Eye of the Storm

by John Ringo

  "I have, while involved in the investigation, gotten two messages from undercover personnel who were approached by Fleet Strike members and sounded out about the possibility of mutiny," the CID officer said. "Based upon very rough statistics, that means at least half of the Strike personnel on the Moon are discussing mutiny. Discussion is, of course, not the same as doing, sir, but—"

  "But just that it's being discussed," the general said, grinding his teeth. "Anything else?"

  "There is a very wide-spread rumor, starting last night, that General O'Neal had nothing to do with the destruction of the Eleventh Corps and that it was, in fact, Fleet forces that fired upon them. There had been, prior to his trial, a very strong sentiment against his being responsible for the destruction of the corps and even rejection of the idea that they were destroyed. Subsequent to the release of this document . . . Members have put two and two together. Since there is no mention of his being responsible for the destruction of the corps in this document and given what he was charged with . . . The broad consensus is that he has been railroaded and that the corps is either still intact, and probably in its own state of mutiny, or was destroyed by someone or something other than in battle with the Posleen." The colonel stopped for a moment and frowned, holding his hand up to his earbud. "Sir, we have a developing situation—"

  "General, we've got a problem!"

  Colonel Elvin Paul, chief of staff to the Chief of Staff, Operations, Fleet Strike, did not regularly burst into his boss's office. So despite his increasing annoyance level, General Wesley did not eat him a new asshole.

  "Go," Wesley said, picking up his AID and wrapping it around his wrist.

  "There was a gathering of enlisted in the Moonbase mess," Colonel Paul said. "They were arguing about something; what is unclear. Fleet MAs were ordered by Admiral Sie to break up the gathering. They didn't send enough. Moonbase is basically in one giant riot. I'm not exactly getting why from any of the officers I've spoken to. In fact, I'm having a hard time getting hold of anyone at all. Nobody seems to want to talk to us."

  "Colonel, we have control of the tram-port."

  Colonel Glennis LeBlanc had been a colonel a looong time. Everybody else who had been her rank, major, "back in the day" was either a general or retired.

  Glennis wasn't sure why she'd stayed in Fleet Strike so many years, watching younger officers pass her by on the ladder of promotion. Hell, General Wesley, God curse his name, had been a fricking captain at the end of the Siege. With damned little to his credit. He sure as hell hadn't gotten the Distinguished Service Cross for the final battle in North Carolina.

  But such were the vagaries of service. And maybe it was just sheer bloodymindedness that her kept her bumping from one meaningless position to another. Or maybe it was because she had sensed, deep in her ample bosom, that there was a day when Fleet Strike was going to need her.

  Planning a mutiny had been more of a hobby than anything over the years, a way to pass the time in jobs that were far beneath her skills. A background in intel hadn't hurt. She had established lines of communication with other officers, lines that did not use electronic communication for anything other than code phrases. She had built a network of informants. She had mentally mapped out the necessary steps to taking over each base she was on. Some of that she had moved to paper and left with very trustworthy friends on stations throughout the system. Oh, the purposes had been cloaked as games to pass the time. But one thing the AIDs still didn't read well was body language and secondary phrasing. All of "her" people knew that what was building was something other than a game.

  She had looked at each of the problems inherent in a mutiny under the current structure and found passable work-arounds. She hoped. Today was the day to find out.

  "Capturing a critical prisoner" was only one of the many potential flash-points she had mapped. As soon as the riots started she had activated her cells. From her desk in the Morale and Welfare Support Center she had spread the word. Waterloo. As in "It was a near run thing."

  Moonbase was secure and the means to recapture the general were in hand. Phase One complete. She had no particular liking for General O'Neal. She sort of remembered him from "in the day." And they'd met a couple of times over the decades. But he was just another brass from her perspective. The only thing that mattered was a chance to do something worthwhile. It was time to dust off the combat training and lead for a change.

  The next step, though, was going to be a doozy. There was a whole Fleet in the system, not to mention the orbital defenses of the Earth and Luna. Those were Phase Two, Three and Four, not necessarily in that order.

  "Where are we on getting around the AID lockouts on the combat systems?" she asked.

  "Going slow," Warrant Officer Three Pruitt replied. Having Pruitt around was a multiplier for her models. She'd known him since the final battles on Earth and trusted him like armor on a tank. He was sort of a clown from time to time, but he seriously hated the Darhel and the current state of affairs. "We can bypass the lockouts easy enough. But the AIDs do much of the processing for the systems. Replacing that is turning out to be the tricky part."

  "Tell Paul to go faster," Colonel Leblanc snapped. "He's the wiz kid. Tell him to wiz."

  "Will do," the former SheVa gunner said, grinning. "We're gonna chop 'em up like Bun-Bun at a beach party."

  "Colonel," Chief Warrant Officer Five Sheila Indy said. "Are you ready for calls from home?"

  "I take it General Wesley is calling?" Glennis said, grinning.

  "The same."

  "Put him on," the colonel replied, pulling back her hair and spreading the top of her uniform just a bit. Cleavage strikes again.

