John Ringo - East of the Sun, West of the Moon

“I’ll take him,” Reyes said, cutting off the argument. “What else do you have for me?”

“We have one Dark One left,” Celine said, angrily. “I can’t make more until somebody captures me another elf or the pods grow to maturity, which will be at least five more years. You can have him. His name is Tragack.”

“And what else?” Reyes said, interestedly.

“Oh, I have a few ideas,” Celine said, smiling happily.

As she said that a scuttling sound began to come from the forest of pillars.

“Tell Herzer I’m sorry as hell about this, Lieutenant,” Colonel Torill said, shrugging and gesturing at the paper on his desk. “I’d give you all sorts of reports to baffle you with bullshit, but the bottom line is that we’ve got nothing in the way of intel on New Destiny’s intentions. Anything that I told you, Herzer’d already know. Chansa and Celine are going to be involved. That means monsters and probably orcs. They have to take the ship and get the fuel. After that, zippo. There’s no mass movement going on, that’s for sure, but it’s a small unit action so that doesn’t affect you guys.”

“What about observation in and around the reactors, sir?” Destrang asked desperately. “That’s where they’ll have to board. It’s early, yet, but we might at least get a feel for their forces.”

“As far as I know, we have no such observers,” Torill sighed. “Most of them are deep in New Destiny territory and they’re surrounded by troops. Then there’s the problem of real-time intelligence. We’re talking about getting the message across oceans unless there’s a communicator involved and the way we’ve been rolling up New Destiny rings is communications. I’m sorry, son, but we’re screwed for intel.”

“Yes, sir,” Destrang said, gritting his teeth. He’d expected it to be bad, but not this bad. “I’ll head back to discuss this with my superiors, sir.”

“Do that,” Torill said, grinning. “And tell Herzer I said hello.”

“Yes, sir,” Destrang said, getting to his feet and nodding as he left the office.

Torill’s office was located in the special operations section of the War Department. The department had originally been in an ancient castlelike structure that over the millennia had served various purposes, most notably as a museum. As the need for more and more bureaucracy grew, or at least appeared to grow, buildings and wings had been hastily added to the structure and they now surrounded it in a giant growth that resembled nothing so much as an out-of-control cancer.

SpecOps was set well back from the main road, out on the fringe in more ways than one. The hodgepodge of buildings was cut by dirt roads, walkways, breezeways and cul-de-sacs in a chaos that had caused more than one unlucky ensign to wander into the office of a senior officer so confused he could barely remember his name.

Destrang had navigated the maze before but he only knew certain paths and stuck to them religiously. He was just passing out of the SpecOps section and into SouthWestern Command Logistics when he heard his name called.

“Destrang, right?” a colonel said, wandering over and putting a friendly hand on his shoulder. “Been looking for you, lad.”

“Yes, sir?” Destrang said, frowning slightly.

“Give me a moment of your time, lad?” the colonel said, gesturing towards one of the breezeways. “Shouldn’t take long.”

“Yes, sir, of course,” Destrang said. He briefly had a paranoid thought related to his current assignment, but he was in the middle of the War Department. If New Destiny could slip an agent in here it was one thing. Bashing a lieutenant over the head and smuggling him out was another.

“So what do you think of your new assignment?” the colonel asked bluffly. “Going to space and all that? Worked out the plumbing, yet, eh? Eh?” he added with a hearty laugh.

“I’m not sure what assignment you’re referring to, sir,” Destrang replied. “You’re here at the War Department?”

“Logistics old son,” the colonel said, grinning. “Bullock trains and whatnot. Done a bit of personnel work as well, you know, a commander works from sun to sun but a staffer’s work is never done, eh? Had my eye on you when you were in Officer Basic but you got scooped up by that old scamp Edmund, what?”

“I’ve met the duke, sir,” Destrang admitted. It was certainly open source.

“What do you think of working for Herrick, eh?” the colonel asked. They had passed through SouthWest Logistics and were now in Army logistics where the breezeway was somewhat more crowded.

Destrang considered that question and then nodded.

“Major Herrick is a good officer,” he allowed. “Do you know the major, sir?”

“Never met him,” the colonel replied, turning into a small building. He nodded at a heavy-set triari sergeant, then opened up an inner door. “He’s tighter than a gnat’s ass,” he added to the man behind the desk. “I’m not sure he’d have admitted his name if it wasn’t sewn on his uniform.” The colonel’s accent had drifted away and his manner had become brusque to the point of rudeness. If the person in civilian clothes behind the unadorned desk took offense it wasn’t apparent.

“Good,” the man said. “Sit, Lieutenant.”

Destrang looked at the colonel, who nodded.

“He outranks me , Lieutenant,” the colonel noted. “Sit.”

“And are you a real colonel?” Destrang asked coldly.

“Very,” the colonel replied, gesturing him inside and closing the door.

Destrang sat carefully in the room’s single unoccupied chair and looked around. The room was entirely unadorned and all there was in it was the desk, the chair for the occupant and the chair he occupied. The room also had no windows and was lit by a lamp. It was stiflingly hot.

“My name is T,” the man said. He was tall and spare with a shock of black hair. “You’re wondering if I’m going to pump you about your mission. I am not. I know everything I need to know about it and if there’s anything I don’t know I’ll get it from Edmund. I’m here to give you information. Some of it, frankly, is well above your level. So you’re just going to have to be moved to a different level, Lieutenant. If you had said so much as one word to Colonel Clifton, we wouldn’t be having this conversation and you’d be out of Herzer’s command before you returned. Clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Destrang said uneasily.

“Colonel Torill told you there was no information available about your opponents. There is, in fact, very little. I am going to tell you what there is available. Then I’m going to tell you what we suspect. Then I’m going to tell you why there is so little available, which means we’re going to have to get into means and methods. Do you know what that means?”

“Yes, sir,” Destrang said, swallowing. Means and methods meant that he would be told how information was gathered. Very rarely was such information passed to those who would use it, for the very simple reason that they might be captured and reveal sources.

“T” sat back in his chair and sighed. “Frankly, getting into means and methods in this case is not that big of a deal. Especially since it’s a litany of failures. But we will. Listen carefully because none of this gets put in writing. There was a meeting three days ago between Celine, Chansa and Reyes. A physical meeting which is believed to have taken place somewhere in Celine’s domain. The agenda is not available but Reyes returned to his domains accompanied by a new orc, a Ropasa version orc, and one of their Changed elves for which we now have their name: Dark Ones. Very dramatic, very Celine and all that. Given that Chansa is tightly involved in the war against us and Celine never leaves her domains in person, it is believed that Reyes is, therefore, the designated Key-holder to be sent on the mission to recapture the fueling shuttle, Miss Travante’s opposite, in other words.”