Gust Front

by John Ringo

  Finally the last fish was gutted and Mike stripped off the chain mail gloves. The fisherman called Bob looked him up and down and tossed over a cut lime. "Let's get washed up and head to the pub," he said in general. There was a chorus of muttered agreement which Mike decided to take as invitation. The worst that would happen was that someone would try to throw him out.

  Good luck.

  Harsh, homemade soap and the strong Key limes took away the worst of the fish smell and the crowd headed out of the screening to brave the mosquitoes. The distant pub was lit by kerosene lanterns hung over the doorway, but the path to it was pitch-black darkness. Mike found himself walking between Harry and Bob and decided that he was more or less being escorted.

  "It was good of you to help with the cleaning," said Harry, somewhat stiffly.

  "The more hands the better," was Mike's only comment.

  The walked a little farther in silence.

  "You in the Army?" asked Bob, noncomitally.

  "Fleet Strike," said Mike and heard a faint snort.

  "Really," said Harry in a sarcastic tone. "I bet you've been off-planet and everything, huh? Got a chest full of medals from Barwhon. Pull the other one."

  "We had a guy down here a couple of times," said Bob in explanation. "He was a SEAL based at Homestead Airforce Base, or so he said. The cops finally caught up with him. He was a deserter from a Guard unit in Missouri."

  "He sure could talk the talk, though," said Harry, bitterly.

  "He stiffed Harry for a goodly bill. And ate us out of house and home," Bob commented.

  Mike's nod was unseen in the darkness but they stopped when he did. He reached into the depths of his jacket and extracted a card from his wallet. It was easily discerned by the faintly glowing purple stripe around the edges.

  "You forgot to ask for my ID," Mike noted, handing it to Bob instead of Harry. As he did he tapped a control on the lower face of the electronic ID.

  A full-length hologram of Mike at parade rest in combat silks sprung up as an electronic voice intoned the appropriate statistics. Name, rank, service, Galactic ID number, height, weight, sex and age were all recited by the combination ID and dog tag. The IDs were made of the same refractory material as the suits, designed to take damage and still be able to identify their users. In a pinch they made a dandy weapon in trained hands.

  The group had stopped when the hologram blossomed. When the recording ended the only thing that could be heard was the buzz of mosquitoes and the occasional idle swat. Bob handed the ID back.

  "Hmmph," said Harry, noncommitally. "Okay, you're really in Fleet Strike. Big deal."

  "And my wife's an XO of a frigate in Fleet," said Mike mildly. "And if you give her the same ration of shit I've gotten I'll feed you your left arm."

  There was a general chuckle from the group in the darkness and a movement towards the pub. "I think he means it," said Bob, chuckling at the store owner's discomfiture.

  "Yeah, well," said the aging hippie. "It's been so long since I had any red meat, it might not be all that bad."

  "Things are getting a tad complicated," admitted Mike.

  CHAPTER 24

  Washington, DC, United States of America, Sol III

  1937 EDT October 2nd, 2004 ad

  Monsignor O'Reilly regarded the small piece of electronics that had mysteriously appeared in his cassock pocket. It looked like a standard flash memory card, but there were no manufacturer's marks on it. Nor were there any instructions. He finally put it in the flash reader attached to his computer and checked its directories.

  The chip was apparently named "Religious Documents." The first directory was titled "Rig Veda," the second "Koran," the third "Talmud" and the fourth "The Franklin Bible." He opened up this directory and stared at the single file titled "Install." He twisted his face a few times, took a deep breath and double-clicked the file.

  It asked for a password. He thought about it. He had not been given a password. The likelihood was that if the first guess was wrong, the chip would erase instantly. Finally he typed, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." The computer chirped and the installation began.

  Either the chip had more memory than any flash card should or the file had been hyper-compressed. The tiny file was expanding to dump a mass of files into his computer. If he had to destroy the evidence it would be nearly impossible to track them all down. He nearly pulled the chip in panic, but the file dump finally ended and a text box popped up.

