by Jan Stryvant
'I'll have someone take care of it,' the First said after Sean looked around the room and everyone shrugged.
'Thanks.'
"I'll talk to some of the other lions," Sean told the rest of the group when no one said anything. "Now, let's talk about what happened yesterday."
Sean noticed both Chad and Bill wince.
"Now, the first mission went off well. The second one, I think perhaps we were suffering from a little too much over-confidence?"
"In all fairness," Chad said, "we were agreed before we started that some level of civilian casualties were acceptable."
Sean nodded slowly. "But I still feel like shit; how about you?"
"Yeah, I'm not sure I want to do that again. Still, the people in Washington are finally coming onboard."
"Oh, they're onboard alright," Sean grumbled, "I had several rather enlightening phone calls this morning. Let's just say that there are a lot of very angry people in DC, and they're all angry at me."
"It was my idea, Sean."
"Yeah, but I'm the boss. I approved it."
"Pretty hypocritical of 'em to bitch all of a sudden when yesterday they didn't believe us," Daelyn grumbled.
"Welcome to politics." Bill sighed. "Been dealing with it all my life. A problem never exists until after it's bitten you on the butt."
"So, what went wrong?" Sean asked.
"Everything," Chad said with a shake of his head. "We need to get the reserve troops breastplates, half of the ones who were killed wouldn't have been if they'd had them. We also need to work on small unit and line drills."
Bill spoke up, "We also need to train folks to grab the person next to them when they're seriously injured and pull them back behind the line. I saw more than a few who were stunned and then pulled into the enemy lines and hacked to death there."
"We also need you to get a full set of armor, Bill," Sean said. "I want you to get fitted today."
"Oh, I don't..."
"That's an order," Sean growled. "You're in command, you need the extra protection. If I hadn't pulled that biskop off your ass, you'd be dead. If you'd been wearing armor, you probably could have taken him."
Bill closed his mouth and thought about yesterday's fight. He wasn't so sure he could have taken that biskop himself. The råges were tough enough as it was. He hadn't gotten any armor yet because he hadn't liked having more than his men had back when he was a sheriff. Then again, he'd never had to face down anything like that before, and the damn thing had focused on him and Roloff as soon as it saw them giving orders.
"Another thing," Sean continued. "We're upping the size of our army. From this point on, when we send out the reserves, I want it to be a thousand troops. Not three hundred. I'm going to lobby the government for more helicopters, and maybe some airplanes."
"Wait! Where are we going to get that many people?" Claudia sputtered.
"Pull all of your people in, and I do mean all. The enemy sent out a thousand people yesterday. I have no doubt they're going to send out a thousand again the next time, and the time after that. And that's just from a small gate. What are we going to do when the medium gates start to open? They're larger and last longer. How many will we face then?"
"But I can't afford it! I have bills to pay!"
"That's an order, Claudia," Sean growled, "and it's going out to all the lycans. As for money, send me the bill. If the government won't cover it, well, we'll just rob a few banks until they do. According to that spreadsheet over there," Sean pointed at the monitor with Deidre's work on it, "we've had three gates so far in this phase. We have ten more to get our act together before we start seeing real problems. Six months from now we're going to be in a full out war."
Claudia looked at Chad. "What do you think?"
"I think I don't want to argue with Sean," Chad grumbled.
"Too bad. I want to hear your opinion. You're my son-in-law, dammit, and if I do this, everything I worked all these years for will be gone. My pack will suffer!"
Chad sighed. "I told nearly all of my people to quit their jobs last night. We're at ground zero, Claudia. When all of this is over, I doubt Reno will be more than a blasted and leveled ghost town. They're djevels; they're evil. They bring death and destruction, and I don't doubt it for a moment that if things start going south in a big way, the government won't hesitate to use nukes."
Claudia just deflated at that. "Fine, I'll do it," she mumbled.
"What are we going to do about reinforcements?" Maitland asked.
"I'm sending word out today to all the lycans in North America to come here."
"How many do you think you'll get?"
"All of them, of course," Sean said with a sad smile.
Here It Comes
Roxy watched as the group walked across the tarmac and into base ops. Smiling, she walked up to them with Jolene beside her. She'd chosen Jolene not only because of her ability with mind spells, but because Sean was still putting an exception into all of the protection amulets he was making for everyone that allowed Jolene to bypass it.
So if any of these people had gotten one of the badges from the Secret Service in the hopes of protecting themselves, it wouldn't stop Jolene. Not that Roxy was expecting any problems, she just liked being prepared in case anything came up.
"Hi, you must be General Baker," Roxy said, approaching the uniformed man with the general's stars on his shoulders. "I'm Roxy Valens, Sean's senior wife."
General Baker nodded and shook hands, then looked around.
"Where is your husband, Mrs. Valens? I thought he'd be here himself to greet us?"
Roxy smiled at the general; he was supposed to know this.
"We just started another three-day window. Until the next gateway opens, he's sitting alert with the rest of our forces."
General Baker frowned. "Why is he sitting alert? I thought he was the one in charge here?"
"Because he's the only lion we have," Jolene said with a bright smile. Even though she was pregnant, the general took a second look.
