Cally's War

by John Ringo

* * *

  Wednesday afternoon, May 22

  Growing up in his childhood home of Fredericksburg, Tommy Sunday had liked tacos. Then the Posleen came and Fredericksburg went, and it was off to the Ten Thousand and then to Armored Combat Suits—also known as ACS. The Ten Thousand's rations had been what they could get, and had been chosen primarily for their nutritional adequacy with taste a poor second consideration. Afterward, in ACS, the suit rations were decent, but just didn't quite achieve real tacohood.

  Before he and Wendy "died," they had managed to transfer and hide enough of their FedCreds in discreet investments. That had made real tacos, and a lot of other things, affordable despite the Bane Sidhe not being real generous with the salaries.

  He tried to restrain the twinge of disappointment as he looked down at his plate. These did not exactly live up to his standards of real tacos. The corn tortilla was genuine enough, as were the refried beans, cheese, and veggies. But the beef-flavored textured tofu left quite a lot to be desired. Unfortunately, it was that or chicken, and in Tommy's expert opinion, the only thing worse than tofu tacos was chicken tacos. And he'd rather eat his meat ration as roast chicken for dinner than have it chopped up in his taco only to face the inevitable tofu tonight. Anyway, he understood. He and Wendy could afford what they could afford because of the exorbitant salaries, by most normal standards, paid to ACS in the Posleen war and carefully invested by his wife, who had turned out to have quite a knack for buying and selling antiques.

  After the Fredericksburg landing, his then-girlfriend's old hobby of researching local history had become . . . untenable. A move to Franklin Sub-Urb and an abortive attempt to contribute to the war effort as a firefighter had followed. Then the Sub-Urb got eaten. After escaping that as well, Wendy's faith in the stability of any particular town or city had been severely shaken. By the time the war ended and they had married and settled down, she had diverted her love and her skills to the history of objects of a much more portable nature.

  After Fleet returned, organized Posleen resistance had been overwhelmed by strikes from orbit. What had been left was a colossal cleanup job.

  Tommy had been in Bravo Company, 1st of the 555th, under Iron Mike O'Neal—Papa O'Neal's only son. In the worst of the war, in the most desperate of the battles, Bravo Company had always been where the fire was hottest.

  In the cleanup phase, the suits' superior mobility and robustness had made the Company a juggernaut that had rolled right over any surviving God King that even attempted to begin rebuilding a technology base.

  So he'd been discharged after five years of global cleanup sweeps to find, surprisingly, that the money he'd been sending home to Wendy since the return of Fleet—as much to keep her out of another Sub-Urb as anything—had not only not been expended, but had been doubled.

  He'd done code for Personality Solutions after the war, when the experience of veterans with the AIDs inspired a fad of ever newer and fancier PDA's. The salary hadn't been anything like his ACS pay, but he and Wendy hadn't exactly been surviving on hotdogs and peanut butter. Until the Cyberpunks recruited him, and then the Bane Sidhe had arranged his and Wendy's "deaths" and they had come inside.

  Since then they'd augmented his salary with carefully managed investment income. But most inside operatives weren't so lucky. The medical and dental were unbeatable, but the chow left a lot to be desired. Which brought him back to the lousy tacos.

  Tommy squared his shoulders and looked around the cafeteria for familiar faces, grinning when he saw Martin and Schmidt sitting at an only slightly wobbly round table next to the braided ficus in the corner. He had shared a couple of training classes with Martin in his early years inside, and the two had found they shared a love of chili slaw dogs and an obscure prewar burlesque film. He would have loved to sneak up on the extremely ordinary-looking black man and say something smart, but he wasn't the least surprised when he only made it halfway.

  "What the hay-el kind of man wears pantyhose to a movie?" The man's head didn't turn, but his rich tenor rang out across the room.

  "Hey, Lips, man, you know you love it." Tommy grinned and took his tray over, setting it down and grabbing a chair from the next table over.

  "You guys aren't going to do weird things with your elbows, are you?" Schmidt was short. At about five foot seven, with straight blond hair that looked like somebody had piled a double handful of straw on his head, Schmidt's rejuv let him pass for about fourteen. In some environments, a kid in a jean jacket and ratty backpack was less conspicuous than any adult.

