John Ringo: Into the Looking Glass

“General,” Miller said, after a pause. “We need one more service of you. You must ask your people to give us information. We need to know about the Dreen.”

“The Dreen,” the cat spat. “Better to call them that. We called them the T!Ch!R! because that was the name the N!T!Ch! used. We learned, soon, that it simply meant ‘the Masters.’ They had come to regard them, simply, as gods. I suppose we would in time as well. This,” he said, holding up his arm, “this I lost to the Dreen. My eye, my arm, bits of my flesh, my children. My honor.”

He hung his head again and rowled, a cry of anguish and anger that seemed to hang in the air even after he had finished, then set his features.

“I will give orders that my people will communicate with yours,” he said, looking directly at Miller. “We have little time. There is no food upon this planet we can eat. The food your scientists gives us still lacks something. In short, we, probably the last of our species, are dying and there is no escape. We will aid you, but I want something of you, as well. I think you know what it is.”

“I do,” Miller replied. “I understand. If it had not been for Dr. Weaver, here, and about a hundred years of technological advancement, I’d have been in your position. I hope that I could have survived it and done what I had to as well as you. For my world and for my children.”

“Tell Sraaan, he is my aide, that the code is ‘Mraaa.’ It was the last, the best, time of our people. He will know what to do.” The general hung his head and then looked up at Miller. “May I have my choice, now?”

“Yes,” Miller said, nodding. He drew the pistol and racked a round into the chamber. Then he dropped out the magazine and pocketed it. “I am glad that my first impression was not wrong. I wish that the universe was not so cruel. I would have liked to have stood side by side with you in battle. May we meet upon the shining fields, battle evil all day, feast all night and rise anew to do battle once more.”

“That is not your local faith,” the general said, interested.

“I am not a Christian,” Miller said, laying the pistol on the table. Then he stood up and saluted the general. “See you in Valhalla, General Thrathptttt.”

Weaver stood up as well and inclined his head, then the two of them went out the door. The guard on the door looked at them, quizzically then his eyes dropped to Miller’s empty holster and he started to reach for his radio.

Miller lifted one hand and looked him in the eye.

“I’m here on Presidential orders, son,” the SEAL said. “Don’t force me to make you eat that radio.” There was the sound of a pistol shot and he closed his eyes, his lips moving. All that Bill could catch was something about shining fields.

“Our Dreen boson has closed as well,” Tchar said, nodding to Bill as he stepped through the Adar gate.

“So I heard,” Bill said, looking around at the Adari facility. There were even more humans than had been there before the Kentucky battle. “Which doesn’t explain why I’m here. There are plenty of diplomats around.”

“The ardass wishes to speak with you,” Tchar said, waving him into one of the Adar scooters.

“About what?” Bill pressed, knowing it was probably useless.

“The ardass will explain,” Tchar said as he engaged the gears and screamed out of the gate area.

Bill held on for dear life as Tchar jetted out of the facility and towards a range of mountains across the vast salt plain. Like Groom Lake the Adar gate facility was placed as far away from civilization as possible, probably for the security of their world. Bill wished they could do the same on Earth. But the Chen Generator was still spitting out bosons. They’d started moving and linking them finally and he could see a time when there’d be a market for them. Instantaneous transportation was finally here. All they had to do was keep it from linking off-world. Sooner or later the Dreen would find a secondary route of attack.

They drove up to the mountains and as they approached, doing at least two hundred on the flats, Bill saw that there was a large building set into the ridgeline. It was low and apparently made of concrete. More like a bunker than a home but he suspected that was exactly what it was.

Tchar slowed as they approached and then hit the long drive up the ridge still doing around a hundred. Bill managed to hang on through the bump and lift as they entered the drive and then Tchar hit the brakes, throwing him forward.

“Next time, I drive,” Bill said.

“The controls are ill-suited for humans,” Tchar replied, gesturing for him to enter a doorway in the side of the bunker.

They descended three levels to a heavy security door guarded by two of the Adar soldiers. Then through a series of corridors to a small room that Bill was pretty sure was on the back side of the facility.

“Please sit,” Tchar said, gesturing to a human desk chair at the Adar-sized table. “Would you care for refreshment? We have water and your human Coca-Cola. It seems that your caffeine is similar in chemical composition to our gadam and has the same effect. Indeed, caffeine seems stronger. Further, your Coca-Cola is processable by we Adar. It has become something of a hit on our world.”

“Leave it to Coke,” Bill muttered. “Just wait until McDonalds figures out your food. But, no, I’ll just wait.”

“It should not be long,” Tchar said, stepping out of the room and irising the door closed.

Bill pulled out his PDA and brought up a set of news articles he’d downloaded before coming to France. Unsurprisingly, the incidence of terrorism, in Israel and internationally, had dropped to nearly zero. Most of the mujaheddin types that were serious about the “cause” had been turned into Dreen fodder over the last few months. Now, there was a real dearth of mujaheddin willing to fight the Dreen these days, no matter how much money got thrown at them. Heck, there appeared to be a real dearth of mujaheddin left, period.

Saudi had been the first country to ask the U.S. to help and, as Miller predicted, they ended up using nukes. Iran was still trying to convince themselves they could handle the infestation but there was no effective control left in Lebanon. The “refugees,” multigenerational residents in any sane world, that lived in the area of the Dreen infestation had become real refugees as the Bekaa Valley slowly got covered in the Dreen fungus. The so-called government of Lebanon, which had been controlled entirely by the Syrians, had more or less packed up and left. The country was a total mess. Nobody knew who was in charge and the civil war had broken out again in earnest, but this time with people fighting to get away from the Dreen. The spread was heading in the general direction of Israel and Weaver was pretty sure when it got to be a threat to that country they’d nuke it and let bygones be bygones.

The big question in everyone’s mind was if the Dreen could come at the Earth from space. And that had led to a new space race, but an international one. It wasn’t going very well in Bill’s opinion; NASA was still in charge in the U.S. and NASA couldn’t get its butt out of gear to save the Earth. But enough money was getting thrown around sooner or later some of it would stick to good ideas. But they were still playing with chemical-powered rockets and that wasn’t going to do it if the Dreen were interstellar capable.

There were a bunch of theories about FTL out there, some of which might work. Bill had pretty much planned to use his influence and knowledge of boson physics to form a start-up. There had to be a way to use the bosons to power a ship, maybe even an FTL ship. Something better than chemical rockets.