  General Wesley blinked at the view from the Moon. The officer on the viewscreen was a short-coupled brunette with the most startling chest he'd ever seen. Fleet Strike uniforms specifically deemphasized any trace of the sexual. It was apparent that nothing short of, maybe, an ACS suit could do it with this officer.

  "Colonel . . . ?"

  "Leblanc," the officer replied. "Morale and Welfare. How can I help you, General?"

  "When I attempted to contact General Hart I was put through to you," Wesley replied. "May I ask why?"

  "General Hart is unavailable, General," Colonel Leblanc said, smiling toothily. "And will remain so for the duration."

  "The duration of what, Colonel?"

  "Why the duration of the war, General," the colonel replied. "Officers and men of Heinlein Base, less a remarkably limited number of hold-outs, are in insurrection against the Galactic Federation. They remain so pending a positive disposition of our demands. Which are quite numerous and so onerous I doubt your Darhel puppet-masters are going to accede to them. So you are faced with a choice, General. You can join us—and trust me, the best job I'm going to be able to give you is floor washer; I'll be lucky to keep you alive—or you can try to beat us. And in the latter case, General, my answer to you is Bring It On."

  "They want what?"

  "It's a lengthy list," General Wesley said, trying not to grin. He found himself in a professional quandary.

  On a straightforward logical level he saw no way that the insurrectionists could do more than get themselves killed. Which would be a tragedy. From the few reports he was still getting through CID, the take-over of Heinlein Base had clearly been planned in advance, and right under CID's nose, and had gone off virtually without a hitch. Every member of Fleet, from Admiral Sie down to the lowliest "floor washer" was under arrest or dead. Apparently in the case of the MAs, mostly the latter. And the whole turnover had taken less than an hour. This Colonel Leblanc, whom he vaguely remembered as having been some sort of hero during the latter phase of the Siege, was clearly being underutilized. He was going to have to talk to some people in Personnel about that. Losing her was going to be a terrible thing. But, logically, he could see no way that the insurrectionists were going to win.

  On an emotional level, though, he was cheering them on. And, frankly, trying to figur
e out exactly how he could play both ends against the Darhel.

  "I'll hit the high points, though," the general continued. "The major high-point, from your point of view, is that they want your head on a platter. To quote: Item Sixteen, the severed head of the Tir Dol Ron on a silver platter. In no metaphorical sense. End quote."

  "I see," the Tir replied. "And their other demands?"

  "Well, the first item is going to be hard to comply with," General Wesley said, still trying not to grin. "They want General O'Neal turned over. Unharmed."

  "If only we knew where he was, I'd be glad to give him to them," the Tir said, calmly. "Because Admiral Hartono is moving Second Fleet into orbital trajectories. He is about to bomb Heinlein Base back into a crater. That would take care of General O'Neal. It will be expensive but, I think, necessary."

  "Yes, about that, sir," General Wesley said, clearing his throat. "You are aware that the majority of the in-system fighters are based on the Moon? Our information indicates that the majority of the pilots of those fighters are included in the mutiny. There are over four hundred fighters, sir. That would be a difficult correlation of forces for the admiral."

  "Those fighters are never going to leave the surface, General," the Tir said, grinning toothily. "Trust me on that."

  "Okay, try it again."

  Paul Kilzer wasn't the happiest guy in the world. He could have been about anywhere but up on the Moon trying to hot-wire space fighters. He had a number of patents to his name and was, as well as anyone could be with the Darhel control of credit, reasonably well off. He could be on a beach in Maui.

  But over the years, on again off again, he had had this . . . "thing" with Colonel Leblanc. Oh, sure, she'd kicked him in the balls once. Okay, over the ensuing decades more than once. But like a couple of variable stars in locked orbit, they just couldn't seem to get away from each other. They'd blow up, rock back, wander around and then drift back together again. It was like hell, but fierier.

  "This plan is doomed," his buckley intoned. Despite tweaking the software a thousand times, he just could not get that damned pessimistic function shut down. It was coded so deep in the AI that any time you had to use a buckley at high function, it just popped up. "Would you like a list of ways that we're all going to die? And I do mean horribly. Rapid decompression is a very bad way to die, even for a buckley. We don't take vacuum well."

  "Just see if the bypass keys you into the system," Paul said.

  "Oh, I'm in the system, genius," the AI snapped. "I'm all over this stinking system. But that doesn't mean I know how to fly this thing! I told you this would happen! But you didn't listen, you never listen. No matter how many times I tell you it won't work—"

  "And did you bring up the auto-configuration?" Paul asked wearily.

  "Just like the last time, dumbass," the buckley replied. "And I still can't even get the fucking fusion engines online. Hellooo! I've only got so much processor space! I can't be the only processor on this damned thing! I have no fucking clue how the AIDs do it. Not if they're the sole processor. This thing wants me to control the engines and the navigational system and the flight-control system and the damned communications. Don't even get me started on combat controls. I've just about got the processing for one of those. Dumbass."

