by John Ringo
The Rinn Fain went silent, face smoothing into an almost complete mask of indifference, upon being seated. Only the alien’s lips moved, repetitively, like an Asian priest reciting a mantra. While the Darhel recited, he removed from the folds of his clothing a small black box, an AID.
“The Rinn Fain’s AID will speak for him,” the undersecretary said. “I understand it is programmed to deal with the law.” In fact, the nearest English translation of the AID’s basic central program was “shyster.”
“The law,” said the Darhel’s AID in an artificial voice, “stands above sentient creatures, above their political and commercial systems, above the perceived needs of the present crisis or of any crisis. Before there were men, there was law.”
Mercedes nodded his most profound agreement. Without the law, I could never take as much as I do.
“It has come to our attention that the Republic of Panama, at the instigation of the United States, has decided to adopt certain defensive measures prohibited by your own laws of war. I refer specifically to the planned use of antipersonnel landmines.”
Mercedes’ brow furrowed in puzzlement. He recalled being briefed on some such but the details…? Well, military details hardly interested him absent the opportunity for graft.
“I am somewhat surprised, I confess,” Mercedes said, “that Galactic law even addresses landmines.”
“It does not, not specifically,” the alien shyster-AID answered. “What it does do is require that member states and planets of the confederation follow their own laws in such matters. Panama is a signatory to what the people of your world sometimes call the ‘Ottawa Anti-Personnel Landmine Ban Treaty.’ As such, Panama is expected to abide by the terms of that treaty, to refrain from the manufacture, stockpiling, or use of antipersonnel mines.”
A detail, previously forgotten, suddenly popped into Mercedes head. “But we are manufacturing, stockpiling, or emplacing no mines. They all come from the gringos.”
The undersecretary sighed wistfully at the wickedness of a depraved mankind. “Despite the earnest recommendations of the United States Department of State, the United States has never ratified the Ottawa Accord.”
“As such,” the shyster-AID continued, “the United States is free to use them at will. This is not the case for Panama, however, which has a duty — so we of the legal bureau believe — to prevent them from being manufactured, used or stored not only by its forces but on its soil.”
“The gringos are not going to go along with this,” Mercedes observed.
Again the undersecretary spoke, “It is true, Mr. President, that those Neanderthals at the Department of Defense will take a dim view of any attempt to prevent them from using these barbaric devices.”
Calculating that the time had come to present the threat, the Rinn Fain’s AID added, “However, failure to abide by and enforce its own laws will put the Republic of Panama, and its citizens, under Galactic commercial interdiction.”
“No trade?” asked Mercedes.
“No trade,” answered the undersecretary.
“And no travel via any Galactic means,” finished the Darhel’s shyster-AID.
At that Mercedes eyes bugged out. No travel! That means I am stuck here and so is my family. Oh, no. Oh, nonononono. This will never do.
“Could we not withdraw from the treaty?” Mercedes asked. “I seem to recall that most treaties permit withdrawal.”
“In this case, no,” said the undersecretary. “You might have withdrawn before the current war began. However, pursuant to Article Twenty, no state engaged in war may withdraw from the treaty during the period of that war, even if landmines are used against it.”
“I see. Well, in that case, Mr. Undersecretary, Lord Rinn Fain, you have my personal word that the Republic of Panama will do everything in its power to abide by its obligations under the law.”
Fort Espinar (formerly Fort Gulick), Republic of Panama
“… in accordance with the laws of the Republic, so help me God.”
Digna Miranda, son Hector standing beside, lowered her right arm as she, and he, completed their oaths of office as newly commissioned second lieutenants in the armed forces of the Republic.
The training, supervised and partially conducted by the gringos, had been both hard and harsh. If Digna had been asked why she had stuck it out she likely would have answered, “So as not to embarrass my son, Hector.” For his part, Hector simply couldn’t have borne the thought of failing in front of his mother.
