John Ringo: Honor of the Clan

“No,” Shari said, shrugging. “It’s a bit like a puppy. We brought them in, we have to deal with them. Nathan was clear about that.”

“Well, he could have brought it up with me,” Cally said.

“He brought it up with The O’Neal,” Shari said, making quote marks. “So I was hoping that Papa told you what he had in mind. He told me he had a plan, but not what the plan was.”

Cally grabbed her head and squeezed for a moment. She was just coming to terms with having to manage the Clan. Adding DAG to the load was going to be a nightmare.

“Nope,” she said. “Not a clue. But the ones that aren’t here on the island are with the Bane Sidhe, right?”

“Most,” Shari said, biting her lip. “And that’s another thing. They’re out in the cold now and most of them don’t have any real experience of that. I’m… worried about them. There are going to be repercussions to the Epetar… thing.”

From Shari, that meant something. The woman had the best survival radar of anyone Cally had ever met, Granpa included. She’d had to have.

She was also everybody’s mama. If she had decided these people were her baby chicks, as well try to move Mount Everest as sway her. Now that Cally had the job on her own shoulders, the wonder of it was that Granpa had grumbled so little over the years. She remembered the old rule about officers not bitching in front of the troops, hauled on her game face and tried to think of something to say. Ah.

“I shall endeavor to satisfy,” Cally said, then winked. “Got it covered.”

“Thanks,” Shari said, getting up. “Want some tea?”

“Love some,” Cally said as the woman walked from the room. “Now, how do I have it covered?” she asked herself.

It was after seven, dark and cold with a harsh wind blowing in off the Atlantic, when Cally finally got a moment to go see Jake Mosovich and David Mueller. She remembered them well, she thought, from their brief visit to Rabun Gap when she was thirteen and a cocky, savage warrior — albeit one eager to learn the mysteries of make-up and men. She had had to think in terms of men. Billy and the other kids with Shari and Wendy were the only actual boys she’d seen in a coon’s age, and they didn’t count.

Anyway, Jake and Mueller had made an impression. Mueller, despite his pretty gruesome facial scars, because of the way he looked at her. Oh, he hadn’t leered much, but when nobody was looking, and he was preoccupied, it had leaked through. It had made her feel… powerful. Not at all like that creep whose knee she’d had to shoot out. And she had to admit that one of the times she’d bent over to pick something up while David was around, she’d dropped it on purpose.

Therefore, she had no idea who she was looking at when a juved guy, no relative or Sunday as far as she remembered, with “seen action” eyes answered Ashley Privett’s door. “I was looking for Jake Mosovich and David Mueller?” she asked politely.

“You found ’em. They told me you’d changed, Cally, but damn .” He looked her up and down with open appreciation.

“David?” she asked, blinking. Now she could see it around the eyes. The lack of scars had confused her, but somehow he wore his face as if they were still there.

“Yeah. I wouldn’t have recognized you, either, except there couldn’t be two girls on the island to fit your description.” He goggled at her breasts cheerfully, as if he sensed that he was one of the few people that she wouldn’t have slapped down like a sledgehammer.

“My eyes are up here,” she snapped, but couldn’t hide that for once she found it funny.

“Yup. But I’m enjoying the view.”

She grinned. “I won’t slap you unless you keep me standing out here in the fucking cold.”

“Oh, damn. Yeah, come on in.” He moved back, opening the door wider and yelling over his shoulder. “Hey, Jake. Got an old friend at the door.”

“Old friend, my ass. I would have remembered. Unless you were two or something.” Erstwhile Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Mosovich stepped around the corner out of the kitchen, mumbling around a mouthful of gingerbread.

“He missed the briefing,” Mueller said with a grin.

“Close. Thirteen,” she said.

“ Cally ?” he squeaked. “Damn, girl. You’ve grown. An’ I’m not just talking up .”

Cally stepped through the black, faux wrought-iron curlicues of Ashley’s storm door. A green mat like coarse astroturf absorbed the inevitable sand grains falling off her sneakers.

She invited herself in and sat in the painted wooden rocking chair, whose gold-colored built-in seat cushions would have been okay without the worn orange terry cloth pillows someone had added for comfort. Unconsciously, she sat on the edge, her weight tilting the chair forward onto the front of its rockers, arms pulled in at her sides almost as if the ugliness of the room and its furnishings could bite her. Ashley was a nice woman, but Wendy’s good taste had clearly skipped a generation.

The men didn’t appear to have noticed. David took a seat on the couch at right angles to her, almost knee to knee. The coaster with his glass of iced tea — consumed here even in winter — sat in front of him as if to prove that he wasn’t sitting closer than necessary, but just returning to the place he’d left. Jake grabbed the rusty plush recliner and scarfed down another bite of his cookie.

“So, how the hell are you, girl? And when is your disreputable grandfather going to get his ass over here and help me get my men situated?” The words carried a hint of question as to whether the DAG Atlantic people brought underground were still “his” men.

Cally’s face fell. “You haven’t heard, then.”

“Heard what?” Mosovich’s face had instantly gone from relaxed to “oh, fuck.”

“It’s not that bad. It’s just that Granpa’s been… called away on clan business. This isn’t just a social call. He left me, along with Michelle, in charge of Clan O’Neal. Catching up with you guys is at the top of my list, but I’m mostly here to touch base and make sure you and the other guys are settling in okay for now.”

“So you’re in command?” Jake asked.

“It looks that way,” she said.

Mosovich’s face shifted subtly from surprise into a bland surface that was hard to read.

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic, Jake. Most of DAG is here on the island but we can’t keep them. Right now, over the holidays, it sort of looks like a big family reunion.”

“Which, much to our surprise, seems to be the case,” Mueller said. “One of these days you’ve got to fill me in on how you packed one of the most top-secret and elite spec-ops groups on Earth with half your clan.”

“More like a third,” Cally said, grinning. “The answer is: We’re good. Very good. But at the moment we’re stretched. And our usual support isn’t… quite so supportive.”

“So you’ve got major logistics issues,” Mosovich said. “Where do we come in?”

“Right now you’re in holding pattern,” Cally said. “After the holidays we are going to scatter some of the men, and especially dependents, into safe houses and bases. And we’ll get started on the plan for how to use DAG long-term.”

“Which is?” Jake asked.

“Right now it’s under OPSEC,” Cally said, shrugging. “I’ll bring you guys in as fast as I can.”

“So this was a social call,” Mueller said.

“No,” Cally said. “This was ‘Hi, I’m your new boss. Same as the old boss.’ And that I’ll get you fully briefed in as soon as I possibly can.”

“Roger, dodger,” Jake said, nodding. “Been a mushroom before, I can be a mushroom again. For a while.”