  "Just because you don't appreciate classic cinema, George . . ." Levon had turned in his seat and offered his hand as Tommy scooted up to the table. "Hey, Sunday, how the hell are you?"

  "Doin' all right. Not so unhappy to get out of the house for a week or two," Tommy admitted.

  "Oh? I thought you and Wendy were the original perpetual newlyweds," Martin said.

  "Wendy is the love of my life; she's just always a bit cranky at this stage. She'll be glad to have me out of her hair for a while, and by the time I get back she'll be herself again," he said.

  "Geez, it's like you two have it down to a science." Schmidt looked down at the slab of tofu formed in the shape of a T-bone steak. He frowned and grabbed the black pepper, shaking on enough to cover the fake grill marks before slicing off a piece and taking a bite, chewing glumly, "Damn, I can't wait to get back out into the field."

  "Well, damn, they'll let anybody in here now." Jay set his tray down and hooked an empty chair over with an ankle.

  "Blade man! Long time no see," George grinned, offering a hand to the other man.

  "Blade man?" Tommy asked. "Do I want to know?"

  "Oh, back in high school, Jay here was unbeatable at Boma Warrior. Never figured out how he did it, but our junior year, it was probably the coolest game in the library." George topped a bit of the tofu steak with some of the hot corn relish on the side.

  "I knew a guy who worked on that. You know on the sixth level where you go around a corner and get swarmed by a pack of carnivorous mini-lops? I put him up to that." Tommy shook some Tabasco on his taco, took a bite, and added a few more shakes.

  "That was you? That was wicked cool, but every once in a while one of those mothers would have a switchblade and be just impossible to kill. . . . ." Schmidt pushed at a stray bit of tofu with his fork. "Man, I can't wait to get back out in the field."

  "What, I never figured you for being as eager as all that?" Jay chuckled disbelievingly.

  "Not that, Jay. You have to admit the food's better. As to the other, somebody has to do the dirty work. The cops don't take out the damn Elves' trash. So, cosmic janitor, that's me." He grinned easily. "You don't have a problem with Sherry marrying blue-collar, do you, old man?" He quirked an eyebrow at Martin, looking out through the hair that had fallen across his eyes again.

  "Be a bit late if I did. And a little less on the 'old,' if you don't mind." Levon took a big bite out of his cheeseburger, manfully ignoring the almost complete lack of beef in the fried patty.

  "By the way, 'scuse me if I'm treading on sensitive territory, here, but what's the deal with Cally? The rumor mill has been unreal," George asked, looking at Tommy.

  "I dunno, man. You probably know more than I do. All they told us was to grab our gear and haul ass to catch the shuttle." He shook his head slightly. "I haven't seen her, and Papa O'Neal said not to ask. And he was wearing his 'don't fuck with me' look."

  "Oh, he'll get it all worked out somehow. I mean, she's an O'Neal, you know?" Jay grinned, and if it was just a hair too tight, well, they were all worried about their teammate. And not just because she was maybe the best shooter in the business.

  Tommy looked away from his teammate and caught Martin's eye. He took a deep breath.

  "What I did hear is that you might know a lot about it, but weren't saying, Levon," he said.

  "Yeah, I do, but I wish I didn't. Look, I like Cally. I respect her. I would have her on my team any day of the
week. But the past couple of years . . . I don't know, maybe she's just working too hard. It's not like we haven't all seen something like this coming." He shook his head.

  "Excuse me? Something like what?" Tommy's voice had a definite edge to it.

  "Sunday, don't go all big brother on me. The least I can do for her is give her the dignity of letting her tell you herself. I owe her that much, and so do you," he said.

  "So you're pretty sure she's gonna be back on active and everything in a couple of days?" Jay asked casually around a bite of his enchilada.

  Martin was silent for a long moment.

  "If she's not, then you can ask me," he said.

  * * *

  Thursday morning, May 23

  Tommy dove to the side as the guy in the gray suit aimed at him and emptied the magazine of his pistol. He had time to pull the pin and toss a grenade—he was out of ammo—before the rapidly falling health indicator showed him he was hit and bleeding out. He got the other guy, but it had been in the "dead man's ten seconds." Still, the computer credited him with the kill, and, even more important, the ambush had happened just like it was supposed to after his hacking mistake earlier had resulted in detection. The holographic projection of the game faded out.

