by John Ringo
So when the federal government finally got around to reestablishing the post office, he'd taken the tests and been inducted as a "Rural mail carrier, unsecured zone" which not only had a monthly bonus attached but a generous firearms, vehicle and ammo budget.
When he pulled in to drop off the mail in his surplus LAV, complete with functional and well-cared-for 25mm chain-gun, the old timer Californians like Chief Isemann barely shook their heads anymore.
"I paid my fucking taxes," Chief Isemann said, setting down the splice she'd been putting in the hawser. "Who the hell's it from?"
Former Master Chief Petty Officer (Fleet) Ronnette Isemann was pushing a hundred and looked like she had the day she raised her hand to swear and affirm in the U.S. Navy, three months after she graduated from Scripps Ranch High School. Roan hair fell down her back in a thick braid, braided every morning by hands burned nearly black from the sun. Her face was just as brown as were the eyes behind her wrap-around sunglasses.
The tuna-boat Lexington tugged at its lines, waiting to go out. The bluefin were going to be running offshore and the last thing that Ronnie needed was to be held up by some fucking Fed bullshit.
"Fleet," Bob said, holding out the letter on a clipboard. "Sign here."
"Christ, can't you tell 'em I was gone when you got here?" Ronnie asked.
"Now, Chief, you know I can't do that," Bob said. "I'd have to put down that you refused delivery."
"Fuck," Ronnie said, signing the form. Bob tore off his portion and handed the letter over. "You're a fucking pal, Bob."
"Come on, Chief," the mailman said. "Just doing my duty."
"Point," the former NCO said, looking at the letter.
"Come on, read it," Bob said. "I want to know what it says."
"Maybe I'm up for disability or something," the chief said, opening up the letter. "Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me . . ."
"That bad?"
"I'm recalled? It's been fifty fucking years of ignoring me and now I'm recalled? Oh, those Indi bastards! 'Thank you very much for saving the Earth, now get the fuck out of the Fleet, you're no longer wanted you Ami traitor.' Until the shit . . . Am I missing something? What the fuck is going on?"
"You hadn't heard?" Bob said. "New invasion."
"Not the damn Posleen again!" the chief swore. "Not under fucking Indi officers. I just won't go!"
"New group," Bob said. "Read it on the internet. Hedren. And there's been a big shake-up in Fleet and Fleet Strike. Mike O'Neal's commander of Fleet Strike and some Jap is commanding Fleet. Taki something."
"Takao Takagi?" Isemann said, sitting up as straight as a bolt.
"Yeah, that's it," Bob said. "Mean anything to you?"
"Fleet is under Takao Takagi?" Isemann said, jumping to her feet and raising her hands to the sky. "Fleet is under Takao 'VX' Takagi? Yes! There is a God! When's the next convoy leave for Tahoe? Jimmy! JIMMY! Get your lazy butt down here! You've got the boat. Grandma's going back to SPACE!"
We have completed our examination of the Indowy so-called "master" of kratki: The telepathic transmission from the Imeg entered General Etugul's mind like red fire, but he maintained his splayed stance of obeisance despite the pain. The Indowy are no threat to the Conquest. They retain even in the most extreme conditions a code of utter nonviolence. The Indowy did no more than defend himself against our probes. They use kratki only for making of devices and as part of their false Path. They will not impede your advance.
"I thank you most humbly for the information, Lord Imeg. The Archons are victorious."
What are your plans?
"The capital of this polity is within range of the most recently conquered world, Your Greatness. And it is within range of many other planets. As soon as the jump gate is established and charged, we will continue our conquest of this polity by next taking their capital. We have developed information from examination of their information network and interrogations. The leaders of this polity, the Darhel, have systematically reduced their war forces to a level so low they are a negligible threat. The most dangerous unit that we might have faced was eliminated not so long ago. The method of their elimination is a source of rumor, but that it is gone is unquestionable. Their ships are substandard and only the humans give fight. Given the scattered nature of their forces, we should be able to conquer this polity as rapidly as we can move."
This is all good news, the Imeg said. But be wary. The Himmit yet remain and the polity may have surprises yet in store.
"I remain wary, Greatness," Etegul said. "I know the Words and the Teachings perfectly. I will do all things in accordance with the will of the Archons."
Yes, I know you do, the Imeg thought. I know you do.
"You know, it's the little things in life," Bill Boyd said as he walked into the office.
"Sunshine, gentle rains, spring daffodils?" Mike asked. "Things like that?"
"One of three total shipyards capable of producing warships directly in the path of an alien conquest."
"Crap," Mike said, slapping his forehead. "Gratoola yards! How in the fuck could I forget that?"
"I mean, there's tons of orbital manufacturing, too," Boyd said, sitting down unasked. "But the yards are the killer. That and the Indowy shipfitters. With what we're looking at, how we're looking at producing ships, the shipyard was going to have to be extensively renovated anyway. It might have been more sense to start from scratch. But the shipfitters . . . We need those guys."
