When the Devil Dances

by John Ringo

  Add in smart Posleen and things just went right down the old tubes.

  The report from Georgia, though, was very troubling. He knew that Rabun was considered one of the less well maintained defenses, mostly because it had hardly been hit. There was a defense specialist down there, the name hovered on the edge of his recollection, but they needed more than that.

  And Bernard was there. That would give the Posleen all the advantage they needed.

  What to do, what to do . . .

  First he typed in orders for the Ten Thousand to prepare for movement. They could stay in place, they needed the break, but they went to a four hour recall and were ordered to begin packing all their gear for a move. Cutprice was probably already packed, but it never hurt to be sure. He considered doing the same for the ACS, but if he did O'Neal would probably put everybody in suits and head for . . . Oh . . . shit.

  He looked at the map again and shook his head. That put a twist in the whole plan. He really needed to not mention the situation to O'Neal, who really needed a few more days rest. Getting the battalion south fast, though, would be tough. Or not.

  He checked the inventories and they had a sufficiency of Banshee stealth shuttles in inventory. The shuttles had been ordered when it appeared the Galactic largesse was unending. In twenty-twenty hindsight he wished they had the same relative value of suits, but they had to play with the hand they were dealt. If it really dropped in the pot in Georgia he could fly O'Neal and the Black Tyrone down by shuttle. Most of them were out west, but he should have some warning before it dropped in the pot.

  That was the extent of the forces he had immediately available. He would have his staff start looking at what else was available to reinforce in the Gap. But then he noted that it only had one SheVa. Moving one of those was not a short term operation.

  He tapped the controls and noted that there was a SheVa in movement to Chattanooga.

  Not any more.

  * * *

  Mosovich looked at the façade of the building. The business had once been a family-owned barbecue restaurant and Mosovich had vaguely recalled it from years before when he visited the area. The local VFW had been next door.

  Now it was a bar designed to separate soldiers from their money in the shortest possible time.

  The front deck was packed with soldiers, most of them lightly armed and heavily drunk. Squeezed into spaces in between were the waitresses and other working girls.

  He winced as a soldier stumbled out the main door. The unshaven sergeant was supported by a lightly clad female who couldn't have been over the age of consent. The sergeant squinted at the sunlight, grabbed the girl by a tit and stumbled off down the street, weaving on and off of the sidewalk towards a nearby motel.

  "Not," he said.

  "Not," Wendy agreed as she shivered in the wind. "Five gets you ten he gets rolled. Any other bright ideas?"

  "Just one," Mosovich said, looking up at the sun. They had managed to pack the whole group into the appropriated Humvee by much sitting on laps and packing some of the children in the bed. But travelling much further would be problematic. And the afternoon was upon them; it was October and most of the kids were underdressed for nighttime fall temperatures. "How you doing, Captain?"

  "I'm . . . fine," Elgars said, shifting her body to track on the sergeant as he stumbled past. "The . . . number of armed personnel is throwing me. I'm . . . feeling twitchy."

  "That's normal," Jake admitted. "And not out of reason; there've been some hellacious firefights in these military towns." He looked around and shook his head. "Franklin is out. There are probably places frequented by the locals, but it would be pointless to look for them."

  He looked at the sun again, counted on his fingers then looked at Wendy. "Do you trust me?"

  She regarded him calmly for a moment and then nodded. "Strangely enough, yeah. Why?"

  "I've got a buddy who's got a farm near here. He's got a granddaughter not much older than Billy and he'd probably be more than happy to have some company. We could go there, but it would be an overnight stay."

  "Oh." Wendy looked at Shari, who shrugged then looked at the sun herself. "We need to get the kids out of the cold before dark."

  "That won't be a problem," Mosovich said. "Getting back might have been a problem, but not getting there. And, frankly, he's probably got some clothes that would fit them; they're the worst outfitted kids I've seen in years."

  "All we've got for the surface is what we arrived in," Shari said quietly. "Billy's wearing a jacket I borrowed a couple of years ago. And none of the other children have anything."

  As if on cue, Kelly pulled at Shari's hand. "Mommy, I'm hungry."