Training together was at an end, however. Hector was on his way — he’d received the orders only this morning — to take over as executive officer for a mechanized infantry company. As a major landowner — deemed, therefore, to be vital to the economic well being of the republic — Digna was to return home to the Province of Chiriqui and take command of the light artillery detachment of the local militia.
To Hector militia duty sounded safer than where he was headed. This sat just fine with him. As far as he was concerned, combat was no place for his mom.
A reception, held in the Fort Espinar Officers’ Club — a single story, eaved structure, painted dark green and white — followed the commissioning ceremony. Where the air outside had been hot and thick enough to package and sell to Eskimos, the air of the O Club was blessedly cool.
It was, in fact, a little too cool as Digna’s newly restored, and rather perky, chest blatantly announced through her dress tans.
Hector leaned over and whispered, “Dammit, Mother, cut that out.”
Momentarily nonplussed, Digna stared at her son without comprehension. He couldn’t bring himself to be more specific than to look upwards at the ceiling.
Suddenly, Digna understood. Her eyes grew wide and her mouth formed a surprised “O.” Ancient modesty took over. Of their own accord, her arms flew up to cover her chest.
“But it’s so cold in here, Hector. I can’t help it.”
“Ladies room?” Hector offered helpfully. “Toilet paper? Insulation? Warmth? Modesty?”
After Digna returned, composed and — mercifully — discreetly covered, she and Hector, side by side, entered the main room of the club where the reception line awaited.
“Teniente Miranda!” Boyd exclaimed as his aide presented Digna. “You are looking well. The Officer Candidate Course has agreed with you, I see.”
“Yes,” Digna agreed. “Though I did not agree with it.”
“Oh?”
“Too many fat and lazy city boys and girls,” Digna answered harshly. “Not enough of the strong and hard campesinos that are the soul of this country.”
Boyd thought about this for a moment, reflecting on his conversation with Suarez at Empire Range sometime before.
“I’d like to talk with you, sometime when it is convenient, about the soul of this country.”
“I am, of course, available, General. I have no real duties anymore until I go back to Chiriqui in about a week to begin to form my militia.”
Boyd turned to his aide. “Make me an appointment, Captain, to speak at length with Teniente Miranda. ”
The aide de camp spoke up. “Sir, you have an appointment at the Coco Solo glider club with the G-2 on Wednesday morning, but you are free in the afternoon.”
“Would that do, Teniente Miranda? Wednesday afternoon?”
With the slightest — and not at all coquettish — tilt of her head, Digna signified yes.
Standing ahead of her, her son, Hector, scowled quietly at what he was sure was an attempt to pick up his mother.
Coco Solo Glider Club, Coco Solo, Panama
The airfield was not far from the sea; the seabirds whirling and calling out overhead gave ample testimony to that. Indeed, almost no place in Panama was very far from the sea. The air of Colon Province was thick with moisture. Sweat, once formed, simply rolled, hung or was absorbed by clothing. It never evaporated.
Boyd was sweating profusely as his staff car pulled up next to a newly constructed metal, prefab hangar. The troops had no air conditio
ning and, so, while his staff car did have it he ordered it turned off, much to the consternation of Pedro, his driver. Boyd could smell the sea — though really it was the smell of the shore — strongly. He emerged from the vehicle and was met immediately by another officer of the Defense Forces, the G-2.
Boyd and the G-2, Diaz, held the same rank. That, their nationality, and the uniform was about all they had in common, though. Diaz was the son and grandson of poor peasants. Short and squat compared to Boyd, and dark where Boyd was essentially white, Diaz had struggled all his life to make of himself what had been given as a free gift to Boyd by reason of his birth.
Their prior dealings had been sparse: Intelligence and logistics tended to work apart in the somewhat Byzantine structure of Panama’s Armada. Indeed, since one of the major traditional functions of the intelligence service in Panama was to prevent a coup, and since logistics — specifically transportation — was generally key to the launching of a successful coup, one might have said that the two were, or should have been, natural enemies.
Natural enemies or not, Diaz met Boyd warmly with an outstretched hand and a friendly smile.
“Señor Boyd, how good of you to come on such short notice,” Diaz offered.
“It’s nothing, señor, especially since you said you had something to show me. Your aide said it might be critical to the defense of the country.”
“Just so,” Diaz answered. “And if you will follow me into the hangar.”
Once inside, after giving his eyes a moment to adjust to the reduced light, Boyd saw what was perhaps the last thing he expected to see.
“What the hell is that?” he asked.
Diaz shrugged. “Some would call it a gamble; others a forlorn hope. Me; I call it a glider, an auxiliary propelled glider, to be exact.”
Boyd looked closer. Yes, it had the long narrow wings of a glider, and sported a propeller from its nose.
“Let me rephrase,” he said. “What is there about a glider that justified pulling me away from my job where, I have no doubt, someone is stealing the country blind and where, if I were there, I might manage to save half a gallon of gasoline?”
Diaz scowled, though not, to all appearances, at Boyd. “We can talk about the thefts — yes, I know about them. Of course I would know about them — when we have finished with this matter.
“This, as I was opining, is a glider. It is not an ordinary glider, though. It has been fitted with a good, light radio. It has a top of the line thermal imager. It has an onboard avionics package to allow it to fly in some pretty adverse weather.”
“It sounds like you’re thinking of using it for reconnaissance,” Boyd said.
“Maybe,” Diaz admitted. “It’s a gamble, though not, I think, a bad one.”
Boyd looked dubious. “I’ve been to the same briefings you have. Nothing can fly anywhere near those aliens. The life expectancy of an aircraft, even the best aircraft the United States can produce, can be measured in minutes.”
“It could be measured in seconds, señor, and it would still be worth it for the intelligence we might gain.”
“But a glider?”
“It might be that only a glider has a chance to fly over the enemy, report, and make it back. Let me explain.”
Diaz pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, offered one to Boyd and, at his refusal, pulled out one and lit it with a lighter he withdrew from the same pocket. His head wreathed in smoke, he began to explain.
“The gringos make wonderful machines, I’m sure you’ll agree. But you know, sometimes they get too wrapped up in those machines, forget the circumstances that make those machines valuable or vulnerable. How else can one explain them making single bombers that cost more than the entire Gross Domestic Product of the very countries they would wish to bomb? How else can you explain their intent to produce a new, and incredibly expensive, jet fighter when no one in the world could even touch the fighters they had?”
Exhaling a plume of smoke, and grunting in satisfaction, Diaz continued. “We think they overlooked something. We know, because they told us, that these aliens who are coming can sense powered changes in anything moving. It is possible, even, that the Posleen can sense any changes.
“And yet they do not. There are reports that birds in the areas they infest are generally unmolested. We know they do not engage any of the billions of small particles roaming through space. Maybe it is because the particles are not moving under their own power. But then, how do you explain the birds going unmolested?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” Boyd answered with a shrug.
Taking another drag, Diaz answered, “Neither do I. But a young man, a student, at the university has a theory and I think it is a good one. Certainly it explains much.
“He thinks that the reason the enemy do not engage the micrometeorites in space is because their sensors have been deliberately ‘dialed down,’ that they are set not to notice things of insufficient mass or velocity or a combination of the two. He has done the calculations and determined that if the enemy’s sensors are dialed down to where meteorites are unseen, then birds simply do not appear on their sensors. He thinks that slow, really slow, moving gliders might also go unnoticed, at least some of the time.
“He’s firmly enough convinced of this that he has talked me into raising a small force of these gliders for operational reconnaissance. He’s even joined this force.”
“ ‘Some of the time.’ You’re gambling a lot of men’s lives on the calculations of a student,” Boyd observed.