  "You're dead, man." He felt Jay's hand clap him on the back.

  "Nice shades. And I'm supposed to be." At six foot eight and three hundred pounds, Tommy Sunday was not a small man. Still, other than his size, he looked fairly typical for a juv in his first century. That is, he looked twenty, despite the fact that he now had grown grandchildren to baby-sit his and Wendy's small children.

  "Play testing another training scenario?" Jay's grin was affable as he tossed himself into a chair beside his teammate and kicked his feet up on the table next to the larger man's.

  "Yep. And after the royal fuck-up I made hacking a system earlier, well, there was a small theoretical chance I could survive, but it should have fried my ass. As it did," Tommy sighed.

  "Ah, the sacrifices you make for quality control." Papa O'Neal snagged a Styrofoam cup from the stack next to the coffee pot, pulled a small pouch out of his pocket, and got himself a fresh plug of tobacco.

  "I've already played it through for real. And several times multiplayer interactive. Now I'm trying to see if I can break it." The former ACS trooper shrugged and closed the game, popping a fresh cube into the reader slot as Cally came in to begin their briefing. The brown curls didn't faze him. He'd seen her with every hair color and style known to man over the years. He did wonder if the brown curls were coming or going, though.

  "Okay, folks, this is your basic counterintelligence mission. We have every reason to believe Fleet Strike is aware of us and that our security has been penetrated. They have a man inside. Which is why your briefing was eleventh hour and neither you nor I will have any unmonitored communications, nor will any of us discuss this mission outside this room or with anyone except each other. The number of people in the Bane Sidhe hierarchy who know the actual nature of this mission has been kept to an absolute minimum. We are to find the identity of the leak, and plug it." She reached down and pushed a button on the screen of her PDA, bringing up a hologram of a man in his apparent early thirties, in a Fleet Strike general's uniform—which meant he was probably a fair bit into his second century.

  "This is General Bernhard Beed. General Beed has been tasked with, basically, finding out everything he can about us. He is setting up his headquarters on Titan Base to coordinate the intelligence they develop. The office is covered as criminal investigations and military policing for Titan Base." She touched the screen again and the hologram changed, revealing a young goddess in a captain's uniform.

  "And my cover, Sinda Makepeace."

  Fuck, she is stacked as all hell. And look at those power-lifter thighs. I think I'm just as glad Wendy will not see Cally in this cover.

  "Captain Makepeace is presently on Earth and due to board a shuttle for passage to Titan from Chicago O'Hare this Sunday at 0815. The preliminary plan is to make the switch at the airport. I go on the slab in an hour." She tossed each of them a cube.

  "Here's the rest of what the higher ups gave me and what I've been able to develop. Tommy and Jay, I need you to get a complete profile on everyone in that office, including voice and motion samples for Makepeace. Granpa, I need you to review the airport and Titan Base, plan the switch, plan the extraction after I get the data. Your cover is as crew on an in-system freighter taking manufactured goods for the shops in the business district. The local tong will cover you because you'll be taking an unofficial cargo of partial doses of rejuv drugs. Apparently, there's a worthwhile supply of troops willing to pay just about anything to take a little wear and tear off a dependant or two. They will, of course, pay you for the drugs—they're just getting a particularly good deal. They don't know why you want to be in the vicinity of Titan Base, and they don't want to know." She noticed their eyes were still fixed on the hologram and touched the screen of the PDA again, watching them blinking as the image vanished.

  "Does anybody have any questions? No? Great. I'll head down to medical and see you back here in three hours." She scooped up her PDA and headed for the door.

  "Uh . . . wait a minute, Cally," Jay interrupted, looking around at Tommy and Papa, "I just wanted to say, and I think I speak for all of us, how glad we all are that you're still going to be with us on this mission. And I'm sure I speak for all of us again when I say that I'm sure that, well, everything will work out just fine."

  "Well . . . thank you, Jay." Her forehead had wrinkled slightly, but her eyes warmed as she turned and left.

