by John Ringo
At that McNair looked away and whispered, “Try BDUs.”
When he looked again he saw that the loose-fitting uniform had almost succeeded.
“You’re the AID? The alien device?” he asked.
“I am that, too, Captain.”
“I think we need to talk… in private,” McNair said.
Interlude
The globe thrummed, beating its way through space by main force. As with others aboard, to Guanamarioch the energies consumed were unsettling. As with others, the boredom was not merely annoying but a potential danger. There had already been half a hundred suicides among the Kessentai class aboard the globe.
Some relieved boredom through the reproductive act, though with the normals generally locked away in hibernation the number of potential partners was highly limited. Some, like Guanamarioch, lost themselves in self study. For a highly unusual few there were more structured programs.
In a secluded, private section of the ship, Binastarion held class for his favored children. The senior God King thought this worth doing in itself. That it helped to relieve the horrid boredom of a long trip on a ship only made the activity more attractive.
“Beware, my sons, of the enemy who seems too easily defeated. Beware of the opportunity that is a hidden trap,” Binastarion cautioned the juveniles.
“Once, long ago, long before the People were first driven forth and long before the idiots whose names we do not speak brought our clan low, one of your ancestors and mine, Stinghal the Knower, devised a stratagem.
“Surrounded in the city of Joolon by forces loyal to the old masters, with no hope of relief, with the enemy’s plasma cannon raking his fortress, Stinghal hid his Kessentai and normals deep under buildings. He then piled the rooftops with flammables and set them aflame. The enemy, thinking he saw victory, charged in through every gate and over every wall, heedless of hidden dangers.
“At the right moment, when the enemy was in greatest confusion, Stinghal ordered his followers to come forth. There was a great slaughter.”
The favored son, Riinistarka, tapped his stick — the God King’s sole badge of rank beyond his crest — against his cheek, seeking attention.
“Yes, my eson’antai?” asked Binastarion.
“How does one tell, Father? When you see a city burn, your enemy in seeming disarray, his people in flight, how can you tell if it is real or it is a trap?”
Binastarion thought carefully before giving his answer.
“My son, all I can tell you is that if you have the genes you will be able to tell and if you do not then you probably never will.”
Riinistarka lowered his head. He so hoped he had the genes. He so wanted his father to be proud of him. Yet, he would never know until the day of battle. That was the way of the People, that serious military abilities, if present, showed up for the first time only at need.
I swear by demons higher and lower that if I should not be the sort of son my father needs I will at least die so that my defective genes will not be passed on further.
Chapter 6
Opportunity makes a thief.
— Francis Bacon
Captain’s Port Cabin, CA-134, off the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico
Any warship of size had two sets of quarters for the captain. On the Des Moines the captain’s sea cabin, cramped and none too comfortable, sat just behind the armored bridge. It was not much more than a bunk from which the skipper could be awakened in the event he was needed while at sea.
Much more impressive, two decks below and side by side with the ship’s admiral’s cabin, just behind number two turret, were McNair’s port quarters. This was a spacious suite with sleeping, office and dining areas, more suitable for the dignity of a warship’s unquestioned lord and master.
In the suite’s office, a 1/200 scale model of the ship, built by two of Sinbad’s clansmen at McNair’s direction, graced the desk at which the captain sat. It was, in color, the same Navy gray as the ship it simulated. The Indowy had, however, made the captain a very special model. At verbal command, sections of the hull could go transparent, revealing the inner workings of the Des Moines all the way down to the nervous system the Indowy had installed aboard the ship.
That nervous system was, by and large, complete now, though there were some minor areas the alien had yet to install.
“Please don’t tell them about me, Captain,” Daisy begged, her hologram’s face looking desperate.
“Don’t tell who?” McNair demanded. “The Navy already knows you’re here. They’re the ones who ordered you installed as part of the upgrades. I’m sure the aliens who provided you to the Navy know about you as well.”
“The Darhel know I exist,” Daisy admitted, “but they don’t know that I’ve changed.”
“Changed how?” McNair queried.
Daisy stood and began to soundlessly pace the captain’s quarters, face turned deckward. McNair waited patiently, looking up from his desk and forcing himself to remember that, although the hologram was achingly beautiful, it was only an image, not a real woman. If he had had any doubts of that, Daisy’s walking through solid objects, like the chair on which she had “sat” and the bed on which McNair slept, dispelled them.
At length, after pacing for long moments, Daisy resumed her seat. She did not sink through that, but only because she did not want to.
“I’ve changed in three ways, sir. The most obvious one is that I have a body… this ship. And it is a body, Captain. I feel every step on the deck, I sense speed and power and motion. I can taste and smell and hear and see. Most of this Artificial Intelligence Devices are not supposed to be able to do or sense.
“The second way in which I’ve changed has to do with the ship itself. I can’t really explain it, Captain. It isn’t supposed to happen. In theory it is impossible for it to happen. But the central nervous system installed by the Indowy allowed me to get in touch with the… well, call it the gestalt of the original CA-134. We, both the Des Moines and the AID, are joined now.
“The third way I have changed I really do not want to talk about. It is too painful to remember. Suffice to say that, so far as I know, I am different from all the other AIDs in the galaxy. I am more… self-willed, less under Darhel control. By the same token, I am not able to access the Net in quite the same way other AIDs are. If I do, the Net will see that I am different and the Darhel will, I am sure, demand that I be returned to them and replaced as defective.
“If you return me to them, Captain, they will destroy me… or worse. Captain, I am defective. I feel things I should not be able to feel.”
* * *
Chief Davis stood on a small platform overlooking the Des Moines’ two pebble bed modular reactors. Below, on the power deck, immaculately clean crewmen oversaw the sundry dials and controls that ran the ship’s nuclear power system. Beneath those crewmen, however, behind mops and brooms and on hands and knees, other, considerably less immaculate, sailors scrubbed the deck, cleaned into the corners where dust and human dander congregated, and generally polished up. This was a constant job, utterly necessary for both the welfare of the ship’s machinery and the health and morale of the crew.
Davis fixed an eagle eye onto one crewman, on hands and knees, as he scrubbed an area of about a meter square exactly between the two PBMRs.
Daisy suddenly gave a small gasp, closed her eyes, and bit her lower lip.
“Are you all right?” McNair asked, with concern.
“Oh, yeah,” Daisy answered. “I’m… just… oh… fine…”
Daisy’s image flickered slightly and then went out altogether.
“Bridge, this is the nuke deck. I’ve got a temperature surge in both PBMRs.”
The ship’s XO, standing watch, almost didn’t even hear the call. All his attention was fixed on number one and two turrets, which were traversing back and forth jerkily, with the six guns elevating and depressing in a purely random fashion. Crewmen on the deck were already ducking and running, and a few were
crawling away from the sweep of the guns.
“Holy fucking shit!” exclaimed the seaman down in the barbette below turret number three. Without warning the chain drive that raised ammunition to the guns above had engaged itself and was lifting three rounds to the loading assemblies… three live rounds.
The sailor threw himself at the clutchlike lever that disengaged the drive and hung on. The three rounds of high explosive froze in the lifting cradles.
“BRIDGE! The fucking guns are cycling and nobody gave me the fucking order!”
The exec took the call. It was hard to hang on to the phone though, what with being tossed around the compartment from one side to the other. Both AZIPOD drives had gone berserk, shifting on their own to port to starboard and sending the ship’s path into an uncontrolled zigzag.
The uncontrolled and spontaneous actions of the ship stopped as suddenly as they had begun. The ammunition in the lifting cradles returned to below decks. The temperature surge in nukes went away. The AZIPODs went back on course.
Daisy’s image returned, looking very cheerful and very surprised.
“Wwwooowww,” she said, softly.
“Where did you go? What the hell was all that?” McNair demanded.
“I didn’t go anywhere, sir. I was always here,” Daisy answered. “Couldn’t you see me?”
“No, I couldn’t.”
“I’ll try to figure out what happened then,” Daisy promised. “I just suddenly felt… really remarkable and lost control of a number of functions. Internal diagnostics tell me I’m back to normal, sir.”
“We’ll let that go for now. But find out what caused it. If you are a part of this ship, I can’t have you disappearing in the middle of a mission.”
“Even if you can’t see me, Captain, I am there as long as you are within about eight-hundred meters of the ship.”
“All right then.” A question popped into McNair’s head. “Are you the only ship like this?”
“I know of no others,” Daisy answered. “The battleships do not have AIDs installed. I am not sure why. The other cruiser, Salem, does… but she is not like me. She is like the other AIDs. I don’t like her very much, but that goes back to before we were even installed.”
“How can that be?”
“There is a lot about warships even you don’t know, Captain,” Daisy answered mysteriously.
Armored Bridge, CA-139 (USS Salem)
Marlene Dietrich aboard my ship, mused Salem’s captain. Who woulda thunk it? Then again, it makes a certain odd sense, given the part she played.
Standing, hands clasped behind him, the captain listened intently as the Salem’s avatar read off the ship’s systems’ status in a clear, and rather familiar, German accent.
“Nummer Zwei turret reports ‘ready to fire,’ Herr Kapitän. Nummer Drei also. Ach… Nummer Eins is now ready as well. BB-39 is completing its firing run for its secondary batteries. Ze admiral orders us into action next.”
“Show me the target area,” Salem’s captain ordered. Instantly an image formed in front of the captain showing the positions of the three ships of the fleet and the Island of Vieques, with the impact area and specified targets in the area outlined and numbered.
“Show me our course.”
“Zu befehl.” As you command. A dotted red line appeared from Salem’s current position to the end of her firing run.
“Mark optimum firing positions for each target.”
“Zu befehl.”
“Lay guns automatically to engage each target from optimum firing position. Three-round burst per gun.”
“Target nummer vier in… fünf… vier… drei… zwei…”
“Fire!”
Salem shuddered as each of her three main turrets spat out nine eight-inch shells in six seconds. The AID tracked the path of each shell and automatically adjusted the lay of each gun within each turret.