“I should hope so,” Diaz answered. “The young man of whom I spoke? He is my son, Julio.”
“Shit!” Boyd exclaimed. “You are serious. All right then. What do you need from me?”
“Not much. A certain small priority for fuel for training. Some shipping space. Maybe we can both have a word with the G-1 to assign some high quality young people to this unit.”
“We’ll need the fuel that is, if his Excellency, el presidente, doesn’t have a market for low grade aviation fuel. He might, you know. He has found a way to steal everything else.”
“Can you prove that?” Boyd asked.
“Oh, I can prove it,” Diaz answered, then shrugged. “To my own satisfaction, at least. Can I prove it to a court? Can I prove it to a legislature that is as deep into graft and corruption as the president is himself? I doubt it.”
“But you know, Señor Boyd, I’ve been thinking. The president and his cronies are able to pilfer an absolutely amazing proportion of what we bring in to defend ourselves. After all, they know exactly where everything is and where everything is supposed to go.
“I do wonder though, what they would do if we started ‘stealing’ it first.”
Boyd looked at Diaz as if he had grown a second head. That look lasted but a few moments before being replaced by something akin to admiring wonder.
“Stealing it first? What a fascinating idea, señor. Deliver it to the U.S. Army to hold for us, do you think?”
“That would help, of course,” Diaz agreed. “But I am thinking we are going to have to take control of the more pilferable items before they ever get here. Can you transship things like ammunition and fuel someplace overseas, bring them here in different ships, unload those ships here and deliver the supplies to the gringos or to some of our own more reliable people without the president knowing? Can you cover the traces of the original ships so it looks to the government as if those things are being stolen overseas?”
Boyd smiled confidently, and perhaps a little arrogantly. “Señor, I would not claim to be much of a general, but I am as good a shipper as you’ll find in the world.”
“Bill,” said Diaz, using Boyd’s name for the first time, “I have no doubt you’re a fine shipper. What you are not, however, is a thief.”
Boyd felt months of frustration welling up from inside him. Engraved on his mind he saw sickening images of troops sitting around bored and useless because the fuel and ammunition they needed for trainin
g was “no tenemos.” He saw roads and bunkers half finished and workmen standing idle. He saw mechanics kicking broken down vehicles because they simply didn’t have the parts needed to repair them.
He felt these things, and the anger they fed, growing inside him until he just couldn’t stand it anymore.
“If that no good, thieving, treasonous, treacherous, no account, stupid bastard who claims to be our president can figure how to rob a country, I can figure out how to steal it back!
“And if I have to, if you think it will work, I’ll steal whatever it takes to get your son’s project off the ground.”
Hotel Central, Casco Viejo, Panama City, Panama
The ceiling fan churned slowly above the bed. Like the hotel itself, the fan was ancient. Unlike the rest of the hotel, however, the fan had not been especially well maintained.
Stolen moments are often the sweetest, thought Julio Diaz, lying on his back with his girlfriend’s head resting on chest.
The girl, Paloma Mercedes, was quietly crying. The bastard had waited until after they’d made love before telling her the grim news.
Except he isn’t a bastard… or if he is, I love the bastard anyway.
“I just do not understand how you can leave me, how you can volunteer to leave me,” she sniffled. “You could have had a deferment. If your father wouldn’t have arranged it, mine would have.”
Julio stared up at the ceiling fan. How do I explain to her that I volunteered for her? How do I explain that I couldn’t have looked at myself in the mirror to shave if I’d let other men do that job for me?
Instead of explaining, Julio offered, “My father would never do such a thing. And your father would beat you black and blue if he knew we were seeing each other.” Julio sighed before continuing, “And I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. It would be so wrong.”
Seventeen-year-old Paloma lifted off of his shoulder, taking Julio’s hand and placing it on her breast. “It would be wrong for you to stay here for me? Wrong for you to keep holding me like this? That’s… the most selfish thing I’ve ever heard!”