  "How much more processing power do you need?" Kilzer asked.

  "Well, more or less one of us for each of the major systems and a main one, that would be me, to control all the rest," the buckley replied. "Not that that would work, either, fucktard."

  "Why not?" Paul asked. Besides being pessimistic, his buckley had become increasingly insulting lately. He wasn't sure why.

  "You ever tried to get multiple buckleys to coordinate?" the device whined. "It's worse than herding cats. We're individuals, asshole, and we don't just take freaking orders. But every freaking one of these damned systems requires an AI. So you're going to need a shitload of buckleys and you're going to have to get all of them to agree on what to do. And, personally, if you're talking about sending me into battle you can blow that for a game of soldiers, retard. Some genius you are."

  "Damn," Paul said, reaching into his trenchcoat. "Let me check my notes."

  "You said you could get it to work, Paul," Glennis said.

  The base was secure and so was the base weaponry. But everything was based on AIDs. Since they knew damned well they couldn't trust the things, they had to get around them. And her resident genius was telling her that was impossible.

  "And I was sure I would," Paul said, grimacing. "But I had no clue how hard it was going to be. The only workaround that might work is a disaster. Have you ever heard nine buckleys arguing about how to fly a space-fighter? The pilot was not amused, especially when the fighter started telling him how to fly. Then the fusion control got all sulky and the weapons started to warm up without orders—"

  "Paul, sensors show that about half of Second Fleet is headed this way," Glennis said in what she thought was a reasonable tone. "And we've got defensive weaponry that won't work without AIDs and fighters that won't work without AIDs and you told me, the last time we were on vacation, that you could get around the AIDs."

  "Yeah, I know," Paul said dreamily. "You didn't hit me for a week."

  "Well, if I have to come down there, getting a nuke dropped on you from orbit is going to be the least of your worries," Glennis snapped. "While I'll miss having something convenient and painful to kick, you won't like going through the rest of your short life without gonads! Figure it out!"

  "General Wesley, incoming call from Colonel Paul."

  General Wesley looked at the system projection and grimaced. Every single Fleet Strike base except Fort Fredericksburg was in rebellion. None of them had fallen as quickly and cleanly as Heinlein Base but all of them were on fire. In the case of the training base in South Dakota, literally.

  He was fully expecting this message to be the confirmation that Titan Base had fallen. Which would mean another base wiped out by Fleet. At this rate Fleet Strike was going to cease to exist in a few days. At which point, given that he'd already spent everything including his honor keeping it alive, he might as well eat a pistol.

  "Go, Elvin."

  "Sir," his Chief of Staff said. "We . . . Sir, Daga Nine has fallen."

  General Wesley quickly tried to recall which base Daga Nine was, then blinked rapidly.

  "The Darhel core world?" he gasped. "To mutineers?"

  "No, sir," Colonel Paul said. "This is from a Fleet communique. An unknown force attacked by surprise. One courier managed to warp out. He reported that as of his system exit, all ground forces had been destroyed or surrendered and all the communications satellites were destroyed, some of them apparently from cloaked ships already in-system before the attack. The attack was two and a half months ago. We're just getting the word."

  "Where the hell was First Fleet?" The "premier" unit of Fleet was, naturally, guarding the Darhel core worlds. Remarkably enough, it had mostly real ships and units, unlike Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth.

  "First Fleet forces in-system were chopped up, according to reports, by an attack from the planet side," Colonel Paul said. "They apparently never stood a chance. The bits of reports we got indicated that whoever attacked destroyed them without taking a single loss and with much smaller ships. The real question is Third. Reports had just reached Daga Nine that it had been destroyed as well. Presumably by the same force."

  "Oh," Wesley said, dropping his head into his hands. "Joy."

  "General, you must get your forces under control," the Tir said. "This new race . . . Daga Nine was a core world. They threaten Gratoola! The capital of the Confederation! This cannot be borne. You must defend—"

  "I must?" Wesley said mildly. "I must? I must do what? We humans must save your sorry asses again? Where's your goddamned Fleet you put in your pocket and held like a souvenir? Half of First Fleet appears to be gone. All of Third. Fifth, who we will discuss in a moment, was apparently heading into the area after get
ting word there was a ruckus. But we haven't heard from Admiral Suntoro, whom we will also discuss in a moment, for, what? Three months? I somehow doubt that he is gallivanting around the galaxy whooping it up after DESTROYING MY FUCKING CORPS!"

  "You will not speak to me in that tone, General," the Tir said dangerously.

  "Or what?" Wesley snapped. "Or you'll have Admiral Hartono drop a rock on me from orbit? Listen you chicken-shit weasel, you were the one that ordered the Eleventh destroyed and killed over twenty thousand of my troops! You were the one that ordered me to hang Michael O'Neal. You were the one that screwed up the Fleet to the point that half the ships on the books don't really exist and the ones that are left absolutely suck! You fucking Darhel are the ones that have consistently screwed us humans to keep us under your thumbs and now you want us to pull your questionable rocks out of the fire again? Well SCREW YOU."