  "That's it," Mosovich said. "The farm or go back to the Urb as a bad plan."

  "I don't want to go back underground," Elgars admitted. "Not just yet. I . . . like it up here."

  "So do I," Shari admitted, looking up at the sky. "I miss the wind. Okay, if you're sure this friend of yours won't completely freak at having five adults and eight kids descend on him out of the blue."

  "Not a problem," Mosovich said. "He can handle anything."

  * * *

  Michael O'Neal, Sr., pulled the Palm from his belt and frowned. Since the interesting events a few years back he had updated his security systems. The cameras at the front gate now transmitted back to a webserver that, in turn, sent a compressed video stream to the device. So he found himself looking at a Humvee piloted by Mosovich. Not a big deal, Jake had been up a couple of times in the last year. But the fading light showed that the Humvee was packed with other bodies.

  O'Neal rolled the huge wad of Red Man in his cheek from one side to the other and frowned in thought. He was not a huge man, but he had an aura of squat stolidity that was almost preternatural; it appeared as if it would take a bulldozer to move him. His arms were overlong for his body, reaching, simianlike, almost to his knees, and his legs were just a tad bandied, adding to the overall aura of a slightly annoyed male silverback.

  He jacked up the gain on the distant cameras and zoomed in on the front seat. Jake was driving and the guy next to him had to be Mueller from past descriptions. But Mueller had two kids on his lap and unless Papa's eyes were deceiving him there was a female leaning between them. Hot diggety. Just what he'd been praying for this last few months; maybe there was a God who took care of fools and drunks.

  As he activated the gates there was a scream from upstairs like a panther with its leg in a trap.

  "WHERE'S MY GUN-SMITHING KIT?" came a shriek from above.

  Ah, Cally had apparently found something to her dissatisfaction.

  "Have you looked in your desk?" he called calmly.

  "DON'T YOU TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME, GRAMPS!" she yelled. "Of course I looked in my DESK! I keep it . . ."

  He nodded at the cut off sentence. Time to get out of the house before she got down the . . .

  "I just looked there!" she said, breathing angrily and waving the cloth-wrapped tools above her head as if she was going to use them as a weapon. The young woman was as tall as her grandfather, long of hair and leg with wide, cornflower blue eyes. Her grandfather had often considered that it was a good thing she'd gotten her looks from her mother rather than her father. But those looks, along with the fact that she was barely thirteen and a few . . . incidents had gotten surreptitious pictures tacked up on barracks walls. With the caption: "Warning: Jailbait. To be considered ARMED AND VERY DANGEROUS."

  "Cally," Mike Senior said calmly. "Calm down. You found it and . . ."

  "DON'T YOU DARE SAY HORMONES!" she shouted.

  "And what I was going to say was we're about to have visitors," he continued as if she hadn't said anything. "Mosovich and a packed Humvee full of women and kids it looks like."

  "Refugees?" she asked calmly, setting down the smithing kit and holding her hand out for the Palm Pilot.

  "I don't think so," Papa O'Neal said, handing it over and heading for the door. "Visitors at a guess. But that's just a gues
s."

  "Okay," Cally said, unconsciously checking the H&K P-17 in her wasteband. "I'll stay back."

  "Just follow procedure," Papa O'Neal said. "Don't get . . . don't go overboard."

  "Not a problem," she said with a quizzical expression. "Why would I go overboard?"

  * * *

  "Jesus Christ," Mueller whispered. "Who is that?"

  "That is Michael O'Neal, Senior," Mosovich said. "I knew him a long time ago in a much hotter place we generally just called Hell."

  "Not the guy," Mueller said, gesturing into the shadows of the front porch. "The girl."

  Mosovich looked again and frowned. "She's . . . twelve or thirteen, Mueller. Waaay too young. Even in North Carolina."

  "You're kidding me," Mueller said as the Humvee pulled to a stop. "She's like, seventeen if she's a day!"

