East of the Sun, West of the Moon tcw-4

by John Ringo

  But there were… he searched his memory for a moment… habitats that existed in space. He had no idea what had happened to most of them, if anyone survived. He wasn’t sure how they could but, then again, he wasn’t sure that they had been as drained of power and function as Earth. It might be that some people survived to this day. There wasn’t much that anyone could do for them; the only reason the shuttles were going to work was that the power drain protocols wouldn’t affect them. So anyone who had been off planet was stranded; any attempt to enter Earth’s orbit would mean loss of power in their vehicle.

  Shanea came into the room with a tray of cold cuts and bread and looked around.

  “Your guest is gone already?” she asked unhappily.

  “Sorry,” Herzer said, shrugging. “It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, mainly because there wasn’t much to choose from. I’ll eat it, though.”

  “Oh, okay,” Shanea said sunnily, sliding the tray onto the table. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  “No,” Herzer said, making a large sandwich of various meats and cheese.

  “I hate eating alone,” Shanea said, picking up a slice of cheese and nibbling it, as she sat on the edge of one of the chairs.

  “I don’t,” Herzer said, shrugging. “I’ve eaten alone and I’ve eaten in a crowd of thousands of people. You can be just as alone there,” he added.

  “I mean alone like nobody to talk to,” Shanea added. “I like to talk to people when I’m eating.”

  “Don’t get a full mouth, then,” Herzer said.

  “Depends on what it’s full of,” Shanea said, then blushed. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Herzer replied, looking at her with one eyebrow raised. “Harem humor?”

  “Something like that,” Shanea sighed. “I don’t miss the harem, much, but sometimes I get more bored here than there. I feel all cooped up. Megan hardly lets me go out at all.”

  “Uhmmm, Shanea?” Herzer said. “You’re your own person. You can go out any time you want.” He paused and thought about it. “Can’t you?”

  “Well…” Shanea said, then shrugged. “Megan doesn’t like it. She’s never really said it, but she always says no when I ask if I can go shopping or something. And Mirta and Meredith and Ashly go out all the time. I think it’s because she’s, you know, important now. And I hear things, you know? And, face it, sometimes I do some dumb things, too. So she’s afraid I’ll embarrass her. At least, that’s what I think,” she ended miserably.

  Herzer considered her words for a minute and then frowned.

  “I can see part of the point,” Herzer admitted. “You do have access to some very high-level intelligence and you’d be surprised how easy it is to make the mistake of giving something away. But you shouldn’t be held against your will. And you shouldn’t need Megan’s permission to go shopping. There are other ways to handle it.”

  The first that came to mind was getting the poor girl a husband or a lover or something. Someone who was trustworthy. If he’d ever seen the type to land on her back with her legs open, that was Shanea and she clearly wasn’t getting any here. Neither was he, come to think of it, which led quickly to thoughts he shied away from.

  He wracked his brain for a moment, repeatedly pulling it away from the entirely pleasant image of escorting her around himself, and then hit on a face. Not the brightest officer he knew but one that was solid, dependable and trustworthy. Now if he could just remember the guy’s name.

  “I’ll see about setting something up,” Herzer said. “What we need to do is get you an escort; someone to show you around town and make sure you stay safe. You’re going to need nearly as much security as Megan, you know. But we’ll make it so you can get out and spend some of your pay.”

  “What’s that?” Shanea asked, picking up another slice of cheese.

  Herzer froze as he was about to take a bite out of his sandwich and lowered it.

  “You’re not getting paid?” he asked, frowning.

  “I don’t know,” Shanea said, suddenly wary. “What is it?”

  “You know that shopping requires money, right?” Herzer asked.

  “Yes,” Shanea said. “I guess.”

  “So if you go shopping, you’ll need some money,” Herzer explained.

  “I guess,” Shanea said. “The times I’ve gone out it’s been with Megan or Meredith. They do that.”

  “Oh,” Herzer said, shaking his head. “Shanea, can you add and subtract?”

