Sister Time-ARC

by John Ringo

  It was a clap shot but the fucker must have been psychic or something. He rolled just as Clarty got his shot off. It was a hit, a palpable hit, but the fucker made it to cover.

  And the roll told Clarty something else. "He" was a she. You didn't see that much these days.

  He moved around the front of the bulldozer and flipped a slid an optic around the side. Sure enough, she was on the ground trying to plug a nasty hole in her left side.

  "Give it up," Clarty said. "You've fought hard enough for what they pay you."

  "Anybody who fights for pay isn't worth it," the woman gasped. "So fuck you." The M-16 she was carrying came up and his fiber camera was toast.

  "Damn it! Those things are expensive!" Clarty paused. She was in a pretty good position. Digging her out might mean more casualties. Part of his contract with the tribes was double pay for casualties. Keeping them down meant more profit for him. "My point is, fighting to the last man is for situations that are worth it. Not keeping my paws off the Gistar group's tantalum."

  "Like you're going to let any of us live." There was a snort followed by a gasp.

  "Surrender and I'll let you live," Clarty said, mentally kicking himself. He was actually thinking about it. "We'll leave in a bit, Gistar comes back in. Maybe they'll give you a bonus or something."

  "Your word as a pirate, right?"

  "Do you have a better option?"

  "Well, it's bleed out, die fighting or surrender with a grain of hope," the woman said. "I retain my weapon."

  "You use it, and all the hope goes away."

  "Got that."

  He fired the flare for the medic, figuring the worst of the shooting was over. There was still fire from the guards' barracks. The dusty quonset hut sported spatterings of bullet holes and blown out places, jagged holes in the steel. One of the men lobbed in another grenade. What the hell, the building was ruined anyway. No use to his surviving men. He jogged over to the administration building to make sure Goatherd had things under control.

  "Everything okay over here?" the merc asked.

  "Yes. Everything okay." Goatherd was breathing hard, clearly still pumped from the engagement. His eyes darted around as they were talking, looking for threats.

  Clarty gestured towards the battered door, "You searched inside?"

  "Yes. The doors and inside, it like that when we got here. We not take things."

  "Okay. Wait here." That sounded like it might be trouble. If they had a satellite phone he'd have to check the bird schedules—or God forbid an AID. He'd better take a look himself. If the Gistar people had gotten word out, he'd have to load up the cargo choppers and leave now. He wanted to stick around and put the Indowy to work mining more, haul out as much additional ore as they could before the inevitable counterstrike to knock them out of here. Unlike most of his jobs, on this one he was getting a percentage of the haul. Rictis was getting a little long in the tooth, and he'd sure like to net enough to buy a juv job. Black market, sure, but still, two hundred years instead of five hundred, maybe, and just about all of it younger than he was now. He wanted a good haul bad.

  When he didn't find a satellite phone or AID in the office, he didn't relax yet. There had to be one in the compound, and search of the supervisor's office still remained. The assault had been fast. If they were lucky, nobody'd had time to get to it. He'd also have to have the bodies searched. He saw someone had broken into the office after something, most likely commo. It surprised him that anyone had managed to get there that fast.

  Goatherd followed along during the search, clearly anxious that his men not be accused of misconduct.

  "Start searching the bodies. Look for anything that looks like a little black box about so big." The lighter-skinned man gestured to indicate an AID's cigarette pack size. "Also, look for anything that looks even a little bit like this." He handed Goatherd his PDA. "Don't lose that. I'll want it back."

  He did stop on the way back past the now-ruined barracks to help stabilize the wounded until the medic got to them. Even if the word had gone out, he needed these guys. Be a shame to lose one to lousy first aid. Afterwards, he radioed the chopper crews to tell them the mine was secured and get them in the air and inbound. Once they were on the way, he searched the supervisor's house himself. There should be something for communications in it. At least he hoped so, because otherwise his people were going to have to tear the mine compound apart looking for it or assume the worst.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he found a Personality Solutions' PDA, complete with Suzie Cue personality overlay and satellite phone, on an end table next to a half-drunk beer, clearly from the night before. Here was the supervisor's personal link out, the lucky bastard, and he had definitely not had time to use it. Then again, not so lucky—the fancy phone hadn't done the stiff much good after all.

  This was going to be one hell of a big strike, alright. They should have at least four days, maybe a week, before Gistar got worried about the silence from their operation, assumed foul play and hired somebody to come in and dig them out. Bateman should phone him as soon as Gistar started putting together a strike, but he wasn't going to bet his life on it. The other guys' lives, sure, but not his own. He usually cultivated a reputation for taking care of the men he hired, but when it came right down to it, he was a mercenary because he could be bought. The money for this job was mighty attractive—attractive enough to override his few scruples. He'd be mounting a guard, but he'd also be sleeping up at the mine "for security."

