Sister Time-ARC

by John Ringo

  "You were going to tell me about the mission, not flatter me, son."

  "Yes, sir. The facility we're being sent in to guard is an Epetar-owned facility. It is a facility in which atrocities of the very, very worst kind take place every day, against innocent men, women, and children, sir."

  "Go on." The colonel was giving nothing away. Kelly didn't suppose he would have been, either.

  "The 'attack' the Epetar Group is expecting is real, is more serious than they expect, and is designed to remove the equipment they are using to commit those atrocities. The atrocities are involved with testing a particular alien technology for widespread application against humans."

  "More."

  "Mind control, sir. The other officers and men don't have that specific information, sir."

  "Well, finally I know something that everybody else in my command didn't know first. Not that it doesn't sound like fucking science fiction. Thank you so much, Kelly."

  At least he had said "Kelly" and not just the more impersonal "major."

  "Yes, sir. Sir, in your place I would be just as pissed, but knowing you, and Sergeant Major Mueller, I strongly believe that you will, upon reflection, realize the nature of the mission as in the vital interests of everything you hold sacred and the failure to tell you as necessary OpSec, no matter how unpleasant. And personally distasteful, I might add, sir. Sir, until this moment, you did not have a need to know."

  "I'm still making up my mind about that."

  "Sir, I might also point out that our organization is far more closely aligned with the interests and intent of the honestly elected, un-bribed, and un-blackmailed components of the legitimate civilian authority than those we oppose. Far, far more."

  "It's that 'far more' part that still concerns me, son."

  "Where possible, where the public has not been deceived in a way that is overwhelmingly adverse to their interests, identical. In the case of non-vital deception of the body politic by the enemy, we make every effort to stay aligned with the uncompromised, legitimate civilian authority."

  "I notice a lot of wiggle room in that description, son."

  "All I can tell you, sir, is that you should consider it highly unlikely that some of the best of the best of the veterans of the war would sign on with anything less, sir. Or would permit anything less on their watch, sir. Then consider the exigencies of the circumstances. It's not an easy call to make, sir."

  "Except that by your own admission you and half my men have never known anything else."

  "No, sir. All I can say is that the father or grandfather of a number of the rest of your troopers is an honorably discharged veteran of both the Ten Thousand and the ACS. You've got to make up your own mind, sir, but you don't have much time to do it in."

  "And whose fault is that?" Mosovich said sourly.

  "Sorry, sir. No excuse, sir."

  "Oh, shut up, Kelly. Get the men moving and I'll decide whether or not I'm going to shoot you later." He did not add: as I expect you'll decide whether or not you're going to shoot me. He didn't have to.

  "Yes, sir." Kelly answered. The old man was not joking, and he knew it. Then again, considering how he would have felt if it had been him, he had expected nothing else.

  Mosovich pulled his XO aside before addressing the men.

  "Kelly. I am buying your story, but God help you if I find you have lied to me," he didn't say again, "in any particular of this, because I will shoot you and every single member of your little cabal. Do you read me?" The old veteran added to himself, Unless you shoot me first, which you will if I'm wrong about you. God help us all, anyway.

  He couldn't have known that one third of the Bane Sidhe operatives in the briefing room heard him, quite clearly, with their enhanced hearing. Their faces gave no sign as they sat at the desks used, between missions, for training classes.

  "All right, men. We have been ordered to the The Institute for Human Welfare on the basis of receiving intelligence that there may be an attack there by forces hostile to them. You will notice that I did not describe the attackers as 'terrorist forces.' We have intelligence of an impending attack. We also have internal intelligence that this facility is a front for the Epetar Group and that said facility is engaged in activities that would, themselves, fall within our organizational definitions of terrorism. According to our information, the attackers are members of an organized vigilante group."

  It could not have been his imagination that some of his men looked at him a little sharper, while one or two might have looked the slightest bit shamefaced. The holo of the building he told his PDA to display took up a third of the empty space in the front of the room, before the ranks of desks. His XO had ensured that there were no AIDs in the room, to the reported chagrin of one FNG who had not yet learned to remain emotionally detached from the treacherous little machine.

  "DAG's mission is to stop a terrorist act in case of an attack," he stated deliberately. "To that end, the Epetar Group are known associates of and supporters of terrorists, as each of you knows from recent personal experience. Our intelligence indicates that the Epetar people are holding civilian captives in the basement areas of the building. Note that our mission is not to initiate attack, but to respond against terrorism if one occurs. In the event of an attack on the facility, which we confidently expect to occur, our counter-terror mission dictates that we liberate those captives." He scanned the room, making eye-contact with individual officers and men. "To that end, you are to consider the vigilantes friendlies with objectives of their own separate from ours."

  "The Epetar people believe we are coming up as security forces in support of them," Jake continued. "We will encourage them in that belief as long as possible in order to infiltrate the facility. In line with that, they are expecting us to report to this area," he pointed to a loading dock on one end of the building, "for briefing on the situation and deployment within the building. Which we will do."