  "No, I'm not," Mosovich said coldly, holding onto the door-handle and staring at the NCO with dead eyes. "And if you want to live through the next few minutes, put your tongue back in your head. If O'Neal doesn't kill you for being an idiot and a drain on the genepool I will. And if you somehow manage to survive both us old fucks, that little bit will kill you without a word or a whisper; there is no proof, but there is some indication that she has done so before, possibly more than once. Last, but not least, her daddy is Major 'Ironman' O'Neal of the ACS, Mighty Mite his own self. And if he comes after your ass he is, first of all, a Fleet officer with the legal authority to kill a Fleet NCO out of hand and second of all god-damned unstoppable. You don't have the chance of a snowball in hell if any of the three of us think you're going to try to make time with her. Do not make eyes at Cally O'Neal. Understood?"

  "Gotcha," Mueller said, holding up his hands. "I don't go for jailbait, Jake, and you know it. But . . . Jesus, I want an ID or something! I swear she looks like, seventeen, even eighteen!"

  "Sorry about that," Mosovich said over his shoulder.

  "Not a problem," Elgars said. "It was a pretty professional dressing down. I've filed it for future reference. Can we get out yet?"

  "Sure," Mosovich said, taking a deep breath to clear the anger. Just let something go right today.

  * * *

  "What was that about?" Cally asked quietly.

  "Dressing down," Papa O'Neal responded just as quietly. The throat mike was nearly invisible againt the collar of his shirt and the receiver in his ear was invisible to the naked eye.

  Just because his military background stretched back to the dawn of time, or Vietnam, which was close, that didn't mean that Papa O'Neal wasn't up to date. His security systems were as state of the art as he could accumulate and a few of the items were, technically, restricted to Fleet personnel only. But when you're guarding the daughter of a living legend, people make exceptions.

  The grounds were scattered with sensors, cameras and command detonated mines and the house behind him had enough surveillance equipment in it to be a demonstrator. This had occasioned some embarrassment, in ancient times when he used to have friends in the area. From time to time he would host rather . . . raucous parties at which his friends, mostly retired military who had moved to the North Georgia mountains for the air and the proximity to Ranger students they could mess with, would occasionally forget or ignore that the entire house was wired for sound. And video.

  He was still humorously blackmailing people with those tapes.

  The friends were gone, now. Many of them were dead on one battlefield or another and all the rest of them had been rejuvenated and were scattered throughout the United States. He was the only one left, one used up, worn-out old warhorse that was, in the eyes of the U.S. government, too tainted to be called up under the worst duress.

  Which, fortunately, left him to guard the farm. And a Farmer's Daughter who was practically its Platonic archetype.

  "What over do you think?" Cally asked as the door opened.

  "At a guess, 'If you mess with Cally O'Neal you will die a quick and painless death.' "

  "Why?" she asked as the rest of the doors opened and people began spilling out. "He's kind of cute. In a great big teddy bear sort of way."

  Why me, oh lord? Papa O'Neal thought. Couldn't you just have killed me on some battlefield? Slowly? Under the knives of the women? Why this?

  * * *

  Wendy looked around as she unloaded Susie from her lap.

  The farm was set in a small pocket valley, a "holler" in the local vernacular, set off of the main valley that comprised Rabun Gap. The valley was an almost perfect bowl with steep, wooded sides and a narrow opening where a small river dropped down a series of cataracts. The opening to the valley was to the south and the two-story stone and wood house, which was backed up onto the north side, faced it across a checkerboard of fields. One of the fields had just been stripped of its corn and another was covered in wheat or barley that was just about ready to be harvested. Others were devoted to hay or lying fallow under clover. On the east side where the valley started to slope up was a small orchard of mixed trees, some that she recognized as pecans and others that were probably fruit trees. The western edge was devoted to a large barn and a massive rifle and pistol range.

  The house had the look of a fortress; the windows were generally small and, especially on the stone ground floor, set back in the thick walls. There was a large front porch overhung by the upper story, but that looked like a defensive item as well; anyone trying to get through the front door could be terribly discommoded by people on the upper story. On the western side, where most houses would have a garage, was a low sand-bag and wood bunker with the snout of a tarp-covered gun jutting from the center loophole and on the eastern side there was a large outdoor cooking area that clearly had seen more active days.

