Eye of the Storm

by John Ringo

  "Very well," the Darhel said, acceding to the logic. "Ask your question."

  "Has the trial even started, yet?" Mike asked, wondering what answer he'd get. Or if it would be true.

  "Two days ago," the Darhel said.

  "Then why don't I at least get to watch it?" Mike asked, gesturing with his chin at the screen.

  "One question at a time," the Darhel said, smiling and exposing sharp teeth. "Now for mine. Were you aware that there were Indowy still in the Qualtren Megascraper?"

  "Yes," Mike said, frowning. "I'd run into some trapped in there. But it was destroy the megascraper or lose the battle. Besides, they couldn't outrun the Posleen and were thus dead, anyway. The military term is 'acceptable collateral damage.' Another round?"

  "Very well," the Darhel said.

  "I repeat, why can't I watch the trial?"

  "Because the testimony is need-to-know," the Darhel answered. "The only portion you are required to monitor is your sentencing portion. When sentencing is pronounced, it will be fed over the video screen."

  "If anyone needs to know what's being testified to, I do," Mike said.

  "Nonetheless," the Darhel said. "What do you know of the Bane Sidhe?"

  "Only that they exist," Mike said. "I was informed about them by the Nor. You had an AID listening in."

  "The Nor did not know of the contract irregularity," the Darhel said. "You do. Someone has told you, recently. Who?"

  "Gosh, I forget," Mike said.

  "This is a violation of our contract," the Darhel said. "You said that you would answer questions. And I can and will use chemical means to get my answer."

  "If you're asking those you're not working as my counsel," Mike said, shrugging. "In which case, all I can say is that when I get out of here, I'm going to remove your eyes with my own hands."

  "That would be difficult," the Darhel said, snarling.

  "Not really," Mike said. "You Darhel are cowards. Oh, you might have some guards but I've killed humans in my time as well as Posleen. You know my abilities. You are as dead as yesterday's news. But first I'm going to destroy your clan financially. You're going to be too poor to afford guards when I come for you. I'm going to eat one of your cowardly eyeballs while you watch and . . ."

  Mike had been watching for the signs. He'd heard that Darhel were, in fact, fast and strong. But they also went catatonic after a few moments. The question would be whether he could get the Darhel to go over the edge. And live through it.

  Sure enough, the alien finally lost it, his chair flying back and hitting the wall, hard enough to crack the strong plastic. The alien's hands wrapped around Mike's throat and he thought he felt his hyoid bone break as it bore down. But then the thing's eyes rolled back in his head and he flopped to the table, still and drooling.

  Mike could breathe, barely, so his throat wasn't crushed. He just sat there, watching the drooling thing on the table, until the guards entered the room in a rush and stunned him into unconsciousness.

  "General, this is insane."

  The Fleet Strike colonel looked at his superior, watching for any shred of agreement, then shook his head. He'd made sure that the meeting was in a shield room and AIDs were left behind so the officers could have an honest conversation. But he wasn't sure even that would matter.

  "These charges are laughable," Colonel Rodermund continued. "The only evidence is the recordings of the accused and AID records we both know can be falsified. For that matter, we're not allowed to fully investigate those same records. We're not even getting the full recordings of the interrogations of the accused and those are by persons who are supposed to be his counsel. Then we can't even question the counselors. We haven't even seen any of his counselors after the meetings. But the bottom line is that what he did was not illegal. He gave a legal order and was not countermanded by higher authority. Not as far as any record we have seen. The collateral damage was regrettable but the mission was accomplished. He's guilty of nothing but being a soldier. Is that now illegal?"

  "Is that all?" the general asked.

  "Not really," the colonel said, his face hardening. "I've been reviewing the information on what happened at R-1496 Delta and I don't buy it. There's a massive rat in the recordings. Among other things, where did the Posleen get orbital weaponry? Wasn't Fleet supposed to be covering? Again, not something that General O'Neal can be charged with. And I don't see Admiral Suntoro in that courtroom nor any of the rest of his staff. In fact, I've done a bit of checking and nobody's too sure where Fifth Fleet is at present. I didn't think I was going to be participating in a kangaroo court, General, and I'm professionally and personally humiliated to do so. I'm also wondering what in the hell you think you're doing."

  "That is insubordination," the general said mildly.

  "Great, so I'm next?" the colonel asked. "Unable to choose my own counsel, unable to speak in my own defense, unable to bring witnesses, unable to face my accusers?"

  "Not unless you force that outcome," the general said. "Are you going to?"

  "If I thought it would do a shred of good . . ."

  "And there is the point," the general replied. "Yes, this is a totally bogus proceeding. The outcome is foreordained. The accused will be found guilty. He will be shipped to either the Legion or a penal institute. He is probably going to be shot trying to escape. General O'Neal is dead. Get that through your head."