"So evacuate them," Mike said, looking back at his computer. "Them and any Sohon above the level of four. We're going to need both. Get with Admiral Takagi on where to send them."
"You don't think you can hold Gratoola," Boyd said.
"Actually, I said evacuate the critical non-combatants," Mike replied. "I'm going to send everything I can spare to hold Gratoola. And I am confident of victory."
"I'm not a reporter," Bill said.
"No, you're the head of the War Production board," Mike said. "Which means I tell you what you need to know and vice versa. You tell me everything, though, and I tell you what I think you need to know. Me commander. Sorry, Bill, but that's the way things work."
"Okay," the industrialist said, standing up. "I actually can handle that. I was a private many, many years ago and understand what you're doing. But, seriously, we don't have the forces to hold Gratoola, do we?"
"Nope," Mike said. "Not against the whole Hedren force. Doesn't mean I'm going to lose it, though. I've got some aces up my sleeve."
"Are you sure I'm going to be okay doing this?" Daisy asked, nervously. "And I do mean I. The whole package. Including, you know, the meat portion."
Michelle had gathered other Sohon, both from the few human lower mentats on Earth and a group of Indowy, including Master Glavaka, Ermintrude's master of training.
Over the last weeks the ship had been packed with, well, stuff. Much of it was refined metals comprising most of the metal group in the Periodic Table. There were also bags and bags and bags of graphite—pure carbon in other words.
And then there was one.
"Your processes will be placed in suspension," Michelle said, placing a finger-sized device on the teak deck of the cruiser. Even walking on the surface was somewhat problematic since many portions had nearly rotted through. "Your organic portion will be held in stasis and protected from the vacuum by Harry. We have carefully examined your links and understand them thoroughly. We will be able to . . . remake you in a new image."
"I sort of like my current image," Daisy said, frowning. "Really, I'm not so sure about this."
"Miss Mae," Thomas said, gesturing at the rust-streaked cruiser. "We will make this . . . better. Better than she was, you were, when you first pulled out of the shipyards. Bigger, stronger, a spaceship capable of fighting anything in the known galaxy that's faster than she is and running from anything more powerful. Not a cruiser, a dreadnought to redefine the term. You will be a capital ship when we are done."
"Okay," Daisy said, shrugging. "I guess
I don't really got a choice."
"You have a choice," Michelle said. "But I think what you really have is cold feet."
"More like stage fright," Daisy admitted. "But, okay, let's get this over with. What do I do?"
"I would suggest simply lying on the deck," Thomas said. "In a way this new ship we are creating is built in your image. Let you be the template."
"Mind if I lean on the bridge-tower?" Daisy said, walking over and looking at the deck. "My dress is going to get ruined."
Thomas waved his hand and the teak deck looked as if it had been newly installed. And varnished.
"Better?"
"I can see why people call what you do magic," Daisy said, sitting down. "Right. Capital ship. I can handle that. I think. Better than the scrapyard."
"It is time," Michelle said, lifting up into the air and lowering herself to the river bank. "Let us begin."
"You know," Mike said, looking out the window with his arms crossed. "I've gotten used to grav belts and stuff. But watching them just fly around using the power of their mind sort of throws me."
"It's not exactly the power of their mind," Cally replied. "Trying to get Michelle to explain it is pretty tough but I've gotten some bits out of her. It's using their minds to control the nannites to locally effect reality. Think quantum. In some dimension or universe or something, anything is possible. Including that, at any moment, they are lifting up a bit then over a bit, et cetera."
"And in some dimension a cruiser is just lifting up out of the river and ascending into the heavens?"
"Right," Cally said in a strangled voice. "They're using the grav engines, right? Because if that thing drops . . ."
"They got removed," Mike replied, spitting into a spit can. "And I guess in some universe somewhere, there's a group of mentats including my daughter who are just lifting up into the air."
"I guess," Cally said, holding her breath.
"I got to go outside and watch this."
We are stable, Michelle thought.
The cruiser was in geosyncronous orbit. Getting it there had been a non-trivial exercise in Sohon but everything else they had to do would be easier in the vacuum and microgravity. Maintaining an air-pocket, and recycling that air, around each of the Sohon and the organic portion of the ship was an exercise for the lower level Sohon, trivial in comparison.
Let us begin, Master Glavaka said. This is what she is. This is what she shall become.
Becoming.
* * *
"Can you see anything?" Mike asked, shielding his eyes against the sun and looking up.
"Even the satellites can't see anything," Tam replied. "There's a spatial disturbance in geosync at the equator but in line with us on longitude. Light appears to be going in but not coming out. Not a black hole, no similar gravitational disturbance, just . . . light going in and not coming out."
"Wonder how long this is going to take," Mike said, walking over to a beech tree and sitting down under it. "I've got paperwork."