  "Welcome," it read, "To The Franklin Bible Complete Study of Human Archetypes And Pre-Historic Myths."

  There was a new icon on his taskbar, a tiny blue world with a telephone on it. He drifted the mouse across it and the caption "New Messages" popped up. He clicked it.

  "Dear Monsignor O'Reilly," the simple text box read, "in the event that you do not want this program to stay on your computer, simply uninstall it using the uninstall icon on your desktop. Uninstallation will remove all files created with this program, all messages associated with this program and every bit of evidence that it ever existed on your computer. This will take less than fifteen seconds with the system it is currently installed on. You may also do this by simply saying, 'Dump the Post Office.'

  "At this time these are the critical messages for the Society of Jesus.

  "The Tir Dol Ron is en route to Earth. His first stop will be the United States."

  The message that followed was much the same information he had received from Kari. It did, however, include some expansions. Apparently the reason that the Tir was coming to finalize the negotiations was that the humans could not possibly kill this messenger.

  The message contained detailed data on requested defensive systems, construction rates for Galactic-supplied weapons and Fleet construction rates. Actual rates were graphed against planned and currently reported rates and the difference was obvious. The bottom line was that less than half the equipment requested for Terran Forces would be available before the invasion. There would, however, be sufficient materials to equip all the expeditionary forces. Those forces, by solemn and binding agreement, came first.

  With America asking for more grav-guns and fewer being available, it should be an interesting meeting.

  The final piece of information was a note on subsystem suppliers. He nearly overlooked it but a particular note caught his eye. All sixteen Darhel clans were participating in supplying materials for the Fleet and the Terran Defense systems. And all of them were behind on their schedules. However, one particular clan, the Tindar, was farther behind than any of the others.

  He narrowed his eyes and wondered about the significance of that bit of information. The list had been intentionally sorted by negative production rates. It was definitely a clue to something. After a moment's introspection and a mental memo he returned to reading the primary message.

  "We have no suggestions or requests at this time. The installed software has complete plans for a variety of Galactic systems including descriptions of production and use.

  "All messages will completely clear themselves five minutes after reading; there will be no trace of them on the system. The flash card will erase itself in twenty seconds and will dissolve if submerged in water. We are happy to once again be in contact with our human comrades.

  "The Bane Sidhe."

  CHAPTER 25

  No-Name-Key, FL, United States 0f America, Sol III

  0922 EDT October 3rd, 2004 ad

  Mike woke to the to sound of the wind-up radio they had brought with them. It was forecasting four more days of perfect weather to be ended in the season's first severe cold front. Hurricane Janice was proceeding to the north of Bermuda and was not expected to make landfall in the United States. The United States Ground Force command had recently upgraded its forecast likelihood of early Posleen landings. The new forecast called for small-scale landings to begin occurring no later than two months from the date of forecast.

  Mike snorted and threw aside the poncho l
iner he had been sleeping in, flipping a small lizard nose-over-tail through the air. The silky, smooth nylon and polyester blanket was a near-perfect camping accessory. It was the one item that Fleet Strike had eliminated from its inventory that Mike disagreed with. Although he understood that the replacement item was supposed to be better in every way, there was an atavistic thrill to the simple polyester fill product that the newer one did not have. In addition to that, there was also the fact that the GalTech version was virtually unavailable, whereas the South Carolina factory that made poncho liners was running three shifts and had ample supplies on hand. It had recently been moved up the waiting list for Sub-Urb production facilities on the basis of the product being designated "critical warfighting supplies." Not bad for an ersatz blanket.

  Mike rubbed the stubble on his face and decided that it was acceptable. One of the GalTech products he had fallen in love with was depilatory cream. The product not only removed hair, it inhibited growth for nearly a month thereafter. Of course it was in as short supply as everything else, so Mike eked out his cache by using razors in between. But he was still in the latter stage of inhibition and could more or less ignore shaving for a few days.