"I'm Jolene, Sean's second wife," Jolene said and shook hands with a smile.
"What does his being the only lion have to do with it?" the general asked, looking confused.
"He's the only one capable of actually killing the major demon leaders."
"They're that tough?"
Roxy and Jolene both nodded.
"Yes," Roxy said, gesturing for General Baker to follow her. "The more powerful ones are extremely difficult to kill, and if Sean kills them, they stay dead."
"I'm not sure I'm following you, Mrs. Valens."
"Call me Roxy, please," Roxy said with a smile. "When you kill a demon, unless you're a lion or significantly magically imbued, they just go back to the Onderwereld and reform after a while."
"It's part of why they're so aggressive," Jolene picked up. "They can't be killed. They just keep coming back. But Sean's a lion, which makes him a god, and when a god kills you..."
"You stay dead," Roxy finished with a smile.
"He's a god?" one of the men behind General Baker said with a snicker. "Oh, come now!"
Roxy and Jolene turned to look at the man; he was a bit overweight for an officer, and looked a little puffy around the face. His name tag identified him as 'Mueller', and he had captain's bars.
"And that would be?" Roxy asked General Baker.
"Bill Mueller," the general said and gave the young man a sharp glance. "He's one of my logistics analysts."
"And the rest of your people?"
General Baker smiled and introduced Roxy and Jolene to the rest. "Major Randy Harper, Major Joyce Vanderberg, Captains Jack Musalino, Linda Hart, and Clint Edward, and Lieutenant Jack Kennedy."
Roxy and Jolene shook hands with each of them, skipping over Mueller. She stopped when she got to Kennedy. He was a werecougar.
"No relation to the rich Kennedys," he said with a smile.
"What do you do, Lieutenant Kennedy?" Roxy asked, curious.
"Normally I do sec
urity work at the Pentagon, but they loaned me to the good general when he was asking around for observers. Said they needed someone with battlefield experience who wasn't afraid to be shot at."
"He volunteered," General Baker said.
"Ah," Roxy nodded and smiled, "I see."
"With the reports of what happened to Colonel Tibbets' people, there wasn't a lot of interest in the job," Captain Musalino said, while giving the lieutenant a look that made it clear he didn't approve of him much.
"After a tour overseas, I was finding the Pentagon to be just a little too easy," Lieutenant Kennedy said with a wink.
"I'll be sure to introduce you to Sean, then," Roxy said with a smile, then turned back to the general. "I have a large van outside. It's not far from here to our base of operations."
"You're not working out of the base?" General Baker asked.
Roxy shook her head. "Too many legal issues."
Jolene nodded and smiled at the general, then glanced back at Mueller. "Gods don't fit very well into that whole 'chain of command' thing."
Roxy noticed that Mueller kept his mouth shut this time. Though as she led them outside, her sensitive hearing overheard him talking to the lieutenant.
"Hitting on a married woman! You should be ashamed of yourself!"
"With all due respect, Captain, I've met a lion before. Actually making a pass at the pregnant wife of one isn't something I'd be fool enough to do. Same goes for dissing his wife."
"What's that supposed to mean, Lieutenant?"
"That whether or not you think he's a god, I would advise you to treat him as one."
Roxy stopped paying attention after that.
The trip up to the ranch proved a pleasant one. Roxy and Jolene found that, while the general suffered from a touch of self-importance, he was still polite and good company. Both of the majors seemed to be interesting as well.
They'd just turned on the long driveway up to the ranch when a tone came over both Roxy and Jolene's phones.
"Ah, shit," Roxy said, and almost immediately the sounds of six turbines spinning up came in through the windows.
"What's happening?" General Baker asked.
"A gateway just opened. That's the alert."
Roxy stopped at the gate to the farm; there were four guards there now, and they were all armed. They took a quick look though the van, then waved them through. By the time Roxy had parked, all six of the helicopters, four Black Hawks and two Hueys, were lifting off and turning to the north.
"Five minutes," General Baker said, looking at his watch, "I'm impressed."
"They keep all the systems running on ground power, so they just really need to start the engines," Roxy told him. "Daelyn, she's Sean's third wife, is working on a design for a ground-powered hydraulic hook up so all the systems can be kept running, and all they have to do is start the engine and go. She thinks she can get startup down to ninety seconds."
"Third wife?" someone muttered in the back.
General Baker looked into the back of the van. "Someone needs to go reread the briefing material that was passed out this morning and learn to secure their tongue!"
He turned back to Roxy. "Sorry about that, Ma'am. Rest assured, they are good at what they do."
"Well, follow me to our command center and let's see what's going on."
"Yes, Ma'am," General Baker said, and Roxy had to smile; someone was going to be in a world of hurt once the general got his people in private.
Leading them around the house, she noticed that all of the general's staff were looking around, surprised, at all the people and the gear.
"That's the second wave and the reserves gearing up. The second wave will wait for the helicopters to come back and get them, while the reserves will drive out to cover key areas in case we get a breakout."
"Why do they have swords and not guns?" Major Vanderberg asked.
"Because bullets don't hurt them. They're demons, or djevels if you prefer. Those swords you see there are all magically constructed. We've only got two thousand of them right now, though the supply is increasing."
