is over. Besides, several of them are already in transit to Haulover.” He shook his head. “So much for the distribution limits I put on that message.”
“You knew the limits would be ignored.”
“I did, indeed.” He leveled a look at his deputy. “I think my war warning woke them up as much as the president’s public announcement of the Skinks’ existence.”
“A wake-up call they likely needed.”
“So long as it doesn’t cause a panic. I’m letting the president deal with that.” Aguinaldo turned his console around so Cumberland could see it. “A fresh communication from what I’ve dubbed ‘Confederation Forces Haulover (Provisional).’ ”
Cumberland quickly read the message: TO: