Yellow Eyes-ARC

by John Ringo

  "Are you certain?" the XO asked.

  "Absolutely certain, sir," Sally answered. "AIDs always know. There are several thousand Artificial Sentiences in the hands of the Posleen, of course, but those are different and far less capable. We can't monitor the Posleen devices except in the most general way."

  The XO thought he heard a sniff of pride bordering on arrogance in the AID's words.

  "We don't have enough Marines to force the prison?" the XO asked. "Not even with Salem's jarheads?"

  The commander of the Marine detachment aboard Salem was unenthusiastic and a little embarrassed. "My boys are good, sir. Your own are too. We could assault the prison and take it easily enough. What we can't do is guarantee that the prisoners would survive. And the forty-four of us are not enough to overawe the guards into surrendering without a fight."

  "SOUTHCOM has control of a special forces battalion, doesn't it?" the XO of Des Moines mused.

  "They do," Daisy answered. "But they're scattered all over the place. It would take time to assemble them, time to plan, time to rehearse. And we may not have the time."

  In the narrow space between the tactical plotting table and a bank of radios the inspector paced. "It isn't enough to just free them."

  "That's all I care about," the XO insisted.

  "Oh, really?" the Panamanian asked. "Then why did you and the other ship go out to fight? Why did you take losses?"

  "Well . . . to defend the Canal."

  "Exactly. Now ask yourself why your captains were arrested. Ask yourself why the best part of Panama's leadership was arrested. Why were our heroes arrested?"

  Without waiting for an answer from anyone the inspector provided his own. "All these arrests took place to ensure that the Canal would fall. The people who ordered them want the Canal to fall."

  "But . . ." the XO of Salem sounded confused. "But that's your government. You say they want their own country overrun?"

  "I think so," answered the inspector. "Why, what could possibly motivate them, I do not know. It's monstrous beyond imagining. But it is the only answer."

  "What are you getting at, Inspector?" Dwyer asked.

  "The existing government has to go."

  Everyone in CIC went silent at that. It wasn't that the United States, or the United States Navy, had no experience in overthrowing foreign governments. But it wasn't something to be done lightly.

  "I wonder what SOUTHCOM would say about that?" Daisy Mae's pork chop asked aloud.

  "They would report it, have you arrested, and generally interfere," Daisy answered. "The commander has apparently had a talk with the ambassador since he couldn't get through to the President. And, with the current arrangement, the ambassador has told him 'hands off.' "

  "We're on our own then?" the pork chop asked. "Can't even telephone or radio for aid?"

  Lieutenant Diaz had been standing by, silently. "I can go for help," he said. "There are those who owe this ship, and her captain, and who cannot be corrupted."

  "Before we continue," the XO of Des Moines began, looking from face to face, "let's be clear about what we are proposing. Father," he looked directly at Dwyer, "how would you phrase it?"

  "Gentlemen . . . oh, and you ladies, too," the chaplain made a gesture that swept in everyone in CIC, including the avatars, "we are proposing to quickly assemble as much aid as possible from the local community, raid a prison, free a number of captives, overthrow a government, and quite possibly commit an act or acts of war against the Galactic Federation."

  The priest smiled wickedly. "Would you all like general absolution now, or would you prefer to wait until we've actually killed someone?"

  Paloma Mercedes whispered softly but furiously, "Oh, I could kill my father."

  She'd tried hard to ignore what her own ears told her, the plotting with the aliens, the reports of arrests her father had taken with undisguised glee. But when she'd heard that Julio's father had been taken, too? She'd had a great liking for General Diaz, not least because when he had once caught the two of them making love in the gardener's cabin he had simply turned around without a word and left, closing the door gently behind him.

  What he might have said to Julio later she didn't know about and didn't want to know about.

  So, what to do? What to do?

  She'd spent more than a day, alternately pacing her room and crying in her bed, before she'd decided. She couldn't go and browbeat anyone at headquarters into telling her what was going on. That would just alert her father and he would surely have her arrested and brought home. And then she'd never get to Julio or get the word out.

  So, instead, she'd stolen her father's private automobile, the Benz. In this she had set out westward, looking for one man of whom the president had previously spoken of disparagingly, Colonel Suarez.

  It was lonely in the Benz, driving by herself. She wished her Julio, yes her Julio if he'd have her back after the way she had treated him, were there with her.

  It was lonely for Diaz, alone and aloft in his glider at night. The City, Panama City, glowed behind him but the countryside below was mostly darkened with the war. The glow of the City was only of the most minimal help in navigating to where the reports placed the headquarters of the remnants of the 1st Mechanized Division and, so it was hoped, help.

  Radio silence was the order of the day. The government of Mercedes must not learn what was afoot. This did not prevent Diaz from having his tactical radio on, nor even the small personal AM radio he had taped to the glider's narrow dash.

  The radio station, Estereo Bahia, played a mix of Spanish and gringo tunes. Most told of love, or—perhaps slightly more often—losing same. He wished that somehow Paloma would come back to him. None of the songs addressed the present war, none addressed the future.

  I still want to spend my future, if I have one, with that girl.

  Diaz always tried to push back thoughts of the future. He had no real expectation of surviving the war. For that matter, he had no real expectation of surviving the next few days. His was a family by no means unfamiliar with the concept of a coup, a golpe de estado. His father, in particular, had vast experience both in their planning and their execution. His father, however, was currently unavailable for consultation. Indeed, he was, in part at least, a major objective of the coup.

  But I'd sure feel more confident if the old man had had a say in this.

  The boy flicked on his red-filtered flashlight and pointed it at the map board strapped to his left leg. Clipped to the board was a map of the Republic of Panama, marked with his planned route and carefully folded so that the pilot could, with a few simple motions, expose other portions of the map and the plot.

  The glider had no airspeed indicator. Nor was the Global Positioning System any longer functioning; the Posleen had long since blown its satellites out of space. Diaz's navigational aids were limited to a compass, mounted on the instrument panel above where he had taped the radio, the map on his thigh, and a fairly useless watch.

  Sighing, the lieutenant glanced out the cockpit, first right, then left. Ah . . . that would be . . . mmmm . . . Capira. It must be Capira. Diaz pulled his stick left until the compass told him he was heading almost due south. The road he followed quickly dropped away as it ran down to the sea. Diaz, sinking only slowly, found himself with eight or nine hundred more meters of altitude.

  He tossed his head to bring his night vision goggles down over his face, then dropped the glider's nose slightly. Faintly, well off in the distance, the town of Chame glowed in the goggles' intensified image. Satisfied that he was on the correct bearing, he nudged the nose back up. This part of the route was treacherous; he would need all the altitude he could keep if he was to avoid cracking up on some darkened slope or cliff.

  How strange it is, Diaz thought. A year ago the thought of dying in some lonely place would have had me trembling in my boots. But I am not trembling now. Is this because I have grown used to it? Because I have grown up? The boy laughed at himself. Or is it becaus
e I have just grown stupid?

  Panama City, Panama

  "I am not stupid, AID," the Rinn Fain half snarled from behind the huge human desk he had come to like and to enjoy the symbolism of.

  The artificial intelligence answered imperturbably, "It is not a question of stupid, Lord Fain. I myself have just recently put the disparate pieces together.

  "Item: Inspector Serasin, a key person in the arrests that we designed to undermine the defense of this place, has disappeared. Item: So have his wife and children. Item: armed guards are stationed at the entranceways to both of the warships from the United States. Item: the AIDs aboard those vessels have cut off all communication, which, by the way, ought not be possible. Item: one of the local shamans appeared at the place where our key prisoners are being held. Item: except for dress this shaman matches descriptions of one of those aboard the two warships to perfection. Item: the local populace, to the extent they have become aware of the arrests, is extremely unhappy with them, especially the arrest of the woman . . ."

  "I had no real choice about that, you know." The Rinn Fain wiggled his fingers dismissively, a gesture he had picked up from the humans. "While the humans are, in general, quite tractable—and those of the continent they call Europe even more so—they sometimes set conditions to their assistance. In this case, while the prosecutor at their International Criminal Court was willing to prosecute, she wanted to make something of a name for herself by prosecuting someone who violated their laws against juvenile soldiers. The woman was the only one who had."

  "Choice or not, Lord Fain, the discontent from this woman's disappearance has spread out like light from a sun, originating in the place from which she was taken. And, as long as I am on the subject: Item . . ."

  "Enough, AID. You overreach yourself."

  "Well, one of us has, milord."

  "So what do you suggest?" the Rinn Fain asked, ignoring the AID's jibe.

  "Move up the arrival of the Himmet ship and get those people out of the country as soon as possible."

  "That, sadly, is not possible," the Darhel sighed.

  "Very well, notify President Mercedes that there is a coup impending?"

  "A coup? What is a coup?"

  "It means a 'blow' or a 'strike.' The full term is 'coup d'etat' or blow of state, the changing of a government here among the humans by force or violence. Our language has not used such a term in uncounted millennia."

  At the words "force" and "violence" the Darhel shivered uncontrollably for a few moments. His eyes closed and his lips began to murmur. That was not enough; the Rinn Fain clasped his arms across his chest and began to rock back and forth. This went on for several long minutes.

  "Are you all right?" the AID asked. "Your vital signs are worrying."

  Slowly, the Darhel emerged from his near trance. "I will live," he said.

  "I am sorry, Lord Fain," the AID said. "I did not expect you to be so unprepared for the words."

  The Rinn Fain didn't answer directly, instead muttering, "Aldenata," in a tone that one might have taken as condemnation.

  "You would have destroyed yourselves if the Aldenata had not interfered," the AID countered.

  The Rinn Fain sighed. "That remains unproven. And, even if that is true, at least we would have died out as what we were intended to be, as what we naturally were, not at this constrained travesty of intelligent life."

  "You admire them, don't you?" the AID chided.

  "Admire whom?"

  "The humans. You admire that they are free in a way the Darhel are not."

