John Ringo - Kildar

“Yes, Mother Lenka,” one of the Keldara women, presumably Larissa, replied, nodding at her.

Mike drove the old woman up to the bench over the Keldara compound.

“What are we looking at?” the old woman asked as they got out of the SUV.

“How much beer do you make every year?” Mike asked, walking through the brush covering the bench. Something had been up here within the last fifteen years or so, judging by the size of the saplings that grew on the bench.

“About three thousand liters,” Mother Lenka said, frowning. “And let me tell you, it’s not easy. We start after the harvest and work on it most of the winter.”

Mike nodded and continued down a game trail to the end of the bench. There was another of the innumerable streams where the bench curved into the mountainside. He made a note to ensure it was spring fed, but most of them were. They trickled off in high summer, he’d been told, but never quite went away.

“I’m thinking of trying to make enough to sell,” Mike said, coming back out of the brush to where Mother Lenka was standing.

“We already do,” Mother Lenka pointed out, gesturing at the town.

“More than that,” Mike said. “Much more. Enough to export.”

“Never happen,” Mother Lenka snapped. “You are talking about…”

“Ten thousand liters, minimum,” Mike said. “Over what is usually made.”

“There isn’t enough time in the world,” the woman protested. “Or enough stoves to bake the barley!”

“We’ll build a brewery,” Mike said. “Up here. With water on tap. The barley will be automatically fed to the very large ovens. And the women will work it, which will give them a source of income.”

“Ah,” Mother Lenka said, giving him a toothless smile. “Now I understand. But there is a problem.”

“And that is?” Mike asked, raising an eyebrow.

“There is an undertaste to the brew, yes?” Mother Lenka asked, walking into the brush. “This bush,” she said, lifting a low growing bush that looked something like a blueberry bush. “This makes the tiger berries. We put some of them, crushed, in the mix. That is what gives it the slight tang you don’t get with true beer. Very old Keldara secret. But we’d have to have… very much of these berries. The women gather them in fall, but we could never gather enough. Without the berries, it won’t be the beer you know so well.”

“For this year,” Mike said, musingly, “we’ll just have to have an all-hands evolution to gather them. Get as many as we can gathered. I’ll talk to Genadi about planting some more. I don’t know how fast they grow, but we can have fields planted if we have to.”

“The best come from the wild mountains,” Mother Lenka sniffed.

“But it’s not for the Keldara ,” Mike said, smiling. “It’s for barbarians that don’t know what real beer tastes like.”

“Well, I suppose barbarians will drink anything,” Mother Lenka said with a sniff. “I have tasted a can of something called ‘light beer.’ It is… bad.”

“Love in a small boat beer,” Mike said, cryptically.

Mother Lenka raised an eyebrow then cackled.

“Yes, Kildar,” the old woman replied, still chuckling. “I get it. Fucking close to water, yes? Well, we will give them something that is not close to water. The tiger berry is a… what you call it? Aphrodisiac, yes? That will give them some zip in their peckers.”

“Vanner?” Mike asked, sticking his head in the commo room.

“Intel,” one of the Keldara women on duty said, pointing to the next room.

Mike frowned and stepped down the cellar hall. The next door was locked.

“Vanner?” he asked, tapping on the door.

“Hi, Kildar,” Vanner replied as he opened the portal. “Welcome to the intel room.” There were two Keldara women in the room, seated at a table reading something.

Mike had devoted about sixty grand to general “intel” items. Vanner had apparently been shopping. The room was crowded with electronics gear including scanners, a couple of very large printers and three computers with oversized monitors. One of them displayed a portion of a topographic map that Mike could make out was the northeast end of the valley. It was marked with roads that had just been put in and the new training ranges and their buildings.

“Very nice,” Mike said, dryly. “What’s going on?”

“I’m training Lilia and Stella in the basics of updating maps,” Vanner said. “I pulled a couple of satellite shots off the commercial net and we’re updating the valley map using a commercial topography program. What we’re doing right now is looking over the output and doing an eyeball comparison since the program has a tendency to get details wrong. I also got Prael’s survey data and we’re using that to double-check the satellite data. After that I’m going to ask Colonel Nielson for funds for a full area satellite sweep. We can use that to get better maps of the Area of Operations. I got two map printers, cheap, so when we have better maps we’ll be able to produce them for the Keldara. And I ordered the most comprehensive mapset available from Janes so we’ll be set for most potential deployments, even though I know the Keldara aren’t designed for deployment.”

“What the hell are those?” Mike asked, pointing to a couple of what looked like very large radios.

“Oh, well…” Vanner said, clearing his throat. “I didn’t use the full budget getting the primary gear, so I pulled a couple of those off E-bay. They’re last-generation intercept gear. German. I’ve been teaching the girls about intercept. Most of the Chechens that use radios speak Russian and most of the girls know Russian. So we’ve been listening in on the Chechens from time to time, trying to figure out their operational pattern. They don’t use encryption systems, but they do occasionally use codes and their transmissions tend to be cryptic anyway. I got a freeware program that gathers codes and looks for patterning so we’re picking out some of their code words and we’re getting a feel for their shorthand. I’ve been using a remote site for triangulation, trying to get a feel for the movements. Most of them don’t have radios, anyway, or use sat phones. I can’t do much with those; you need a ferret satellite to pick up sat-phone transmissions. But we’re picking some stuff up. Nothing we can use, yet, but we’re establishing some patterns.”

“Oh,” Mike said, blinking. “Good.” When he’d budgeted for an intel setup he’d expected a bit of improvement in the maps and maybe a stab at pattern generation. Not this.

“I don’t get many indicators that there’s any special activity directed at the valley at the moment,” Vanner continued. “Only three out of sixteen indicators that the Keldara are a target. The term has come up twice, both in reference to changes in movement away from the valley. There may be a force forming near the Pankisi Gorge for an incursion into Chechnya, that’s got about a nine-point indicator rate with an almost three hundred percent increase in traffic in a localized region. I dropped that through our Russian conduit since it doesn’t affect us.”

“Okay,” Mike said, grinning.

“Is this a social call?” Vanner asked.

“No,” Mike said, shaking his head. “I want to set up a microbrewery so the Keldara can look at exporting their beer. I’d like you to do the initial research. Think of it as… intel gathering. I need a design for a microbrewery, how to run one, what goes into it, maybe a few consultants to contact.”

“Okay,” Vanner said, his eyes going distant as he nodded. “I’ll get started on it right away.”