  “Oh, sure,” she said. “One plus one is eleven. Two plus two is twenty-two… I get kind of confused after that,” she admitted, taking a bite of cheese.

  Herzer bit into his sandwich thoughtfully. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Before the Fall there had been no need to have any skill in mathematics or reading and the number of people who had the skills were, therefore, vanishingly small.

  However, since the Fall, people had started picking up the skills quickly. There were still vast groups that were illiterate and unable to add but not like before. It was impossible to do most highly skilled jobs in the UFS without some moderate academic training.

  Shanea, however, had clearly gone from the pre-Fall condition to some position that didn’t require those skills in Ropasa to Paul’s harem and then into Megan’s care. She’d never had the need to be able to read or do math and obviously didn’t care to pick it up on her own.

  Clearly he’d have to ensure that Ensign Whatsisname could do simple math. No, he wouldn’t, he’d had him as a student and knew his mathematical skills, what there were of them, to an instant. Okay, the guy could probably make change.

  He pulled out a pad and made a note, then considered some other needs. He needed someone to handle the information flow on this project and one name came to mind. Unfortunately, it also called up some negative history that would not fit in well with this crowd. Van Krief would be the perfect assistant for this mission but he wasn’t sure he wanted her and Megan in the same city much less the same room. What was the other ensign’s name? Destrang. He’d been one of three that Herzer had tapped to accompany him and Edmund on what turned out to be a very long field trip. They’d been given credit for Officer Basic course based upon the fact that they’d been aides to an admiral during a major ship battle and a general during a major land battle. The third one… Tao, that was his name, still couldn’t add worth a damn. But he had good common sense skills and was fairly charismatic.

  He scribbled a long oval on the paper that had become his standard mental image of the ship and began filling in details. Trying to seize all the shuttles was inviting defeat in detail. Just holding the control room wouldn’t ensure either controlling the fuel or destroying the ship. If he could think of using the shuttles to adjust its trajectory, so could Chansa or Celine or whoever was in charge of this mission on the other side. New Destiny was not stupid at the tactical level.

  The big battle would be for the control room, he was sure of that. But he was pretty sure it was possible to… disable some of the shuttles and just leave the remainder under guard. But he had no idea what numbers or type of fighters the enemy would bring. One of those Changed elves, for example, could go through a squad of Blood Lords like it wasn’t there. But Megan was sure they didn’t have many of those, yet. The ones they did have were actual elves that had been tormented into something… different. Evil was the only word to use. Most of the force would be more normal than those. They were unlikely to be able to fit many ogres into the ships and once you knew about them they were easy enough to kill. Celine would probably come up with something monstrous. No dragons on either side, no room in the shuttles. What would Celine come up with? What monster was she going to produce from her labs? That was what had him worried.

  He looked up and saw Shanea watching him like a cat.

  “What?” he asked, carefully.

  “I was just thinking about when you came to rescue us on the ship,” she said, nibbling at her cheese.

  “I thought you were out
cold?” Herzer said.

  “I was playing dead,” Shanea said. “And terrified. But when you pushed through the door I half opened one eye. I’ve never seen anything like that. It was horrible but you were… it was amazing. I thought that the little guy, Baradur, was fast. You were amazing.”

  “It’s one of the things I’m good at,” Herzer said, shaking his head. “I don’t make too much of it, don’t you. It’s just butchery.”

  “Well, I never said thank you,” Shanea said, frowning. “I know you came for Megan, not me. But I wanted to say thank you, anyway.”

  Herzer opened his mouth to reply, paused, took a bite of his sandwich and chewed for a bit.

  “You’re right, I came for Megan,” he finally said with a shrug. “Rescuing Key-holders is a mission, rescuing damsels in distress is sort of a sideline,” he added with a grin.

  “Have you rescued many?” Shanea asked, her eyes wide.

  “A few,” Herzer said as his grin changed to a frown. “And failed to rescue at least one too many. It’s one of the reasons I tend to try harder these days.”