  Nobody with any sense would mount an assault coming in over the big hill of the mine. Not when the approach on three sides was as inviting as that bowl. He'd pick himself a good spot, and first sign of the counterattack, he'd bug out over the hill. The first planned stop of one of his choppers was to park an ATV on the backside of the hill and camouflage it. The pilots were fellow professionals, they knew the score, and knew the bonus they'd get for retrieving him at the emergency pickup.

  First plan, of course, was to get the hell out of here before the counterattack showed up, which was why his choppers were carrying a dozen IR motion detectors to put out around the rim of the bowl, as well as equipment to pick up radio chatter. It was a fact that his competitors' radio discipline tended not to be worth a shit. Fundamental economics. Most raiders were simple bandits, operative word being simple. Very few raids were commissioned by a buyer, and even fewer by someone willing to pay Clarty's rates. He had to do a speculative raid or two to keep himself in beer and skittles, but everybody did. He got raids for hire, too, because he was a cut above the typical half-assed thugs in the same business.

  Gistar would hire enough men to overwhelm him with numbers, no question. Counter-attackers in these kinds of operations would customarily leak radio chatter on purpose, on multiple frequencies. An informal convention between mercs. If he and his bugged out before they arrived, Gistar's random collection of rabble got to walk in without a fight. After all, everybody had to know the attackers didn't seriously intend to hold the mine. The Darhel authorities that had subleased the original mining concession to Gistar wouldn't stand for it. That was all presuming the guy Gistar hired to lead it wasn't a total dumbass. On the other hand, if he was that stupid, it'd be less trouble to get by him.

  It should all work out okay for the men he'd hired, but when all was said and done, Rictis was willing to take more risks with their hides than with his own.

  Now it was time to go explain the new realities to the Indowy, who had, predictably, been hiding in their own barracks until the humans quit killing each other.

  Thursday, 11/18/54

  In a white-walled room, a young woman, an old woman, and a young man sat in front of three desks. Each wore a phone headset. The old woman was knitting. The young man was playing a combat game based on the Posleen war. The young woman was reading a textbook on advanced gravitic physics. The latter two had their buckleys projecting the time-killers of their choice in front of them. The game holograms were squashed, of course, but
tricks of perspective compensated for the lack.

  The girl kept shifting. A crack in her chair made it sag slightly, suggesting to her that it might give way at any moment and dump her onto the floor. The young man sat balanced forward, stoically bearing the tendency of his own metal-legged chair to rock between said legs. The two had deferred to the older woman to the extent of letting her have the good chair. She was overdue for rejuv, but as with everything else, there was a shortage of the proper drugs. They had all heard the rumors that the nano-tanks had been refurbed and medical would soon begin catching up again. They hoped so. Mallory's arthritis had gotten to be a pure misery. To Mallory, from the pain. To them, from compassion and because the liniment she wore tended fill their small work area with noxious and mediciny smells.

  The beat up desks weren't much better than the chairs. Instead of artificial windows, two sides of the room had improvised posters—they'd taped together six sheets of eight and a half by eleven printer plastic to form improvised scenes of a beach and a sidewalk cafe. Beside the posters, each had two more sheets of plastic thumbtacked to cork board. The printed calendar pages each had the same pair of weekends blocked out in lime green highlighter pen.

  The first week, the three had done the final proofing of resumes and mailed them out. The backgrounds of the accounts closely resembled the backgrounds and identities of the applicants in just one respect. All were convincingly fictional. All went out through very sincere accounts which would match up with each identity.

  After that, work had gotten dull, with nothing to do but wait for exactly what happened next. The old blue police light fastened to the ceiling started flashing at the same moment as the old woman's buckley started ringing, displaying a name and pertinent facts on a screen it projected in front of her. Three other things happened immediately after. The younger woman and the man's buckleys shut off what they were doing and started playing suitable office background noises, and the old woman dropped her knitting, eyes rapidly taking in the review that told her who she was supposed to be and which identity had gotten a bite on the line.

  "Actuarial Solutions, Ashley speaking, how may I help you?"

  The other side of the conversation played only through the woman's earbug. The girl listened absently, nibbling on a rough corner of her thumbnail.

  "Yes, Mr. Thomason is employed here. Shall I transfer you to him? Thank you."

  The three waited for two or three minutes to make sure the caller was not going to ask to be transferred to back to the receptionist. When it appeared the caller had found holomail satisfactory, the light stopped flashing, the two time-killing displays for the young people flashed back to life, and old Miss Mallory picked up her knitting.

  "Damn. I died," the young man said.

  George was a good six meters up the sheer cliff face when one of the hand holds crumbled away in his grasp. Never daydream when you're climbing, he berated himself as he slid loose, with nothing to grab onto, and the ground coming fast. He was only halfway through the thought when the bungee cord kicked in, grabbing his harness and bouncing him around in the air. He lowered himself to the ground, swearing silently. Whoever decided to add the combination of plaster and holos to climbing walls was a sadist of the first order. At the moment, the diminutive assassin wanted very much to meet that man, or woman, in a dark alley.

