John Ringo: Sister Time

Pennington had a real corncob up his ass about this one, though. Foxglove had had to pull in an important, and rare, favor from one of the Joint Chiefs to get the original orders to come down through the appropriate chain of command and force the uncooperative bastard’s hand. Even then, he had only gotten the most grudging, limited assistance available for his clandestine masters — a paltry two squads. His Darhel associates — as he thought of them, though they would have said masters — hadn’t been happy. He thought the other general might be having a fit of idealistic pique over that Epetar-Gistar mess at that mine in Africa. Dammit, the modern world couldn’t afford those kinds of juvenile temper tantrums over necessary expedients.

Anyway, his present problem was that Pennington had extended his complete unreason to a flat refusal to order reinforcement of the security detachment in question without direct orders from above. It wasn’t as if the other general couldn’t have done it, entirely legitimately and within his orders, on his own initiative. It wasn’t as if Foxglove himself didn’t have a firm reputation for returning favors, and for having the ability to do so. No, the man just had to be an asshole about it.

Which put Foxglove between the proverbial rock and a hard place. He couldn’t go back to the well with the Joint Chiefs. His capital was burned up there, as had been made painfully clear when he’d called in the initial favor. He had to get those troops. Epetar had him by the short hairs, dammit, and the Darhel didn’t react well to failure.

The best way to handle it, he had decided, was to follow the old adage about it being easier to get forgiveness than permission. He couldn’t get Epetar’s active assistance before the fact, damn Pardal’s power games in refusing to take calls. However, he was too damned convenient to them for them to leave his ass swinging in the wind. His only choice was to take a few risks now and rely on them to cover for him after. At least the mentat’s AID had been willing and able to help. Using its master’s authority, it had convinced Pennington’s AID to conveniently ignore incoming calls, and experience “technical difficulties” with outgoing calls for the next eight hours. He hoped it would be enough.

“Daisy, get me Colonel Jacob Mosovich on the horn,” he told his AID.

“Yes, Bob,” it husked.

Jake’s first thought when his AID informed him that one General Foxglove was calling was, “What the hell does this dick want?” It was at best bad form to speak ill of a superior officer. Unofficially, there were some assholes it was damned hard to speak well of.

Mosovich’s long military experience had taught him that there were officers you could count on to take care of both the officers under their command, and their men. Then there were officers who fit the military profile of “active stupid” — which generally meant that their officers and men were left to make the CO’s hare-brained orders work however they could, or catch nine kinds of hell for his incompetence. The colonel knew from both reputation and personal experience that Bob Foxglove was one of the latter, and was in his current staff position not for the sake of career development, but as an expedient for getting a politically connected, dumbass weasel into the spot where he could do the least harm.

“Good afternoon, General. What can I do for you, sir?”

“Colonel, I’ve been unable to reach General Pennington, and apparently I’m not the only one. My call is regarding your security mission with the Humanity Project. Their CEO, the mentat Erick Winchon, has informed SOCOM that an associated facility was attacked this morning. He declined to provide details, but said he believes an attack on their facility may be imminent,” the general said, as if expecting Mosovich to be impressed with his important connections to this Winchon individual.

When Mosovich didn’t reply, Foxglove continued, “This is a strong indication of an imminent terrorist attack that requires DAG reinforcing its… ahem… unusually small detachment on site. I have done everything I can to contact Pennington, with no luck. I was hoping that his standing orders to you would allow you to begin deploying while we continue our efforts to reach him.”

Jake was silent for a few moments, but for once, Foxglove didn’t seem to be in a hurry for an answer. “Let’s try him once more. Maybe he’s back in touch. AID, conference in General Pennington, please,” the colonel instructed. He had noticed that Bob didn’t say who at SOCOM had been informed.

“I’m sorry, Jake. I can’t reach him,” his AID said.

Damn. The commanding officer of DAG avoided letting his mental grimace show on his face and made a decision. He could begin movement while his AID continued to try his CO. The general would probably be more effective getting additional information on the threat than a colonel would, and he might even sabotage his boss’s efforts by pushing too hard with this particular asshole right now.

“Yes, General, my orders do allow for further deployment on my own initiative. Please forward me all the intelligence information SOCOM has, and any more that comes in, of course. Meanwhile, we will begin moving out as soon as possible. Thank you for the information, sir,” he said. Then, to his AID, deliberately within hearing of Foxglove, whom he didn’t trust farther than he could spit, “AID, please keep trying General Pennington until you do reach him. Keep me informed of your progress.”

“Of course, Jake,” it said.

“Thank you for your cooperation, Colonel,” the one-star cut the connection, leaving the lieutenant colonel staring at the empty space and silently cursing all politicians, civilian and military.

“Get me Mueller and Kelly.”

“Right away, sir,” the AID sounded almost relieved, which was odd. Maybe he’d imagined it.

Major Kelly stood in front of his CO and only had two words in his head: “oh shit.” Colonel Mosovich was a hell of an officer and one hell of an operator in his own right. Kelly had hated to have to deceive him by holding back the fundamental nature of DAG’s dual loyalties. It smacked of dishonor and had been the hardest thing about his job since the day he first reported to boot camp. Now, he was finally going to have to come clean, and couldn’t help being ashamed even though there were vital reasons for the dual loyalties and the deception, and a perfect opening for confessions to the colonel. Not to mention how Mueller was going to react.

“Sir, we need to discuss a great deal without interruption,” the XO said.

The old man nodded and walked Mueller and him outside, away from the AIDs, who would punish them later, in small ways, for the exclusion.

“That bit about not knowing what you might be getting into brings up something, actually a lot of big things, that you now have a need to know, sir.”

“Why do I get the feeling I’m not going to like this?” Jake asked his XO.

“Because you absolutely are not. First, I and most of DAG already know exactly what we are going into, and you now need to know how.”

“This is more than just feedback from our men on temporary duty up there.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, sir, it is. The answers go way back. First, Michael O’Neal, Senior, who you worked with in Vietnam, did not die in the nuclear explosion at Rabun Gap but is very much alive, rejuved, and working for a covert organization with a very, very similar mission to DAG’s.” He waited to see what the old man would say.

“You sound like you have direct personal knowledge of this. I am not happy to just be hearing about whatever this is, and I will be even less happy if I have to drag it out of you in bits and drabs.”