"You've always got paperwork," General Wesley said. "You've been at the desk by three AM and out of here after midnight for the last three weeks. Take a break."
"I think I will," Mike said, leaning back on the grass and continuing to look into the lightly clouded sky. "Get somebody to tell me when that spatial anomaly starts to move."
"Will do."
The Sohon floated in space, their hands outstretched, each face serene as they wrestled with more power than the Earth had been capable of producing before the coming of the Galactics.
The nannites, reacting to the codes from the high-level key, began reproducing asymptotically, the remainder that were in the steel and those sent from the Sohon exploding into quantities that were only reproducible by scientific notation. The "spatial anomaly" was, in part, a giant lens, focusing Sol's awesome power on the steel of the ship, pumping photons and other particles onto it to feed the replication and change occurring throughout.
Bulkheads warped and twisted sinuously, guns melted, becoming new and more lethal engines of destruction, the hull bulging out and becoming larger, larger, more rounded, less angular and yet in many ways much more . . . predatory.
The Des Moines was Becoming.
"General O'Neal, sir?"
Mike started awake and looked around blurrily.
"Sir," the sergeant said, shaking his shoulder. "General Wesley says that . . . 'the spatial anomaly is moving,' sir."
"Right," Mike said, sitting up and rubbing his face. "How long was I out?"
"About an hour, sir," the sergeant replied. "Are you going to be . . ."
"Fine, Sergeant," Mike said, grinning. "Just took a catnap. Right, let's see what we got."
"Should be in sight," Tam said, looking up into the sky.
"Behind the clouds I figure," Mike replied, tapping down his dip.
"I see something . . ." Cally said. "It's . . ."
"Holy Fuck that's big!" Mike snapped.
What he had at first taken to be a cloud was moving unlike any cloud would. But it was farther away than he'd thought and thus much larger than he'd realized.
"Are they going to park that in the river?" Tam asked as the ship continued to descend. "That's got to be nearly a klick long!"
"Oh. My. God," Cally said.
"You got some sort of enhanced vision from that slab thing, didn't you," Mike said, balefully.
"Yep," Cally replied, her hand over her mouth. "Dad. You're not going to believe this . . ."
"Are those . . . ?"
"No, Father, they are not breasts," Michelle said sharply.
The ship was hovering above the Rappahannock, squarely between the headquarters building and the training center on the far side. And Mike was pretty sure nothing was getting done. Because every single person in every single building was outside looking at the ship. If any of the guards stayed on their posts, he was going to give them a three-day pass for aggressive attention to duty.
It was big, that was for sure. Eight hundred meters long and massing maybe a hundred and fifty thousand tons. Supermonitors were bigger but they were never designed to enter atmosphere. It had to be pretty much the biggest ship ever to come near landing on a planet. Its hull was glittering gold, sinuous and . . . distinctly womanly. Warp nacelles jutted like wings, upward on either side, and surmounting it was a rack of grav drivers and laser cannons. More were forward of the nacelles and even on the underside although it was clearly designed for landings.
But that wasn't what people were looking at.
"They sure look like tits," Mike said. "I mean, they're right out front, they've got some ptosis and they've even got nipples. I mean, not only are they tits, they're naked tits, Michelle. You've built me a warship that's got naked tits on the front. What's the point of nose art!"
"The . . . devices to which you refer are Quantum Tanglers," Michelle said severely. "The shape is . . . an unfortunate necessity. That truly is the only shape that will work."
"And Quantum Tanglers are . . . ?" Cally asked.
"They cause particles to become . . . strangled in their entanglements," Michelle replied. "Their entanglements become confused."
"Michelle, that's not telling me a whole hell of a lot," Mike pointed out.
"Let me help, General," Kang Chan said, from behind him. "They make things blow up."
"Ah, now someone is speaking a language I understand!" Mike said, turning around. "How much?"
"A lot," Mentat Chan said.
"Okay," Mike said, holding his finger and thumb apart at eye level. "Leetle more detail."
"The quantum tangler causes randomization of entanglements by inserting false tangles into the entanglements," Thomas said.
"There has to be a middle ground," Mike growled. "Tell me there's a middle ground. How much boom? Are we talking a little bang or an earth-shattering kaboom?"
"I was getting to that," Thomas continued. "Although it is a false truth, the way to explain it I suspect is in terms you are aware of. They ar
e incorrect terms, but you are familiar with them. May I proceed?"
"Go," Mike said, crossing his arms.
"You are familiar with the hoary adage that all matter is energy?"
"You mean relativity?" Mike asked. "E equals MC square. That hoary old adage? The one Einstein got the Nobel for?"
"Yes," Thomas said. "It is, by the way, wrong. But it is a close approximation of effect. By disturbing entanglements, certain particles are induced to become . . . different. More wavelike. Energy if you prefer. I am having trouble determining appropriate metaphors."