  "We will be carrying buckley PDAs, and only buckley PDAs, for full compatibility of communications, secure from the enemy. We will insist on keeping members of the same platoons as close together as possible. I do not anticipate any trouble persuading the Epetar people to comply."

  "Major Kelly will brief you on the mission plan for location and liberation of hostages."

  Specialist Quackenbush, 19, who did not know that his company XO now classed him as "the FNG with the AID," stopped one of the other guys in his platoon as they rechecked their webgear for the mission prescribed equipment. "Hey, what the fuck is up with these mission orders? Vigilantes? Corporate terrorists? Is the old man off his nut? I mean, what the fuck are his fucking orders? Really, honest to God, is he insane? Dude, I'm seriously asking."

  "What the fuck is your problem, Quackenbush?" Specialist Grady hissed. "If you think for one moment that the old man would disobey his orders, or maybe you don't have confidence in the rest of your chain of command, then what the hell are you doing in the service and how the hell did you make it here?"

  "Well excuse me for breathing, Grady. You find nothing strange about this?"

  "Cherry, did you ever maybe think we've got the term 'Fucking New Guy' for a reason? Shut the fuck up and follow your orders. The old man knows what he's doing."

  Quackenbush received a professional ass-chewing that took less than half a minute and left him feeling about two inches high when Sergeant Mauldin relieved him of his AID, again, before they climbed into the choppers, popping the little computer neatly into some kind of envelope and tossing it in the back of one of the jeeps in the motor pool before climbing into the bird. He grimaced as he tried to orient the PDA that the sergeant had shoved into his hands instead so that he'd be able to use the thing, and hoped it didn't snow or something and break his AID. This buckley didn't even have a damn personality overlay. He shut up miserably in his seat among the other Bravo guys. He was in the doghouse for sure, and right now had no idea whether the world had gone crazy or he had.

  Sergeant Major Mueller pul
led him aside a few minutes later as they got off the chopper. The enlisted man resigned himself to another ass-chewing and maybe even an article fifteen.

  "Look, son," the old sergeant clapped a hand on his shoulder in a fatherly manner. "You're in a counter-terror unit. We're liberating civilian hostages. Just keep your eye on the ball, and your mind on the mission. You'll do just fine. And if you don't, I'm going to shove a size sixteen boot up your ass so far my toe is going to be kicking your tonsils."

  The loading bay was large, for what it held. Three stories high and a bit larger than half a basketball court, it stood mostly empty. Made largely of Earthtech materials, the Galtech portions had the look of replacements and repairs, as if someone had been uninterested in building new, but had had such ready access to Galtech materials that cost was an afterthought whenever anything needed repairs. Boxes stood in palleted stacks along the walls, separated in clumps as if grouped for type. A couple of forklifts sat in the middle of the floor, as if their operators had knocked off without parking them away.

  The mass of men in green-detailed coveralls either ignored it or leaned against it as they listened to the shift supervisor explain why they had all been called in after six o'clock on a fucking Friday. Turned out one of the suits had a wild hair up his ass about some corporate raid that probably existed only in his imagination. The general mood among the guards whose shift it wasn't was pissed off, except for the ones who really needed the double-time pay, coming up on Christmas. The general mood among the guards whose shift it was was pissed off, on account of not getting paid double-time along with the other guys.

  The half a dozen DAG troops who weren't actively patrolling had positioned themselves on one side of the mass of security guards, giving them a clear field of fire across the bay. They had picked the side nearest some stacks of boxes they could retreat behind for cover. That gave them the cover boxes, and the boxes on the far side of the hostiles, to absorb ricochets in the bay. The haphazard mix of galplas and cinderblock walls were unlikely to be fun as backstops. Better to ruin the enemies' day than their own.

  Six specwar troopers with pistols and shotguns, allegedly loaded with rock salt, versus sixty armed idiots. The odds were jimmied by the two or three juved war veterans, riffed out and working at whatever they could get on planet. That, plus the shells in the DAG guns, all of them, which were supposed to be rock salt but weren't. Buckshot was downright unpleasant for Human targets. The Bane Sidhe operatives, which all of them also were, had each security guard classified more in the category of "target" than "Human." To the extent that they considered the guards people at all, the men classed every facility guard based on their willing employment in support of an organization committing atrocities against civilians. Nobody in DAG, Bane Sidhe or not, had problems with killing bad people.

  The DAG guys had no anticipation that they would be killing these particular guards in this particular place, or in the next few hours, or at all. They each followed the general principle of having a plan to kill everyone he met. When off duty, but together, the counterterror troops resembled a wolf pack between hunts. When operational, the troops—being all O'Neals and in the same unit, to boot—moved in a an easy flow so coordinated it was almost telepathic.

  Their distribution now differed little in kind from their distribution around the civilian security people for the past couple of weeks. The specifics followed the tactical situation. Without ever seeming to realize why, one or two of the guards had developed a strange tendency to jump at small noises when the DAG guys were around.