  He rubbed his face, looked around the dilapidated room crawling with ants, and shook his head. With a snort at the fruition of their plans for the trip he took the two steps necessary to enter the bathroom. The mirror was losing its silvering, giving an impression of leprosy to his face, and had a large chunk cracked out of one corner. He propped up the seat of the toilet and did his morning business, smiling at the handwritten sign the proprietress had posted at eye level.

  With the shortage of water, flushing urine was contraindicated. To point this out delicately the sign stated "If it's yellow, it's mellow. If it's brown, it goes down." There was a bottle of bleach on the back of the toilet and Mike carefully measured a capful and tossed it into the bowl to neutralize the ammonia.

  When he came out after a sketchy wash-up Sharon had come back to the room.

  "If you hurry you can probably still get some breakfast," she said with a smile. She had a bouquet of tropical flowers that she set on the cracked linoleum table.

  Mike smiled and shook his head. "Not exactly what we planned, eh?"

  "Not the Ritz-Carlton," she admitted.

  Although they had both visited the Keys more than once, it had always been on a shoestring. This time they had looked forward to staying in the best hotels in Key Largo. Not only were they both making as much as pre-war generals, Mike was absolutely flush with prize money from Diess.

  The Fleet fell under Federation regulations. One of those complex rules related to property captured or recovered by military forces. It had been enacted, along with a slew of other inducements, when the Posleen had first entered Federation space. The monetary inducements were designed to persuade the chronically poor Indowy to renounce their minimalist and nonviolent ways and enter the Galactic military. The various inducements had failed miserably in their intent, but they had never been taken off the books.

  Military equipment abandoned by the Posleen, as thousands of ships had been abandoned on Diess, fell under the category of "salvage." It belonged to the forces that had either captured it or permitted its capture.

  This was not immediately apparent to the human forces on Diess. They had simply let the thousands of in-system and interstellar ships sit until a Darhel factor had pointed out that they were responsible for clearing them off the planet. The military had protested that it did not have the equipment to remove the ships, so the Darhel offered to remove them for them.

  The commander on Diess was not born yesterday. He decided to put the ships up for bid and was amazed by the response. Both in-system and interplanetary ships were at a premium due to low production rates and war losses. To date, fewer than half the ships had been sold, but the income had exceeded the Federation "payment" for all other NATO forces.

  However, the Federation regulations also required "sharing" of the income from the prizes under a complicated scheme. One aspect of it related to "actions of extraordinary nature." Since it was unlikely that any of the ships would have fallen into human hands without the actions of O'Neal and his platoon, a percentage of every ship was detailed to them.

  Mike's prize income the previous year had been larger than the Gross National Product of most Terran countries. Not that it did them any good in the Keys.

  "Where's breakfast?" he asked, pulling on a pair of multipocketed safari shorts and a light cotton button-down shirt with still more pockets. He tended to get lonely without them.

  "Over at the pub," she said, putting the flowers in water. "The locals apparently sell them eggs from free-range chickens. One of mine was . . . a little on the pink side."

  Mike grimaced. He hadn't had fertilized eggs since his dad got out of the egg business decades before. He had just opened his mouth to retort when there was a shriek from the direction of the harbor.

  Sharon was not sure where the Desert Eagle appeared from, but before she had started to move Mike was outside with the .357 caliber automatic leveled. As she ran out the door she saw him lower the weapon from its two-handed grip and grin sheepishly. Then she realized that the second shriek from their daughter was a cry of surprised delight. It took her a moment to recognize the chittering squeals that responded.

  Cally, in the company of Karen the proprietress, was squatting at one end of the closest dock, trading splashes with a dolphin. The small bottlenose was chattering back at her every squeal and she was obviously having the time of her life.

  Mike slid the gigantic automatic into the rear of his shorts and stepped out onto the dock. At the creak of the wood, Karen looked over her shoulder and smiled.