  "Will you be carrying a no-name pill?" Papa sounded like he thought it was a very good idea.

  "No. The secret of that pill is worth more than I am. And if I was taken, they could find it or, even if they didn't, the chances of you getting to me inside the time limit would be small. That's too much like a suicide pill for my liking. I don't plan to be caught, but if I am, I'll do everything the nuns taught us in SERE. Besides, there probably wouldn't be time to make one up to my new stats. And, frankly, I don't plan to need it."

  "If that wasn't the fastest briefing I've ever had, it's close." Tommy sat watching the door for a moment before taking the cube she'd tossed him and swapping it into the reader slot of his AID.

  "To the point, though." O'Neal spat neatly into his cup, as he brought up a map of the Chicago air and space port.

  "Okay, I feel better now that I see what she pulled together and what she left for us. Cally always has had a good sense of the hacking she could get away with." He walked over and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee.

  "Jay, you take the cover, I'll take the personnel files of the other staff."

  "Wouldn't have wanted to say it in front of Cally, but the captain has some damn fine architecture," Jay said appreciatively.

  "Yeah, but her nose is a tad off-center and she's always going to need makeup to darken her eyebrows and stuff," Tommy commented.

  "You noticed her nose and eyebrows?" Jay sounded disbelieving. Papa O'Neal just shook his head.

  "Briefly. Very briefly," Tommy grinned.

  "You guys keep working. I've got something to take care of. I'll be back in a few minutes." Papa had a stubborn look on his face.

  * * *

  Silverton, Texas, Saturday, May 25

  Johnny Stuart was not a morning person. Unfortunately, the Coburn girl had the morning off to go to the dentist and, like most kids, Mary Lynn was an early riser. Which is why he was sitting up in a rumpled bed, rubbing his eyes, while a wriggling five year old climbed into his lap.

  Mary Lynn had the dark brown curls of her mother, but his own facial features. They just looked better on her. After the cancer had taken his wife, three years ago, the doctors had told him that it raised Mary Lynn's risk considerably. If he'd had some pull, he might have been able to get the new drugs to save her, but Sue hadn't much held with pull, and the cancer had come on sudden and before he co
uld do anything, Sue was gone and him left to do the best he could by Mary Lynn. He didn't understand much about the numbers in what the doctor said, not having got much past high school algebra, but what he did understand was that he owed it to Sue never to be in a position to be unable to help his sick kin, their daughter especially, again.

  So he had set about going to work for the people with the most pull he could find, getting a reputation for resourcefulness and the willingness to get things done no matter what it took. And plenty of times it had taken things that were way outside the normal rules. But a man who wouldn't break a few rules for his own was no kind of man at all. That was the best thing about his recent promotion. If he could pull this off and keep the damned aliens happy, he and Mary Lynn would never lack for the best of care again.

  "How's my Sunshine this morning!" He began tickling her ribs mercilessly, until she squirmed away from him and off the bed.

  "Silly Daddy," she said. "I'm hungry. Where's Traci?"

  "Traci had to go to the dentist, Sunshine. Just you and me this morning. Let me make some coffee and I'll see if we can find some cereal." He yawned.

  "Lucky Charms!" She ran off towards the kitchen, giggling.

  "Okay, I think we've still got some," he called, pulling up his worn cotton pajama bottoms a bit as he got out of bed. Probably ought to get around to replacing those. He trudged into the kitchen and made coffee, taking out two bowls while it dripped through the old-fashioned appliance. He was really just back in Silverton winding up his affairs. The promotion meant moving them to Chicago and a lot of travel for him. He was going to hate being away from Mary Lynn so much, but it was for her own good, so he could protect her better. It was hard, but she'd understand when she was older.

  He had tried to get Traci Coburn to move with them, so Mary Lynn wouldn't have to change babysitters, but Traci hadn't wanted to leave her family. He could understand that. It took a real cosmopolitan individual to deal with city people and country people alike. And if there was one thing Johnny was, it was good with people. The trick was to tell them as much of what they wanted to hear with as few actual lies as possible. He'd always been gifted that way, but in the years since Sue's death he'd gone to it with a will and developed it to a high art.