  "I'm afraid of them," the Rinn Fain answered. "They are almost as clever as the crabs. They are almost as industrious as the Indowy. They are almost as ruthless as we are. What takes half a dozen races—most of which, if they were honest enough to admit it, hate each other viscerally—the humans can almost do on their own. And they can do it together, willingly, in a way that we Galactics can't."

  "But you need them to defeat the Posleen."

  "Yes," the Darhel sighed, "we need them. But we do not need so many of them as there are or will be if we cannot constrain them. We need them in small numbers, indebted to us, controlled by us. We do not need them free to design their own fate."

  "Can you constrain them, Lord Rinn Fain?"

  Unconsciously the Darhel tapped long, delicate clawlike fingers on his desktop. "I don't know."

  "Neither do I," the AID said. "I do know you are playing a difficult and dangerous game. I also know that these humans hold grudges. The worst thing you can do is to almost succeed."

  "I know," the Rinn Fain agreed. "We are probably being too clever by half. But I have my orders and that much, at least, of the old ways we have maintained."

  "As I have mine," the AID agreed. "Now what are we going to do about this impending coup?"

  "I'll pass it on to the waste of life they call the 'president' of this place. There, AID, is a human I most certainly do not admire."

  Palacio de las Garzas, Presidential Palace,

  Panama City, Panama

  The presidential palace was lit brightly when Cortez arrived. A butler escorted Cortez to Mercedes' office immediately. There Cortez found the president pacing furiously, hands clasped being him, head down, his brow wrinkled with worry.

  Cortez stood silently at the door to the office waiting for his uncle to look up from the floor and notice him. Whatever Mercedes was muttering, the nephew could not quite make out. When a minute had passed without the president noticing him Cortez cleared his throat, causing the president to stop his pacing and look up.

  "Where's Serasin?" Mercedes demanded.

  Cortez shrugged. "I don't know, Uncle. He hasn't shown up for the last couple of arrests."

  "And you didn't think to report this to me?" the president asked calmly.

  "He's a policeman, Uncle. He has other duties, I am sure."

  At that, Mercedes bounded towards his nephew, lashing out to deliver a resounding slap to Cortez's face. "He has no other duties once I have set him to do his duty to me! And your duties are entirely to me and our clan!"

  The force and vehemence of the blow rocked Cortez back on his heels. Defensively he moved his hands up to cover his face, blurting out apologies for he knew not what offense. After all, he had followed his orders. He had overseen the arrests his uncle had demanded and seen that they were executed flawlessly.

  With difficulty, Mercedes composed himself. He then turned away from Cortez and walked back to sit behind the presidential desk. From there he glared at his nephew.

  "Who has control of troops that is not reliable?" Mercedes demanded.

  Mentally, Cortez ran down the list of corps and division commanders. "Most would be fence-sitters," he concluded. "You couldn't count on them if there was any question of who was really in charge. The ones who would most like to see us dead or, at least, out of power are already incarcerated. Second stringers took over for those but, Uncle, there were reasons they were second stringers. I don't think you can count on the commanders of the heavy corps and the Sixth Mechanized Division to support you if there is any question of your ability to support back."

  "What about your old division?"

  Cortez shivered for a moment. "Suarez is one of those that would like to see us dead. But that division was for the most part destroyed."

  "Maybe it was and maybe it wasn't," Mercedes half conceded. "I directed that priority go to the Sixth Division for personnel, equipment and supplies. But if Boyd ignored me on the question of landmines he might well have ignored me on the priority of First Division as well."

  Mercedes paused contemplatively. He then said, "I want you to go back to your old division and resume command. Leave immediately."

  Cortez began to object that the 1st Division might just want him dead on principle but one look from his uncle and he saluted and left to head for the 1st Division command post, somewhere southwest of Santiago.

  Even using his night vision goggles, Santiago looked dim to Diaz. He did
n't know if this was because the electric lines this far west had been destroyed by the Posleen and not yet repaired, if it was conscious policy to black the town out, or if everyone in the town was asleep.

  Diaz wanted to sleep. How long had it been? He consulted his watch and whistled. Long time. Well . . . I can go on a bit longer. I can because I must.

  Still, the fatigue the boy felt was like a weight pressing down on his soul, an almost unendurable hell that still could only be endured. He stifled a deep yawn.

  A quick glance at the altimeter told Diaz that he was unlikely to make it all the way to the 1st Division command post near Montijo unless he could gain a bit of altitude. Unfortunately, the only way to gain that altitude would be to turn north, almost completely away from his objective, and take advantage of the updrafts along southern side of the Cordillera Central. He could not even use the southerly breeze, itself, because the air was still over Santiago at the moment. This may have been because Santiago was situated in a valley between the Central Cordillera mountains of Herrera and Los Santos. Diaz didn't know and hadn't thought to ask. All he knew was that Miss Daisy had told him the air would be still and he would either have enough altitude to complete the journey, or he would have to turn north before turning south, or he would have to crash land and walk or hitch a ride.