  "Morning sleepyhead," she quipped and stood up.

  The dolphin protested as she stepped away but she just waved and tossed it a handful of fish bits. The bottlenose caught them expertly and went back to charming bits out of Cally.

  "Tame dolphin," Sharon commented, squinting against the bright morning sun. "They aren't usually like that, are they?"

  "No," Karen said. "I was Shirlie's trainer."

  Sharon raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Where? Sea World?"

  "No," said the woman, bitterly. "Not anymore anyway. I was at the Marine Mammal Research Facility in Marathon. It was really just a tourist trap for dolphin rides, but I've never had anything against that. I was with Sea World for years as a trainer and really believe that we did good work. Making cetaceans stars kept all sorts of ugly things from happening to them over the years. Heck, if it wasn't for places like Sea World, nobody would care about dolphins and orcas."

  "So how'd you end up here?" asked Sharon as Mike walked down the dock to where his daughter continued to converse with the cetacean.

  "Well, when the tourists started to fall off, we got a notice from the National Marine Fisheries Board that we were to release all of our specimens. Their reasoning was that there was no way to maintain captive marine mammals in adequate conditions and it was better to release them."

  Mike turned and looked behind him. "That's insane!" he stated. "You can't just release a captive mammal and expect it to survive!"

  "No duh," Karen said, then smiled sadly to take the sting out of the words. "That was exactly what I said, and two or three dozen other trainers that I kept in contact with. What really pissed me off was that we couldn't even get any press time. The NMFB just shoved the damn ruling down our throats and the press paid no attention."

  Mike nodded. "Let me guess. It wasn't 'newsworthy.' "

  "Exactly." Karen nodded. "Anyway, I was dating Harry at the time. Instead of going back up north–I'm from Chicago originally–I moved in with him. Shirlie and four other dolphins just sort of 'followed' me here," she concluded with a sly smile.

  "Trail of breadcrumbs?" asked Sharon, watching Cally pat the six-hundred-pound sea mammal. She wondered when the inevitable question would hit.

  "Something like that," said Karen. "
We used to take them out for swims with the boat." She gestured at a well-kept Boston Whaler tied up to the office. Something about it indicated to Mike that it hadn't moved lately. "I just told them to follow me over."

  "What happened to all the rest?" asked Mike. "I mean there was Sea World and the Miami Oceanarium and that one in St. Augustine . . ."

  Karen's face pinched up at the thought. "Sea World just went over to the coast and released theirs in the Intercoastal Waterway. I don't know about the dolphins and porpoises, but at least one male orca was later found dead. The rest did pretty much the same thing."

  "Damn," said Mike. There didn't seem to be much else to say. Then another thought hit him. "Hey, what about all —"

  "The zoos?" Karen interjected. "And animal parks?"

  "Yeah," Sharon agreed. "What about them? I remember something about Zoo Atlanta only being able to keep the gorillas."

  "There are a couple of big parks in Florida that have taken in some of the animals," Karen said. "The herbivores are free roaming and more or less making it. Most of the carnivores have had to be put down. And anything that can't get into one of the reserve parks is getting put down."

  "That's not right," Mike said. "We've got an obligation to those animals! They didn't exactly ask to be put in zoos."

  "You're preaching to the choir," said Karen sadly. "We've been writing Congress, the President, everybody. But the responses we've gotten have a point. With shortages for humans, where are we going to get food for the animals?"

  "Daddy, get real," said Cally, rolling onto her back, then flipping to her feet in the most limber move Mike had ever seen in his life. "It's an obligation, not a suicide pact. Once you kick the Posties' ass, we can gather them back up and recover whatever we find. Until then, we gotta concentrate." She rubbed the small of her back. "Shit. I forgot about the Walther."

  "Showoff," Mike laughed. He shook his head. "I suppose you're right, kitten. It still pisses me off."