  “You were right about something,” Shanea said as the silence extended out into awkwardness.

  “What?” Herzer asked, taking another bite.

  “We hadn’t seen you when you were in shape,” Shanea said. “You’re looking… really good.”

  “Uh… thanks,” Herzer said, swallowing against a dry throat. He poured some water and washed the mouthful down carefully.

  “Hello, Herzer,” Megan said from the doorway, coming over and sitting down next to him. “Having fun?”

  “Shanea didn’t want to eat alone,” Herzer said, hastily, then looked down at the remnants of the huge sandwich in his hand and over at the morsel of cheese in Shanea’s. “June Lasker turned up with the records of the people they could find with technical skills. We were going to go over them over lunch, but there weren’t enough to bother.”

  “Oh,” Megan said as Meredith softly entered the room after dropping off her files. Meredith raised one eyebrow at the tableau and silently picked up a slice of meat, sitting on one of the chairs and nibbling at it.

  “You won’t believe who one of the techs is,” Herzer added after a moment.

  “Don’t keep me guessing,” Megan said, pouring a glass of water.

  “Courtney.”

  “You’re joking!” Megan snorted, blinking her eyes.

  “You’re getting the same image I did,” Herzer said, laughing.

  “I don’t know,” Megan replied, smiling. “Does it include one channel entirely filled with chatter?”

  “I hadn’t thought about that,” Herzer admitted, frowning. “Gods.”

  “Maybe we give her her own channel?” Megan said, grinning.

  “If she even goes,” Herzer pointed out. “She’s not the adventurous type. And I don’t think we can exactly conscript the people for this mission. I’m going to call for volunteers from the Blood Lords for an unspecified mission with ‘high hazard and high chance of death.’ Which means more than half of them will volunteer and I’ll pick and choose from the other half if I need to. They’ll be the ones that have already seen enough war to know that I mean it. But the techs… I don’t think we can force them. We’ll have to ask them without being specific about what the mission involves. And most of them aren’t going to volunteer.”

  “Which means we’ll be critically short of techs,” Megan pointed out.

  “Yep,” Herzer said, frowning. “Which means more care about protecting them. Especially since we won’t have time to more than half train the Blood Lords on onboard systems so they’ll be lost if they run into anything technical.” He paused again, frowning.

  “I want to bring in some assistants. I don’t know where they’ll fall in the TO and E but the information load is getting beyond me. I’d ask to borrow Meredith but she’s busy enough with your stuff and she’s not available for the mission.” He paused and frowned again then shrugged. “One of them is a female that I have some history with, but she’s got damned near as sharp a mind as Meredith. The other two aren’t as sharp but I think I’ll need them both, if not on the mission. Van Krief might not be shipboard; somebody is going to have to handle shuffling forces on the Earth for reinforcements. I need to get them headed this way, soonest. But that means taking time to go over to the War Department myself. Which is one of the reasons I need them.”

  “Tell Meredith what you need and Ashly will run it over to the War Department,” Megan said, frowning in thought. “I still don’t have any technical data to start training on, for that matter.”

  “I sent a message about that as well,” Herzer said, brow still furrowed in thought. “And I want to find out if there’s any intel on what Celine is going to throw at us.”

  “If Dad has found out anything, he hasn’t told me,” Megan said. “Of course, I haven’t talked to him since this came up. Put that on the list.”

  “I don’t even know if Van Krief can write an operations order.” Herzer groaned. “I’m probably going to have to write the damned thing myself. All two hundred sub paragraphs.” He frowned and shook his head. “I need a copy of FM-196-4, damnit!”

  “What in the heck is…?” Shanea said. “That… what you said.”

  “Manual on Field Operations,” Herzer said, distantly. “I can practically recite it — especially since I was on the committee that wrote it — but practically and actually are two different things. It helps, it’s like an outline that you fill in the blanks. Part of that is you find where the blanks are.”

  “Herzer,” Megan said, gently. “You’re getting so wrapped up in this you’re practically spinning. Tell Meredith what you need and then take a break.”

