Sister Time-ARC

by John Ringo

  The third and fourth floors were crawling with guards, enough that those more-desired routes of egress were impassable. In both cases, upon encountering hostiles, their team leader had managed to smile and nod, pacing and turning just as if she had reached the end of her own assigned route, and getting them all the hell out of there.

  The problem with the second floor was that it contained one of the observation decks for a central double-floor demonstration area. It was very likely the place from which Michelle's spy had filmed their initial cube of enemy operations. This meant that the route across the second floor to the necessary freight elevator was more than three times as long than any of the other floors. That one freight elevator was the only access to the loading dock through which all routine supplies came in, and all innocuous trash traveled out.

  Cally stopped, up ahead, and started backpedaling towards the rest of them. The old man tensed, then relaxed into a certain boneless looseness—the kind of looseness that in cats and warriors presages a flurry of preternatural speed. Weight forward on his toes, he could feel the air singing between the team members, buzzing with channeled adrenaline, as their point faded back, just in front of Tommy and himself. He heard voices around the corner, voices of the guards that had caused her to stop.

  "Are you cold? I'm freezing. Here's a couple of bucks. Why don't you go back down to the break room and grab us each a cup of coffee while I finish the loop of this floor?"

  The mumble that followed was unintelligible.

  "That's why they have us in pairs, right? Nah, it's okay. Have a cup on me. Yeah, meet you back at this floor's lobby, alright? Good."

  The first guard's voice was friendly, decent. Too bad the guy was probably about to die. The team waited, standing silent.

  Then Cally was moving forward again, motioning them to follow, then stay. She walked ahead to the corner, peered around, nodded, and motioned them forward again. There was something . . . different. Still, he'd trained her since she was a child. His confidence in her field abilities was absolute.

  As they turned the last corner to the freight elevator, he understood. Leaning against the wall, out of their way, waited a large, dark-haired soldier in the uniform of US SOCOM and Fleet Strike's Direct Action Group for Counterterror. He stood, silently, as they approached, pausing only to touch the front of his cover with one hand as they passed.

  "Hi, Aunt Cally," he said. "Dad," he nodded as Tommy wheeled by.

  The Bane Sidhe agent watched them safely onto the elevator, team and cargo together. As the doors closed, Papa saw the young man resume his patrol, down the hall and away from them. Always a pleasure to see a well-grown, respectful, young man.

  Tommy had had a few seconds near enough to George to, after watching Cally go all misty and then snap right back into gear, hiss, "I give the fuck up. How???"

  Their rear guard shrugged, keeping his words quiet enough that he hoped she couldn't hear him, when she'd gone up ahead. "Kick the hardest guy hard enough and he rattles—in a guy way. Kick a hardass woman hard enough and she rattles, too. Give a token soothing to the little girl, and you've got the operative back. Cally was hung up in a rare, girl moment. She's better now," he said.

  "No shit," Sunday nodded.

  Just for a moment, Papa looked suspiciously like the side of his mouth was trying to quirk upwards. Then the rest of the team was past the moment, too.

  "Whaddya wanna bet she kicks his ass?" the deadly little man muttered.

  "No bet," the ACS vet and long-married man muttered out of the corner of his mouth as the subject of their clandestine conversation beckoned them forth, shooting them a darkly suspicious glare.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  General Robert Foxglove, a one-star staff officer within SOCOM, had been less than thrilled to get a call from an AID outside the service. Particularly an AID he had to listen to, like the one belonging to the Darhel Pardal's pet mentat. Foxglove owed a lot to the Epetar group. One thing in particular was the ability to live comfortably on his own salary while his ex-wife enjoyed the life to which she had once become accustomed. The counter-intel guys didn't twig to it because the money wasn't coming to him. His ex-wife was merely too occupied with a conveniently rich toy-boy to bug him about money for alimony or to support his ex-kids. Nobody suspected a man was being paid off merely because he lived within his own salary. He was just a guy lucky enough to have an ex who wasn't a platinum-plated, grasping bitch. She was, of course, but the Epetar group had long insulated him from that reality in return for a few discreet favors.

  The favor required, in this case, was going to be a royal pain in the ass. He had tried to confirm it with the Darhel himself, in the hope of getting out of it. Unfortunately, his own AID had been typically snippy about getting that august personage on the line—even more so than usual. The General interpreted the silence to mean discussion of his alien master's instructions, delivered by proxy, was neither necessary nor desired. The humiliation stuck in the man's craw, but he was, by now, used to the myriad small humiliations and indignities that the Darhel heaped on their minions.

  The bitch of it was that the favor would have been easy if that asshole, Pennington, would only play ball. Unfortunately, the commanding officer of DAG was a starchy bastard who had chosen to get sticky about deploying troops under his command to the strictly temporary, necessary effort of providing supplemental security to an important Epetar Group project. Okay, so they had reason to be miffed at Epetar right now, maybe, but that shouldn't matter because the facility didn't have any open links to the Epetar Group. None of the men would know of any connection, anyway. And it wasn't as if DAG wasn't pulling the cherries of one Darhel group or another out of the fire every other mission, whenever the perpetual rivalries or petty piracy resulted in one kind of violence or another against the aliens' legitimate business interests.

