by John Ringo
“Yeah,” he agreed reluctantly, grabbing his own clothes. It really wasn’t her fault. If it was anybody’s fault it was his for having the power to relieve the bastard and failing to do so. Okay, so his own orders didn’t allow it yet, but if he wanted to get her out of the asshole’s bed all he had to do was hurry up and catch Franks or whoever the sonofabitch plant was. As soon as that was done, he could relieve Beed and ship his scumbag butt back to Earth and away from her.
He kissed her and waved her on out to go do what she had to do as soon as she had her hair and clothes straightened while he finished cleaning up.
It wasn’t actually impossible. It wasn’t as if working in CID or an MP Brigade was her life’s ambition. He could get her a transfer somewhere on base. Once they were no longer in the same chain of command, and she was in a job less outright crazy than this one, there wouldn’t really be anything to keep them apart, would there?
Titan Base, Tuesday, June 18, 16:30
On the shuttle for the freighter, Jay and the others generally wore liners of the same material as military silks under their heavy cotton jumpsuits. They had to. Landing control wouldn’t have tolerated the heat leakage that would have resulted if they’d kept the inside at a comfortable temperature.
Besides, they weren’t supposed to be sleeping on it in the first place. Covering that had meant renting a transient’s room and having someone in it enough of the time to make it look well used. Jay liked this arrangement because it gave him excellent cover for his independent ventures when it was his time to use the room.
And his turn was supposed to be today, but Papa O’Neal had asked to swap, and he hadn’t had a graceful excuse to say no.
So here he was stuck on the shuttle freezing his buns off with Sunday. Well, okay, the silk longjohns helped a lot. He’d still rather be alone and warm and ready to go. Not that Sunday was a bad guy, it was just that he had so much money he couldn’t possibly understand what it was like to grow up in the lousy BS. Oh, most of the kids had just accepted it. They never knew any better. But him being a doctor’s kid, he’d seen the difference between himself and the other doctors’ kids. He knew full well what his life would have been like with a lot less fucking BS. Sunday could have never understood, but he was just getting back the life that always should have been his in the first place. And if the BS suffered, well, it just balanced the scales, didn’t it?
He surreptitiously checked the outbound passenger shuttle schedules. Fuck! Two hour mechanical launch delay. This totally sucks. Okay, not a real problem. It was still well within the effective span of his diversion, it was just that the other launch time was so sweet.
His change of clothes and ID was in a locker with the money and minimal luggage, all ready to go. He had another couple of hours to kill, that’s all.
“Hey, Sunday, wanna play me a battle or two of Warlord?” He wiggled his PDA.
Tuesday, June 18, 19:00
Cally sat on the closed seat in the lone stall of the office women’s room. The only problem with this diuretic was it tended to lose potency and acquire an aftertaste if you mixed the water-soluble combination too far ahead of time. She was pretty sure she could make an opportunity to get into that last, guarded room tonight. Which meant she’d need this within a couple of hours. One eyedropper full in his beer would guarantee sending him running out.
She stowed the bottle in her purse, pulling out a data cube for her PDA. No telling what cracking programs she’d need. Best to have them all on tap. Still, she checked the seal on the small, wide-mouthed jar of vinegar, just in case.
Back in the office, she puttered around her office waiting for Pryce to get back with dinner. She had asked him to get beer and hot wings. Everybody drank beer with wings.
Tonight they had no preset time limit. Beed’s wife had apparently finally insisted on at least one quiet evening together at home. It was a damned shame to waste it by drugging Pryce, but she couldn’t let her hormones get in the way of her job. Besides, when she found the identity of the leak, and sooner or later she would, it would be all over without a goodbye, anyway.
But maybe she wouldn’t find it tonight. It could be wherever Beed went on those long inspection walks of his. Maybe even over at the detention center. It was certainly secure enough.
Persuading Beed to take her along would be easy enough. All she’d have to do was provide him with even a thin excuse. The horny bastard would jump at the offer of more time to get his hand in the cookie jar.
She smiled sadly as she heard the outer office door. It really was too bad she had to do this, but it was the best way she knew to cover her search time while leaving him totally unharmed. Well, other than his dignity. She pulled her game face firmly on, grinning wickedly at him as he came in her open door.
“Mmmm. Something smells good.” She inhaled appreciatively. “Dinner smells pretty good, too.”
“Cute.” He gave her a sidelong glance as he took the beer bottles and to-go boxes out of the bag. “Did you want to get to the food at all? I mean, if you’re not hungry…” He trailed off with a slow, predatory grin.
“Um, actually I am hungry. For food, I mean. First.” She let her eyelids droop a bit, letting how much she wanted him show on her face. There was a tight pain in her chest. Sometimes she hated her job.
“Okay.” He opened the beer bottles and went to get his desk chair. She didn’t need the ruse she’d planned, after all.
It only took a second to reach into her desk drawer and put a dropper-full of the drug into his beer.