  She finally unwedged herself from the back of the Humvee and nodded as she stepped down from the vehicle. She had to admit that despite the cool evening, and the temperature really was dropping like a rock, this was much better than the Sub-Urb or Franklin. Now if the locals were just friendly.

  * * *

  Mosovich shook Papa O'Neal's hand. "I'm throwing myself on your mercy here, Snake."

  "Visitors are always welcome," O'Neal said with a smile. "As long as they are either pre-cleared or female."

  Mosovich laughed and shook his head. "It's a long story."

  "Come in to tell it," Papa O'Neal answered. "It's getting cold and those kids are kind of underdressed."

  * * *

  Cally started fading backwards as the group entered the living room. It had been so long since they had had unknown visitors that her defenses were screaming about threats that didn't exist. Finally she stopped by the couch and smiled in welcome, her left hand by her side and her right on her hip. Where it could access the H&K better. It would be okay. And if it wasn't, it would simply be very bloody.

  * * *

  Papa O'Neal saw Cally and realized she was wound tighter than a string. He knew that he had to defuse that situation quickly.

  "Sergeant Major, you've met my granddaughter, Cally. But I don't think she's met any of the rest of you."

  Mosovich smiled and ran through introductions on the adults. "I'll admit I don't know the names of all the children."

  "Billy, Kelly, Susie, Shakeela, Amber, Nathan, Irene and Shannon," Shari said, pointing to each child. "Thank you for taking us in like this. We won't be here long."

  "Nonsense," Papa O'Neal said, shaking her hand. "Feral Posleen move more after dark and, frankly, as packed into that rattletrap as you are it would be hard to defend. Except by running one over, which is admittedly a technique." He realized he hadn't let go of her hand and released it quickly. "No, staying overnight would be better. I insist. We have plenty of room."

  "Uh . . ." Shari said, turning to look at Wendy.

  Wendy shrugged her shoulders. "We don't have so much as a toothbrush with us. On the other hand, we're not exactly dressed for the fall and that Humvee is pretty uncomfortable."

  "Seriously," Papa O'Neal said. "Stay the night. We've n
ot only got beds, there's spare clothes around; I'm the designated storage point for . . . well, a lot of people. And . . ." he looked at Wendy and Shari somewhat pleadingly, " . . . I'd consider it a personal favor."

  Shari looked at him with a puzzled expression then shrugged her shoulders. "Well . . . okay, if it's not an imposition."

  "Not at all," Papa O'Neal countered forcefully. "Not. One. Bit. Please stay. At least overnight and part of tomorrow."

  "Okay," Wendy said. She shrugged one arm where her coat covered the shape of a rifle. "On one condition; do you guys have any cleaning kits?"

  * * *

  Cally cocked her head as Wendy rubbed naval jelly into the barrel. "You're really pretty."

  "Thanks," Wendy said, looking up. "You're one to talk."

  They were attempting to repair the damage to Wendy's rifle in the O'Neals' gun room. The room was in the basement on the back side of the house, but well ventilated. It had to be; the air reeked with gun oil, propellants and solvents.

  The west wall was taken up with a workbench that included a lathe, drill press and various rotary polishers. There was also a large tumbler, some buckets of soapy water and an elaborate reloading kit. Under the workbench were blanks of metal and several barrels marked "Explosive: No Smoking."

  The east wall had three large blue barrels, each apparently filled with solvent. Wendy was just about ready to plunk the weapon in the one marked "Warning: High Molar Acid." But since she didn't know what the O'Neals used it for, she was still of two minds.

  The north wall, towards the mountain, had a few gun racks and a large, heavy steel door with a numeric keypad in the center and a lever handle. It looked like the door to a safe.

  In the center was a large table, with various cleaning supplies under it and six barstools. It was around this that Elgars, Wendy, Cally, Kelly and Shakeela had grouped. Billy had started to come with them and then decided to beat feet.

  "What do you mean?" Cally asked.

  "Well . . . you're friggin' gorgeous. I'm surprised you don't have fifteen boyfriends hanging around. I did when I was your age and I wasn't nearly as good looking."