  "Oh, I have, sir," the colonel said furiously. "But what in the fuck are we doing facilitating that, sir? Michael O'Neal is a goddamned hero! If they can do this to him, using us, sir, then who's safe? What's the goddamned point of even . . . And what really happened to Eleventh Corps? That's most of Fleet Strike, sir! What's the goddamned point of—"

  "Of even continuing to exist?" the general asked, calmly. "The point is to exist."

  "Well, then, sir, if you would like to hear my opinion of—"

  "I can guess," the general said, still calmly. "But you're not seeing the full measure of the point. Yes, we're about to throw one of our greatest heroes, okay our greatest hero, to the dogs. We are going to pour out our honor like water. Some of the board are going to eat a pistol over the verdict. But we are going to survive. Fleet Strike is going to survive. You think this is the only tarnish on us? That we haven't done other things that are repugnant at the insistence of those Darhel fuckers? You've been caught up in the minutia of keeping units across the galactic arm supplied. I appreciate that. You're a damned good logistician. I've been in the belly of the beast, Colonel. I've seen what's been really happening. The Fleet doesn't even flicker at this sort of thing. There's no trust, no bonding, no real soldiers in the whole damned thing. The admirals fight for the biggest slice of the pie and the sailors just want to get their ricebowl filled. They hope they actually get fed and paid.

  "We're tarnished. The stench from this is going to stink to high heaven and you are neither the first officer, nor I'm sure the last, to be right on the edge of mutiny. But that's sort of the point. We can still fight. We are the only true defenders of the Federation left. We are the only ones that come close to remaining true to the cause. Broken, stinking wretches that we are, we still have some of us that believe in the point, which is first, last and always, to make sure that humanity survives. If we choose to mutiny over this . . . abomination, we are finished. We are as dead as the Eleventh Corps, which is, yes, gone. I will not see the rest of Fleet Strike go the same way, Colonel. And if it takes sacrificing Michael O'Neal, whom I have known for longer than you have lived, or you, Colonel, or myself, on that altar, then I will make that sacrifice, Colonel. Am I making myself absolutely, perfectly, clear?"

  "Sir, they can't—"

  "Colonel, Eleventh Corps wasn't destroyed by the Posleen, it was destroyed at the behest of the Darhel. Twenty plus thousand Fleet Strike personnel, one hundred percent of our remaining ACS, burned by orbital fire from Fifth Fleet. The staff, I'm given to understand, were shot by their captors."

  "That is . . ." The colonel's face wor
ked for a moment then he spat. "That is sick, sir!"

  "And the day you can figure out an effective method to strike back at the Darhel, Colonel," the general said, "one that will break their stranglehold for good and all, one that will make those fuckers pay, well you just do that, Colonel. And then kill them all as far as I care. But in the meantime, we have to go present sentencing on one of my best friends. Are you prepared to give your last measure to this organization, Colonel? Are you prepared to pour out your honor like water, to bury it in muck and slime and horror, so that there is some chance that, someday, others will not have to? Because if you're not, I need to have you removed from the court."

  "And life?" the colonel asked.

  "Does it matter?" the general replied, snorting humorlessly. "On a day like today, wouldn't you have rather died in battle? Because even burning to death would be cleaner than this. I know that I have not a shred of true honor left, Colonel. I was damned long before these proceedings. The only hope that I have is that by holding onto something I can work to prevent others from having to do this sort of thing. I can hope that someday there will be a Fleet Strike that is relieved of this horror. That some future officer can spit on my grave without fear of Darhel retribution. Our lives, our fortune and our sacred honor. Today is the day for you to cough up that last measure, Colonel. Today you get to join the rest of us and burn your honor on the bonfire of hope. Sucks, huh?"

  "Sir . . ." the colonel said. "I repeat, that's sick."

  "Are you in, though?" the general asked.

  "Yes, sir," Colonel Rodermund replied after a moment. "But someday—"

  "Colonel," General Tam Wesley replied, "I hope every day for some shred of possibility of breaking the Darhel. Yes, someday something has to give. But, unfortunately, it does not appear to be today."

  Security Contract Officer First Class Maxim Poddubny had been born and raised in the "unconquered" areas of Siberia.

  The Posleen invaders had swept across Europe and Asia without a check on their advance until they disovered Siberia. While the Posleen could survive in almost any environment, they were less than adept at logistics. Each Posleen God King was supposed to find food for his own group. Usually that food was the food of the conquered or, in many cases, the conquered themselves.

  The Russians, after brief and mostly futile defense, had done what Russia had done many times before; retreated deeper and deeper into the hinterland while scorching the earth behind them.

  The only difference from the Swedes, Poles, French and Germans was that the Posleen got farther. None of the Russian armies that faced them, even in the Urals, could slow them down. Until winter descended on Siberia—and the Posleen suddenly found themselves out of contact with the human "thresh" and struggling through hip-deep snow in a terrain bereft of anything resembling sustenance.