Chapter Fifteen
Springfield, Tuesday, June 18, 19:30
Where the hell are they? Morrison was becoming more and more certain, as he avoided checking his watch for the tenth time, that they had been played. He had been in place for one hour, two and a half pints, one shot of whiskey, and two sober pills. He’d taken the first before coming in the door, and the second just now. They’d break down the alcohol in his stomach before it got to his bloodstream. Well, most of it. Ten percent did get through, but his liver could handle that.
The Wexford Pub was a little hole in the wall that served lamb stew, soda bread, and greasy fish and chips, accompanied by beer or booze as cheap as it came or as good as you could afford. From the smell, what most patrons afforded most nights was cheaper than shit.
He carefully avoided looking at the three men and two women scattered around the pub who were his, and pretended an interest in the soccer game on the ancient television mounted on one wall. Boring sport — no good fights at all. And he couldn’t even hear it over the piped music, which, as far as he could tell, was mostly ancient recordings of folk songs. It wouldn’t have been so bad if they hadn’t chosen the cheesiest and most stereotypical of the surviving renditions. If they played “Toora Loora Loora” once more he didn’t know what he’d do.
He could come up with a dozen reasons, all of them bad, why the targets hadn’t shown. Unfortunately, hard as it was to do, their go to hell plan specified waiting in place two hours past the rendezvous in case of a no show, on the theory that they had nothing better and might still get lucky.
He resisted the urge, again, to glance at his people or his watch.
Morrison hated waiting. It made the back of his neck itch.
* * *
Where the hell are they? Bobby shook the cramp out of his right hand before moving it back and snugging the rifle butt up to his shoulder again.
He devoutly hoped the other three shooters Johnny had come up with were doing the same. They’d better be. Still, they’d seemed competent enough.
It was looking more and more probable that something had spooked the targets.
Still, as long as the Fleet Strike pukes waited, they had to. His instructions were very specific. He was not to let Fleet Strike take any of the targets alive, regardless. The targets were not to escape alive, regardless. If they could somehow get one alive themselves, that was a bonus. He had a medical team standing by, but he didn’t think
that bonus was going to be possible.
Damn, but this waiting was a bitch. Especially with no way to know how long the Fleet Strike pukes would wait before giving up and going home, themselves.
* * *
“Where in the hell are they?” Kevin Collins, head of Team Jason, stubbed out a cigarette in the ashtray of the taxi, looking back at his “fare” half-accusingly, as if he thought the other agent could somehow pull the overdue team out of her pocket.
“Hell if I know, and it’s not my fault!” There was a sheepish tone to her voice, though.
“Ah, hell, Martin, I know it’s not. I still think you shouldn’t be on this mission.”
“Well, you were overruled. When the word comes down I want to be on the spot getting Levon and the others out.” She pulled out a compact and touched up her lipstick nervously.
“And if it doesn’t come down?” His voice was flat.
“Then I follow orders even though it sucks. Levon would do just the same. We both know the risks and the stakes.” She wiped away a small smudge with the tip of a finger.
“You’re too close.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll deal.” She snapped the compact shut, putting it and the lipstick back in her purse.
“You’d better.” He lit another cigarette and made another turn on the circuitous route winding them around the perimeter of the objective.
* * *
George Schmidt routinely spent his time in the field as a teenage kid. That meant that when he needed to be an adult it took some very old-fashioned appearance changes.
Regardless of his distaste for elevator shoes, they were necessary. Pads high in his cheeks made him look less baby-faced. For some reason brown hair made him look a bit older than his natural blond. Careful cosmetic work gave an appearance of dark stubble that would pass even close inspection.
His ID that claimed he was in his mid-twenties was now believable.
He was running right about on time, having spent Barry’s extra hour playing holo and VR games at a local arcade. One of the things about being a perpetual kid was he not only had to know about what the current fads were for kids, he had to be able to do them. He could fake incompetence if the cover needed to be a screw-up, but competence was awful damned hard to fake.
Well, time to go. He looked around at the drab, messy efficiency apartment that was the kind of place an emancipated teen might have — right down to smelling of cheap pine air freshener and dirty socks. Definitely not the comforts of home. He flipped out the lights and left.
Twenty minutes later he was still swearing at the jack-knifed semi and cluster of ambulances and emergency vehicles. Nothing for it — he was going to be late again.
Titan Base, Tuesday, June 18, 19:15
Cally nibbled on Pryce’s earlobe as she pulled down on his arms trying to get him down to the floor.
“Thanks for having a word with Simms.” She gestured at the door outside which the MP still stood guard. “It helps to know we have the evening all to ourselves, no fear of getting caught or interrupted.”
“So why are you pulling me towards the floor?”
“I thought it might be fun to be on top,” she breathed against his neck between kisses.
“That kind of presumes I’m going to let you direct the show, doesn’t it?” He picked her up and put her back to the wall, pressing up very close against her, kissing her hair. “How about right here?”
“Mmmph.” Her legs snapped up and around his waist, teasing him with the silks that were still in the damn way. “Okay.”
She did climb back down long enough to let her silks slide off and puddle on the floor.
She wanted to scream with cheated frustration when he stopped in the middle and grabbed his silks to make a run for the men’s room.
“I’ll wait for you,” she called as he left.