Roxy saw the look of disbelief on Musalino's face, and Mueller was rolling his eyes. She was definitely starting to dislike Mueller. She might have to talk to the general. If the idiot took that attitude with Sean, it wouldn't go over very well.
When she led them into the main command center, General Baker walked over to the center of the room, while the others all looked impressed.
"Are those live feeds?" General Baker asked.
"Yup. We've got satellite, microwave, internet, and a few other things as well. We've got twenty-seven outposts that do nothing but keep their eyes on the area and supply us with intelligence.
"Oak," Roxy asked turning to him, "where's this one?"
"Just west of Navajo Peak. Maybe five miles."
Roxy nodded and went over to Maitland, who was looking at a map of the area.
"Maitland, this is General Baker. General, this is Maitland. He's Sean's great-uncle, and one of his generals."
Maitland nodded and waved, then looked over at Oak.
"Tell the reserves to start heading up Highway 80. Did the second reserve group get deployed yet?"
"No, they were scheduled to leave tonight, in about six hours."
"Okay."
Standing up, Maitland came over to General Baker.
"Well, General, this is our command center. As you probably saw on your way up here, we just sent everyone off to a new gate. It's about a hundred and twenty miles from here, so it'll be about a half an hour before our people get there."
"When do the demons start coming out of the gateway?" the general asked, pointing at the center screen on the wall that was showing the gate.
"No idea. This is only the fourth one we've dealt with. So far, it's taken about two hours before they start coming through. Sean only ordered everyone off immediately because, after the numbers we faced last time, he wants to try and get the second wave on the ground before they come out."
"How many people are in the first wave?"
"About three hundred. We only have eighteen helicopters, and only half of them are Black Hawks. We've been trying to buy more, but they're expensive, and we have limited funds."
"Mr. Valens mentioned that he's been paying for this all by himself?"
Maitland nodded. "My niece's husband was a genius and invented several radical magical items before he was murdered. His son Sean has inherited his father's genius and figured out ways to mass produce these items, as well as invent several more. The amount of money he's made from this is substantial, but it is by no means enough."
Roxy left them talking and sat over by Oak, helping him with managing people, while Jolene kept an eye on their other guests. Mostly they were just sitting around watching the screens, though Mueller and Musalino were discussing how they would do it better.
"Who are those two assholes?" Oak asked in a low voice. "Don't they realize we can hear them?"
"I think that would require brainpower they don't have." Roxy sighed. "But we gotta play nice with them, because we really do need more logistical support. General Baker at least wants to help and actually seems like a pretty down to earth guy."
The first demons didn't start coming through the gateway until after it had been open for four hours. They were a small group, only about two hundred of them, and they started heading south after spending a few minutes getting organized.
"They're definitely using different tactics than the last time," Chad called over the radio.
"Maybe this gate opened in someone else's backyard?" Sean replied. "This one is pretty far away from where the last three opened on this side. Maybe it's the same on the other side as well."
"If that's the case," Maitland said over the radio, "you might want to make fast work of this team before the big boys show up."
"Good point," Sean replied. "Chad, you call the shots. I'm gonna go for that ridder that's driving them, so I'll take my men and come up fr
om behind after you've engaged them."
"Roger that, Sean."
Roxy listened as Maitland explained the movement commands Chad was giving, and everyone watched as the two groups maneuvered out of sight of each other. The images from the camera weren't very good due to the long range, but when the fighting commenced, it wasn't hard to figure out.
Ten minutes later it was over, and Sean called a helicopter in to take out the wounded.
"I thought lycanthropes healed?" General Baker asked.
"If one of them takes enough damage," Maitland explained, "their healing slows down to a crawl, and they'll be out of action for hours or maybe even days."
"You're not a lycanthrope?" Major Harper asked from where he'd been watching the battle.
"Oh, no, I'm a Faerie from Ireland. I came out with my daughter, nephew, and Sean's mother, my niece, when we learned he was in trouble. As I've served as a leader in our armies during many of the Fey wars, Sean asked if I would help him here."
"A fairy?"
"Faerie," Maitland said, pronouncing it carefully. "You know, the people in old European mythology who would seriously mess you up and ruin your lives if you pissed one of us off?" He smiled winningly then. "We're still here, and yes, we'll still mess with you."
"I apologize, I meant no insult," Major Harper said quickly, raising his hands.
Maitland nodded. "I didn't think you did, but I think your companions should realize that you are the only humans in this room, or even on this hilltop." Maitland paused a moment. "Well, technically Jolene over there is human, but she's a very powerful witch, so I'm hesitant to classify her with you mundanes."
"I think our briefing notes may have missed a few things, General."
General Baker shrugged. "If our intelligence was good, I wouldn't have brought all of you out here with me. We could have just figured out how to help these people from home. This is a war zone, people. Anything could happen, and probably will. I realize that other than me and the lieutenant, none of you have seen any real fighting. But we're not here to fight.
"We're here because Sean, their leader, is a personal friend of the president of the United States, a man who also happens to be your commander-in-chief, and he's told us his first and foremost problem is logistics.