  Had the Posleen continued to occupy Earth they would eventually have spread, slowly, into the area. The shattered Russians, reduced to a day-to-day hand-to-mouth struggle for survival, might or might not have hindered them. But that question became moot when the half-renegade Fleet units had lifted the Siege. Slowly, the Russians had straggled out of the taiga, recovering their demolished cities. Those that could quickly moved to more hospitable lands under the Post-Invasion Resettlement Act. But a few remained.

  Max was the son of one of those families, hardy pioneers in the wilderness that had reclaimed most of Russia. His father was a strong Russian nationalist, regaling his many children with the glory that had once been Russia and, through his sons and daughters, would be again.

  Max had listened to the rants until he was seventeen, the youngest age at which you could enlist in the military, and then fled the searingly cold and achingly boring forests of "The Motherland" for anything else. His father might be insane but it didn't mean Max had to be. Someday, if there was ever a need for the space, humans might move back into the shattered lands of Russia. In the meantime, they were wilderness for a reason. Only madmen or the desperate lived there by choice.

  He had spent a very boring five years in an absolutely less than elite infantry division. It was one of three divisions that was tasked with post-recovery security. Basically, they supported the first Indowy colonists and their human "security officers" sweeping out the hardcore remaining Posleen while the "security officers" covered the Indowy. It was tedious work involving long patrols that rarely hit contact. And when they did, by and large, they just ran away as fast as they could, called in an orbital strike and then made sure it got the infestation. What was the point of being a hero?

  The good news was that the unit had regular contact with the "security officers." Invariably, the first thing the security company did was set up a "recreation facility." It was usually completed before the full defenses were in place. Security companies had their own manpower shortage so they made sure that such "recreation facilities" were as complete as possible. There were plenty of games, yes. There was a decent bar, if your interest in bars translated to "dive." And there were "entertainers," male and female, to keep their security officers entertained.

  Getting access to those "recreation facilities" was tough for a regular. But if you made the right contacts, you could get an occasional pass. Max had visited the security recreation facility once, compared it to the one available to the regular infantry, and made it his goal to work his way into a security company.

  Now, as an SCO1 working for Hamilton-Baron Security, he had full access to such. Just as soon as he got off duty in forty minutes. There was a little lady named Lailani he was looking forward to spending quite a bit of his pay on. Why not? There wasn't much else to spend it on and he wasn't looking for another job any time soon.

  He slowed the multiwheeled ground terrain vehicle as his thermal detectors pinged. An aerial recon team had been reported missing near this location and he'd been dispatched to look into it. The air-truck had probably just lost its motivator. This planet had been colonized for twenty years; for that matter it was pretty close to some of the core Darhel worlds, and the Posleen hadn't used anything that could take down an air-truck in a while. But the two-man crew was probably on the ground somewhere nearby cursing and waiting for pick-up.

  The thermal, though, wasn't locking the contact. Something was disturbing the signal. It was big, though. Could be either human or Posleen. He hit the lights and panned them to the left, searching in the burgeoning undergrowth for the contact, the machinegun on the roof panning with it. If it was a Posleen, it was going to get a 14.5mm enema.

  As the light panned across the contact point there was a flicker, like a reflection on a pond. He panned back and frowned as the ripple seemed to move. Whatever it was, it was big. Maybe as big as a Posleen. His finger was playing with the safety on the machinegun, wondering if he should just fire and then figure it out. But the contact sort of looked like a Himmit. Not that you normally spotted those.

  He was still wondering when a strand of monomolecular wire entered his window and removed his head.

  Chapter Six

  This was a different route. They'd taken a left out of the cell instead of a right. Mike wasn't sure what that meant, but he could feel a bode when he saw one. And this boded.

  A door dilated and he entered a low room about the size of a standard shield room. On the far side his "court" was arrayed. He knew, immediately, that that was what he was looking at. What shocked him was not that there actually was a court, but who was on it.

  "Tam?" he gasped. "Good God, you're not—?"

  "The prisoner will remain silent," General Tam Wesley said harshly. "This is your sentencing, not a moment for grandstanding. Michael O'Neal, you have been charged with violation of Galactic Military Code 4153-6398-Delta, excessive force leading to the death of noncombatants without commensurate military value gained. Your plea of not guilty has been recorded by your counsel. You are found guilty and sentenced to fifty years in a penal unit to be determined. Case is closed."

  "I appeal," Mike said, looking aro
und. Neither his most recent "counsel," if he had one nor even the prosecution were present.

  "The sentence has been automatically reviewed by higher authority," General Wesley said. "It stands. Take the prisoner away."

  "I appeal to the Aldenata," Mike said loudly. "I appeal this sentence on its merits and I place suit against the Darhel, in toto, for failure of contractual obligations, to whit failure to abide by payment structures in keeping with contractual obligations to myself and the rest of the human race."

  "What?" Tam said, his brow furrowing. "What in the hell are you talking about?"

  "This trial is over," the Tir Dol Ron said, entering from the opposite door. "Silence the prisoner!"

  Mike grimaced as the stunners hit, but the grimace had a trace of a smile in it.

  "That was unnecessary, Tir," General Wesley said as the unconscious body was dragged from the room.