  "Those decoys are a bitch," a soft female voice drawled behind him.

  He jumped. "Hello, Cally." The other assassin was the only person he knew who was a good enough sneak to come up behind him unnoticed. He really wished she'd quit. At least she didn't laugh out loud. This time. Payback was hell. He grinned, unhooking himself and reaching for a gym towel.

  "You have mail," his buckley blinked at him.

  He held a hand up to Cally. "Hang on, I've gotta get this."

  "I know," she said.

  He quirked an eyebrow at her before picking up the PDA. "Kira, play message."

  "Message is confidential, honey," it said.

  "It's okay. Play it anyway," he told it.

  A ten inch tall hologram of a woman, seated with a background that suggested an office appeared in the air in front of him. "Mr. Thomason, this is Clare from The Institute for Advancement of Human Welfare. We received your resume for a research support statistician." She smiled a polite, office smile. "We'd like to set up a time for an interview. If you could please call us back at your earliest convenience, we can set up that time. Thank you."

  "You got a bite," Cally said, as the woman disappeared. She held out a small handful of cubes to him. "I brought you a handful of hypno cubes to sleep to. I know you've got the equivalent of a bachelors in stats, but that cover was a long time ago. Sorry about the headaches."

  He sighed, taking the cubes. Effective hypnosleep required a drug and headgear apparatus to stimulate the right kinds of brainwaves to synchronize sleep levels with the program on the cube. Invariably, the sleep induced was not particularly restful, and the rig induced a nagging headache throughout the next day. The drug contained nannite-based components both to bypass some of the Bane Sidhe drug immunities and to ensure that the operative would sleep despite a discomfort allegedly similar to a twentieth-century woman sleeping in curlers. It gave George a wholly unwanted sympathy for what women went through to look good for their men. It was knowledge he could have done without.

  "Okay, so I win the prize." He pocketed the small lumps. "So I get the cover job. Do we know how big the gizmo is? How awkward is it going to be for the guy who gets to take it in?"

  "It's heavy enough. Not big, but dense. Michelle says it's about a hundred kilos. I'd assume the Indowy use a grav platform to move it."

  "We can't screw with gravity without sending most of the instrumentation in the place haywire. Not with the organization's equipment in the shape it's in—not to mention the added bulk. So even for the enhanced, it's going to be awkward. Okay," he said.

  "Fine. Book it. Let me know when your interview is." She turned and walked across the gym to the door at the far end, dodging a pickup basketball game on the way.

  He watched her butt as she went. He had no complaints with the rest of her figure, it was just that cute buns were his thing. Having a lot of basis for comparison, Cally O'Neal's ass was one of the finer ones he'd seen. Definitely worth watching. When she turned to look back, just short of the door, he pretended great interest in the game on the court.

  Friday, 11/19/54

  The Darhel Tir Dol Ron was having a quiet day. A day, in fact, so quiet that his only occupation was playing one of a number of Human games he'd been given as a gift from the Human Billy Stuart, and loaded onto his AID. Darhel did not have this practice of gifts. Nor did they participate in the elaborate economy of favors practiced among the other Galactic races, holding any exchange that didn't specify contractual terms and store them in an impeccably reliable third party database to be primitive and uncivilized—not to mention being far to short of maneuvering room about the "spirit" of the deal. He neither knew, nor cared, if the Human expected a return favor or not. If he did, his stupidity was not the Tir's problem.

  This game was simplistic to the point of mindlessness, but there was something compelling about the turning and falling shapes, and the click of virtual buttons necessary to cause them to lock into place cleanly. Watching the blocky, multicolored shapes fall was almost a meditative experience, until the fall rate got too fast and the falling distance too short for even Darhel reaction times.

  "Your Tir, I have a page incoming from the Gistar Group's planetary factor, on Titan Base." The mellifluous voice which could so daze other species had no effect on him, other than being a pleasant choice for his AID. It would have been pleasant, that is, if it hadn't startled him, causing him to miss a shape and lose his game. He uttered a muffled curse and heaved his well-fleshed bulk up from the cushions. The sedentary years on Earth had taken a certain toll and he resolved, for the umpteenth time, to visit the gym more often. And to spend more time off this d
amned backwater of a planet.

  "Display the call," he grumbled, stilling his face and body language as the AID phased the holo in. There was no technical reason it couldn't have displayed a sharp image immediately, it had just learned he liked the effect.

  "Yes?" he demanded of the other group's underling. This underling, of course, sometimes had to be treated as if he spoke for the Gistar Tir because, effectively, he did.

  "One of our mines on your planet was attacked and taken over by hostiles. Yesterday, by Earth time. We've traced the attackers to Group Epetar, although they certainly didn't intend us to discover their actions this soon. How are you going to fix it?" The other Darhel's ears were pricked forward, aggressively.