  Pennington had a real corncob up his ass about this one, though. Foxglove had had to pull in an important, and rare, favor from one of the Joint Chiefs to get the original orders to come down through the appropriate chain of command and force the uncooperative bastard's hand. Even then, he had only gotten the most grudging, limited assistance available for his clandestine masters—a paltry two squads. His Darhel associates—as he thought of them, though they would have said masters—hadn't been happy. He thought the other general might be having a fit of idealistic pique over that Epetar-Gistar mess at that mine in Africa. Dammit, the modern world couldn't afford those kinds of juvenile temper tantrums over necessary expedients.

  Anyway, his present problem was that Pennington had extended his complete unreason to a flat refusal to order reinforcement of the security detachment in question without direct orders from above. It wasn't as if the other general couldn't have done it, entirely legitimately and within his orders, on his own initiative. It wasn't as if Foxglove himself didn't have a firm reputation for returning favors, and for having the ability to do so. No, the man just had to be an asshole about it.

  Which put Foxglove between the proverbial rock and a hard place. He couldn't go back to the well with the Joint Chiefs. His capital was burned up there, as had been made painfully clear when he'd called in the initial favor. He had to get those troops. Epetar had him by the short hairs, dammit, and the Darhel didn't react well to failure.

  The best way to handle it, he had decided, was to follow the old adage about it being easier to get forgiveness than permission. He couldn't get Epetar's active assistance before the fact, damn Pardal's power games in refusing to take calls. However, he was too damned convenient to them for them to leave his ass swinging in the wind. His only choice was to take a few risks now and rely on them to cover for him after. At least the mentat's AID had been willing and able to help. Using its master's authority, it had convinced Pennington's AID to conveniently ignore incoming calls, and experience "technical difficulties" with outgoing calls for the next eight hours. He hoped it would be enough.

  "Daisy, get me Colonel Jacob Mosovich
on the horn," he told his AID.

  "Yes, Bob," it husked.

  Jake's first thought when his AID informed him that one General Foxglove was calling was, "What the hell does this dick want?" It was at best bad form to speak ill of a superior officer. Unofficially, there were some assholes it was damned hard to speak well of.

  Mosovich's long military experience had taught him that there were officers you could count on to take care of both the officers under their command, and their men. Then there were officers who fit the military profile of "active stupid"—which generally meant that their officers and men were left to make the CO's hare-brained orders work however they could, or catch nine kinds of hell for his incompetence. The Colonel knew from both reputation and personal experience that Bob Foxglove was one of the latter, and was in his current staff position not for the sake of career development, but as an expedient for getting a politically connected, dumbass weasel into the spot where he could do the least harm.

  "Good afternoon, General. What can I do for you, sir?"

  "Colonel, I've been unable to reach General Pennington, and apparently I'm not the only one. My call is regarding your security mission with The Humanity Project. Their CEO, the Mentat Erick Winchon, has informed SOCOM that an associated facility was attacked this morning. He declined to provide details, but said he believes an attack on their facility may be imminent," the general said, as if expecting Mosovich to be impressed with his important connections to this Winchon individual.

  When Mosovich didn't reply, Foxglove continued, "This is a strong indication of an imminent terrorist attack that requires DAG reinforcing its . . . ahem . . . unusually small detachment on site. I have done everything I can to contact Pennington, with no luck. I was hoping that his standing orders to you would allow you to begin deploying while we continue our efforts to reach him."

  Jake was silent for a few moments, but for once, Foxglove didn't seem to be in a hurry for an answer. "Let's try him once more. Maybe he's back in touch. AID, conference in General Pennington, please," the colonel instructed. He had noticed that Bob didn't say who at SOCOM had been informed.

  "I'm sorry, Jake. I can't reach him," his AID said.

  Damn. The commanding officer of DAG avoided letting his mental grimace show on his face and made a decision. He could begin movement while his AID continued to try his CO. The general would probably be more effective getting additional information on the threat than a colonel would, and he might even sabotage his boss's efforts by pushing too hard with this particular asshole right now.

  "Yes, General, my orders do allow for further deployment on my own initiative. Please forward me all the intelligence information SOCOM has, and any more that comes in, of course. Meanwhile, we will begin moving out as soon as possible. Thank you for the information, sir," he said. Then, to his AID, deliberately within hearing of Foxglove, who he didn't trust farther than he could spit, "AID, please keep trying General Pennington until you do reach him. Keep me informed of your progress."

  "Of course, Jake," it said.

  "Thank you for your cooperation, Colonel," the one-star cut the connection, leaving the lieutenant colonel staring at the empty space and silently cursing all politicians, civilian and military.