  Cally, still taking point, opened the door to the loading bay and immediately tried to step backwards through it, seeing that Mr. Murphy had finally struck with a vengeance. Unfortunately, she'd been seen.

  "Hey! No, goddammit, don't you dare leave. You're fucking late and I'm not repeating myself just because some asshole who couldn't be on time didn't get the memo. Get your ass down here, and you better believe I'm docking your pay for this. Who's your supervisor?" All of this left the Chicago-native shift supervisor's mouth in a rapid-fire staccato burst, without pause for breath.

  He was approaching the base of the stairs as he said it, obviously to continue chewing her out, so instead of retreating, Cally continued down the right half-flight of stairs, noting the six inch steel rim rising at the floor of the landing and running along the line of the stairs down on each side. She'd seen better cover, and worse.

  Having seen the troops deployed along a line at right angles from her team's angle of entry, and realizing that an unintentional ambush could still be close enough for government work, counting the odds, she made an instantaneous decision.

  "Might as well come on guys, we're in the soup but good," she called back over her shoulder.

  "Oh, so there's more of you lazy ass slack— Hey! What shift are you on anyw—"

  Cally's draw was a smooth blur. She had whittled it free of unnecessary movement like a gunsmith floating a barrel, then embedded in muscle memory with daily dry-fire practice. The buckley monitored to track her progress over time. She had been stable for many years now. If draw speed had had a formal competition class, she would have long ago achieved high master status.

  Even with an unfamiliar gun and holster, the shift supervisor's body was jerking from the round between his eyes as the very first vestiges of bewilderment were crossing his face. Then his body was shielding hers as she carried him right with her, forward and behind a barrel. His extra magazines were on his belt, and she couldn't possibly have gotten them loose on the fly. She was damned good, but there were things even she couldn't do. For a female operative whose full enhancement gave her the strength, including upper body, of a supremely fit man—with none of the extra bulk—the fastest solution was to take the magazines by taking the whole man. She hadn't really needed the corpse for cover, since she was behind the barrel before the first round impacted on the cinderblock behind where she had been.

  At close enough to the same instant, all hell broke loose as the Bane Sidhe operatives, every one of whom recognized Aunt Cally instantly despite the short, black hair, opened up on the guards while backing to take up their pre-selected positions behind one stack of boxes or another.

  The rest of the switch team used the device and cart as a visual distraction and cover, coming in low behind it and pitching it down the opposite half-flight of concrete and steel stairs, hitting the floor of the upper landing behind what paltry cover there was.

  Glancing aside and through the gaps in the stair risers, Cally amended that impression. Tommy Sunday had somehow managed to either precede, follow, or pace the cart and land himself behind a screen of toilet paper boxes that she was surprised he'd had time to find and pick, much less get to. Her already high opinion of the ACS veteran's practical survival skills rose another notch. Cover it wasn't, but for a man as big as he was, the concealment was a better tactical choice. She realized that ninety percent, at least, of the enemy wouldn't even think to shoot through the boxes. The rest would almost certainly miss anything vital. Good choice.

  The Darwinian process of war generally has to apply over several engagements, or several battles, to make veterans of survivors. The enemy survivors of the first seconds of this engagement were made up of both the fitter and the luckier of their fellows. At least one veteran of combat against the Posleen, unknown to the Bane Sidhe people, now lay bleeding out on the floor. Being a veteran had not equated to being a good man, in his case. Any ship making port had its rats, and Nicholas Rondine had left a trail of beaten and broken ex-wives behind him.

  Being in a bad place did not always equate to being a bad person, either. Willard Burns was a forty-three year old dry alcoholic, recently unemployed from a shoe factory, whose next door neighbor had gotten him this job. He had been unhappily working his two week notice because his five year old daughter wanted a toboggan from Santa. Now he had ceased feeling pain from the shotgun blast to his chest. Forty extra pounds of beer gut had rendered him slower than
too many of his fellows.

  Whether fitter or luckier, most of the guards behind the boxes had, unfortunately, either through presence of mind or awareness of limited ammo, chosen to at least attempt to aim their fire. The DAG guys had taken out at least three times their number in that first burst of action before the survivors were under cover. The good news was that the enemy was minus about a third of his strength. The bad news was two thirds of the enemy, both the unwounded and lightly grazed, had made cover.

  DAG itself was not without losses. One man lay DRT, in a position to hot to hiberzine him—an almost certainly permanent loss. Another lay behind the boxes, sporting the swollen lips and other visual signs of a hiberzined man, chest perforated by a skilled or lucky pistol shot. Not like it mattered which.

  One guy had taken it in the meat of the leg, and was combat effective again after a few precious seconds spent dosing and binding it. The other three made it completely untouched and fully effective.

  The numerical odds were essentially unchanged from the beginning of the fight. The Cally team made little functional difference as they were so lightly armed.