  “You’re right,” Herzer said, shaking his head. “Thank you. We still need more staff. I’ll put Van Krief in charge of setting up the operations order, probably Destrang in charge of keeping us updated on intel and Tao will be general runner. And I can use him as a spotter when Bue’s not available. But I need them soonest, by tomorrow preferably.”

  “Why don’t you and Meredith go work it out,” Megan said.

  “Oh, and Mike and Courtney may be coming over this evening,” Herzer added. “I sent a message to their hotel. And I’m meeting with someone, here, at four.”

  “Okay,” Megan sighed. “I guess I should have run you over to the War Department when I had a chance, huh?”

  “Sorry,” Herzer said, standing up. “Meredith, if you have a moment?”

  “Of course, Major,” Meredith said coldly.

  Megan picked up a slice of cheese and took a bite, frowning.

  “Megan,” Shanea said. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” Megan replied.

  “Are you and Herzer…” Shanea furrowed her brow in thought and then said: “Screwing?”

  Megan flinched and then swallowed the cheese.

  “No.”

  “Can I borrow him?” Shanea asked. “I mean, have you seen him? He glows! And he’s got the most enormous…”

  “Shanea!” Megan said, sharply.

  “Pecs…” Shanea drifted off. “Please? Just for a few minutes? Hours? A couple of days at the most? You’re not using it and I haven’t…”

  “Shanea,” Megan sighed. “No. A definite no.” She stopped and thought for a moment, then shook her head. “It wouldn’t work, Shanea. Really. Don’t do this to me, please.”

  “You’re so mean!” Shanea spat, standing up. “You’re worse than… Christel,” she added, storming out of the room.

  Megan set down the rest of the cheese uneaten, dropped her face into her hands and sighed.

  “You look like hell, dearie,” Mirta said.

  “Did you catch any of that?” Megan said from inside her hands.

  “Most of it,” Mirta replied. “I’m surprised it took this long for them all to start panting.”

  “All?” Megan said, sitting up and looking at her poisonously.

  “Open your e
yes, Megan,” Mirta said, sharply. “All.”

  “Ashly?” Megan spat. She and Ashly had not gotten along in the harem initially. When Megan arrived Ashly was the unspoken leader of the girls and could be, and was, poisonous to the point of sadism. They had arrived at a truce only after Megan had more or less beaten her half to death. Without any marks. The truce had lasted well enough but now a stab of pure jealousy shot through her at the thought of the tall, gorgeous blonde and Herzer.

  “And Meredith,” Mirta said.

  “Meredith?” Megan snapped, looking at the corridor to the office and weight-room. “Meredith?” she repeated, shaking her head. “She never so much as… she hates men!”

  “Oh, she’s getting over it,” Mirta said, pouring some wine and sipping at it. “Quickly. I suppose it was the sudden change in him that caused it. He was, face it, more or less cooling his heels at your beck and call. More of a kept man than a soldier for the last few months. Give him a mission, especially one where he knows he has to be in tip-top shape, and he turns into something… different.”

  “I’ve seen it, too,” Megan said, biting her lip. “Was it that bad? I knew there was something… different. He was different on the ship.”

  “He’s a caged bird here,” Mirta said, shaking her head. “You know what that’s like. He’s in the cage of his own will, but the bars are there nonetheless. But now, he sees the cage opening. A tough mission, a command? He’s in heaven. And the bulging… muscles don’t hurt. Meredith, poor, poor soul, has to be in there with him as he builds up those rippling muscles, grunting and sweating with all those huge weights, pumping away…”

  “Enough,” Megan said, gritting her teeth. “I get the picture.”

  “And of course, he’s giving off enough signals of blue balls to fell a mare at a hundred paces,” Mirta pointed out.

  “Not you, too?” Megan said, sadly.

  “Oh, I’m a bit beyond the game, dearie,” Mirta said, laughing. “But it doesn’t mean I can’t look!”

  “What am I going to do?” Megan practically wailed.