The only furniture in the room was a desk and chair, and there was a laptop computer in the drawer. More of Beed’s paranoid dislike of AID’s, probably. Not that she blamed him.
It only took a second to plug her PDA into the port.
“Crack it, buckley.”
“Did you know there’s a ninety-eight point two percent probability that we’ll be captured and die here?”
“Shut up and crack the damned thing. The routines are on the cube.”
“Right.”
The other thing that had been on the cube, of course, was enough of its old data to get the buckley to be cooperative. Well, as cooperative as it ever was, anyway. Waking up the buckley was a risk, but Cally worked marginally faster with one, knowing just when to wheedle or cajole, and when to bulldoze right over its paranoia.
Time always slowed down in this part of an op. Still, she fidgeted nervously as the buckley worked. There was always the chance that the protections were more up to date than the routines chasing the security holes.
But Tommy and Jay were two of the best. She was in pretty quick. Then it was up to her human intelligence to search through the files and find the files she needed.
Oh, my god. Jay, the sonofabitch! And he burned Hector. Holy fuck.
“Send the data, buckley, send it now!”
“There’s transmission protection on this room for sure. We’ll be caught.”
“Send, damn you! Send it now!”
“Right. It’s sent. How fast can you run?” it asked.
“Fine.” She punched the cube out and fished the bottle of vinegar out, dropping the incriminating material in to fizz and dissolve merrily.
“Buckley, execute full and complete shutdown. Now.”
“Oh, sure, I’m expendable! What the hell, it’s probably less painful this way. Bye,” it finished glumly. The screen went dark.
Cally barely noticed it out of the corner of her eye, as she was busily yanking her silks back on.
The door slid open before she got the front seal half fastened. It was Pryce, and somehow she didn’t think his pallor had anything to do with the drugs. She was staring down the business end of his nine mil sidearm, held very steadily.
“It was you?! Oh my God… You’re under arrest,” he said.
“Pryce—” She extended a hand.
“Actually it’s Stewart. Major General James Stewart.”
Her shoulders slumped. “A setup.”
A splash of blood and bits of gore exploded forward from his stomach as the door slid open again, and he slid to the floor, hands clamped across the wound, staring down at it.
“That serves you, you poaching insolent pipsqueak. She was mine!” General Beed stepped over Stewart and to the side, kicking the other man’s dropped gun away. He looked up at Cally. “And you get it straight — you may be a whore, but you’re my wh—”
He was cut off in the middle of the word as the gray blur that was Cally rolled and came up with Pryce’s gun, firing into Beed two to the chest and then into the head, firing until the slide locked back on an empty chamber.
“I think he’s dead,” Stewart choked wryly, “and I won’t be long after. Hurry, now. As good as you are, you’ve got to have a way out planned.” His voice was ragged but gentle.
“No.” She slid across the floor to him and looked at his wound just a moment before ripping off the top half of her silks, tearing the tough Galtech fabric like paper. She folded it quickly and expertly into a field bandage and moved his hands, pressing it over the wound, hard, before it could gush.
“Never any damned Hiberzine when you need it, eh?” She smiled mistily at him, clamping the other hand over the entrance wound in his back.
“You’re not going to die on me.” She was firm, as if that was not allowed.
“I think I love you, whoever you are.” He coughed, leaving flecks of blood on his lips.
She was actually thankful when the squad of MP’s burst through the door, bare seconds later.
“He needs Hiberzine. Now!” she ordered.
One of them was already pulling a syringe from the kit at his belt.
“C
aptain Makepeace, or Jane Doe, you are under arrest.” The Brigade XO, Colonel Tartaglia, had elected to lead the squad himself. Clearly, they had come in response to a call placed by Pry — General Stewart rather than in response to shots fired.
“I know.” Free from the need to stop his blood loss by another MP taking her place, Cally let one bloody hand caress his jaw, before his eyes closed and a pair of MP’s pulled her to her feet.
“You get General Stewart to the hospital.” The colonel gestured to three of the MP’s. “The rest of you, bring her. And pay attention!” He waved at Beed’s corpse. “She’s dangerous as hell.”
Titan Base, Tuesday, June 18, 19:45
On the shuttle, Jay’s PDA and his AID beeped at the same moment. Since the message was urgent, and their game was not, the game autopaused and opened the incoming file.
Jay was the first to react, not being surprised by the news. Unfortunately for him, reactions honed in the brutally Darwinian environment of battle do not fade as long as the body is fit. Tommy Sunday was very fit.
The desperate flying tackle knocked Sunday out of his seat, but the blow that would have shattered his trachea never landed, skidding harmlessly aside off of a raised forearm.
In the enclosed confines of the freight shuttle’s cockpit, Tommy’s size was not an asset. Still, in the wrestling match that followed, Jay’s hand-to-hand training in the gym, while excellent for what it was, couldn’t match a combat veteran’s front-line down and dirty fighting experience, kept honed by regular training. Humans didn’t fight like Posleen, true. But Tommy knew to within a hair what his own body would do, and had ingrained a few dirty tricks the other man had never heard of.