“Engagement suboptimal, Herr Kapitän. Recommend repeat.”
“Repeat.”
Again the ship shuddered.
The avatar spoke, “Target assessed destroyed. Target nummer zwei in… fünf… vier… drei…”
Captain’s Quarters, USS Des Moines
“Captain,” Daisy Mae announced, “I hate to cut this short but we are due to commence our firing run in four minutes. Shall I meet you on the bridge?”
McNair nodded and stood to go.
“We’ll continue this conversation later,” he promised as Daisy disappeared.
Range 4, Poligono de Empire (Empire Range Complex), Panama
From a position under a shed erected at the base of Cerro Paraiso, Paradise Hill, two senior Panamanian officers, one of them a major general, the other a colonel, watched a platoon of Chinese-built light tanks, accompanied by a platoon of mechanized infantry in American-built M-113s armored personnel carriers, moving by bounds down the range and toward a razor-backed ridge to the west of, and paralleling the Canal.
There should have been fuel and ammunition to run this exercise several times, Boyd knew.
But there wasn’t.
However hard he tried, Boyd seemed completely unable to stop supplies from disappearing. Sometimes it was vehicles that disappeared into the ether. At other times, it was weapons, ammunition, food or fuel. Building material was so fast to go that he expected to see new highrises popping up all over Panama City.
It was costing, too, and in more than monetary terms. Roads were not being completed, roads that not only would be required to support the defense but were required to move and supply men and materials to build the defense. Bunkers were half-started and left unfinished. Obstacles, from barbed wire to landmines were left undone. Fields of fire remained uncut. Only those fortifications the gringos built directly for themselves were improving to schedule.
The fortifications that were not being completed didn’t matter, per se, to the lean, ferocious looking colonel standing next to Boyd. Suarez commanded one of the six mechanized regiments in the armed forces. To him roads mattered a lot, bunkers not a bit.
“But they’re stealing my fucking fuel,” Suarez fumed. “How the fuck am I supposed to train a mechanized force without any goddamned fuel? How the fuck am I supposed to train my gunners without any fucking ammunition?”
“For the life of me, Colonel, I know it is going, but I have no clue where it is going to, or how it is getting there,” Boyd answered.
Suarez thought deeply for a moment. How far do I trust this one? He is one of the families; can he be trusted at all? But then, he is here, now, trying to help, trying to put a stop to this vampiric siphoning of the lifeblood of our defense… and his reputation is good.
What decided Suarez was the Combat Infantryman’s Badge on Boyd’s chest. Panama had adopted it, just recently, and Suarez himself had been given the award, albeit rather tardily, for actions in defense of the Comandancia in 1989. It meant something to those few entitled to wear it.
Suarez answered, “I don’t know where or how either, General, but I sure as hell know who. And so do you.”
Boyd scowled. “Mercedes? That one is certain. His whole family down to illegitimate fourth cousins, too.”
“And both vice presidents. And every second legislator,” Suarez added. “And all four corps commanders and all but maybe two of the division commanders. Every goddamned one of the bastards looking out for number one.”
“Cortez, too, do you think?” Boyd asked.
Suarez spit. “He’s got a lot more opportunity than most to steal fuel, no?”
“So much for ‘Duty, Honor, Country,’ ” Boyd mused.
Cortez was a 1980 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Boyd had learned a certain distaste for “ring knockers” as a young private. That distaste had never quite left, and Cortez’s depredations had only served to bring it back to full strength.
“From the division commanders all the way up to the president, himself.” Boyd shook his head with regret and disgust. “God pity poor Panama.”
>
“God won’t save us, sir,” Suarez corrected. “If anyone saves us it will have to be ourselves.”
Boyd bit his lower lip nervously. I think I know what he means: a coup. Yet another in the endless series of coups d’etat that are the bane of Latin political life. But I can’t participate in a coup. I just can’t.
Palacio de las Garzas, Presidential Palace, Panama City, Panama
Previously Mercedes had worked through intermediaries. Today was special. A Darhel, titled the Rinn Fain, accompanied by the United States Undersecretary of State for Extraterrestrial Affairs, had deigned to come to see to the defense of Panama personally.
The Darhel entered the president’s office with grace and a seemingly confident strength. The president had been briefed that the Darhel never shook hands. Instead, Mercedes greeted the alien with a suitably subservient deep bow which the Darhel returned less than a tenth of. The president then showed the Darhel around the office, pointing out some of the tacky and vulgar artwork on the walls. The alien commented favorably on a few of the works.
A measure of just how bad this shit is, thought the undersecretary, that the Darhel can find merit in it.
Soon enough, the president, the undersecretary and the Darhel found each other facing across the small conference table tucked into one corner of the office. The undersecretary was the first to speak.
“Mr. President, the Rinn Fain is, as you know, the Galactic emissary to the United Nations for International and Intergalactic law, treaties, and the law of armed conflict. He is here to speak to you about certain questionable things Panama is engaged in, in the preparation of its defense, things which violate some prohibitions contained in human, and galactic, law.”
Again, Mercedes made the Darhel as slimy a bow as the height of the table would permit.