  "Get me Mueller and Kelly."

  "Right away, sir," the AID sounded almost relieved, which was odd. Maybe he'd imagined it.

  Major Kelly stood in front of his CO and only had two words in his head: "oh shit." Colonel Mosovich was a hell of an officer and one hell of an operator in his own right. Kelly had hated to have to deceive him by holding back the fundamental nature of DAG's dual loyalties. It smacked of dishonor and had been the hardest thing about the mustang officer's job since the day he first reported to boot camp. Now, he was finally going to have to come clean, and couldn't help being ashamed even though there were vital reasons for the dual loyalties and the deception, and a perfect opening for confessions to the colonel. Not to mention how Mueller was going to react.

  "Sir, we need to discuss a great deal without interruption," the XO said.

  The old man nodded and walked Mueller and him outside, away from the AIDs, who would punish them later, in small ways, for the exclusion.

  "That bit about not knowing what you might be getting into brings up something, actually a lot of big things, that you now have a need to know, sir."

  "Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this?" Jake asked his XO.

  "Because you absolutely are not. First, I and most of DAG already know exactly what we are going into, and you now need to know how."

  "This is more than just feedback from our men on temporary duty up there." It wasn't a question.

  "Yes, sir, it is. The answers go way back. First, Michael O'Neal, Senior, who you worked with in Vietnam, did not die in the nuclear explosion at Rabon Gap but is very much alive, rejuved, and working for a covert organization with a very, very similar mission to DAG's." He waited to see what the old man would say.

  "You sound like you have direct personal knowledge of this. I am not happy to just be hearing about whatever this is, and I will be even less happy if I have to drag it out of you in bits and drabs."

  Mueller was glowering silently, since this mess was the colonel's situation to deal with.

  "Yes, sir. Other veterans of special units, listed as dead, are clandestinely alive and part of this organization, primarily because the civilian authorities have been compromised." Kelly suppressed a sigh. The Colonel's scowl was expected, but not encouraging. Of course.

  "Sir, you and the rest of the services—the uncompromised rest of the services—know this full well," he said to his impassive superior.

  "Sounds like you're telling me they've been compromised in two directions, major," Mosovich said expressionlessly.

  "That's certainly one interpretation, sir. Those of us, and I do mean us, who are members of this other organization think that the fundamental nature of the mission matters. Our mission is congruent with DAG's stated mission, with what the mission is openly presented as supposed to be, and the Darhel's mission is not. To be complete, we were not recruited, unless you count recruiting from the cradle. We joined DAG second, for the training," he admitted to his rightly furious CO, "and not one of us has ever acted counter to DAG's orders and missions while serving."

  "While serving," the colonel repeated grimly.

  "Sir, respectfully, we never act counter to the interests of humanity. Yes, that's as we perceive them, but as a resistance to the pernicious actions and aims of the Darhel, which you know damned well they have by now, we have ethics. If one of us reaches a situation where he can't obey orders here, he leaves. Sometimes it's officially feet first, but he leaves. To the extent DAG's actions are genuinely counter-terror or neutral to humanity's welfare, or not pernicious in a way contrary to humanity's vital interests, we serve honorably."

  "Your definition of honor leaves something to be desired, major."

  "Perhaps, sir. Unless honor is cooperating with the forces that have compromised national command authority with extremely negative intentions towards humanity as a whole, and the United States as a part of humanity."

  "I'll be goddammed!" Mueller exclaimed. The outburst, given the situation, and the dumbfounded enlightenment on the man's face, warranted explanation.

  "Sir, what do you remember Iron Mike's dad looking like?" the sergeant major asked. "I knew I knew you fuckers from somewhere!"

  "Fuck," Mosovich said, the light finally dawning. "How many of you are his damn kids? That fucking asshole. When I get hold of him, I'm going to kill him. Or kick his ass. I haven't decided which yet. Well?"

  "Kids, grandkids," Kelly shrugged and grinned. "Very close friend's kids and grandkids, other lifetime members—a bit more than half the company, sir."

  "You know, major, I have never thought of myself as an incompetent officer—not once—until this very moment. More than half my fucking command, right under my nose," he rubbed his face in both hands, absor
bing the truth, clearly furious.

  "Sir, think back about how these men have served you, and how Papa O'Neal served with you. Then think about just why we had to leave those AIDs back there in the office. If you don't think there's a right and a wrong here, there's definitely a better and a worse."

  "You'll pardon me, son, if that's not a lot of comfort right now," Jake's scowl had returned. "Leaving off that, for awhile, suppose you tell me exactly what we're facing up the road, since I don't doubt that what I thought were my two squads are actually your two squads, Kelly."

  "Sir, you're a damned good officer. Don't take that away from yourself. After a few thousand years of covert operation, an organization gets pretty good." He shrugged at his CO's expression. "Yes, sir, it's been a very long war, and it ain't half over yet."