John Ringo: Sister Time

At the moment, Cally was more busy swearing and providing covering fire than anything else. Granpa just had to have a gun, and had slithered down the stairs after the body of a guard who had staggered their way to die.

It wasn’t actually completely stupid, she allowed grudgingly. One shooter was a big difference, one lump might as well be dead for the immediate engagement, and the best time to risk this partial exposure was in the first seconds, while the most confusion reigned among the enemy.

After retrieving the pistol from the floor in front of the man’s hand, and the body of the spare magazines, Granpa sprinted for the nearest real cover. He made the DAG box line, but she felt a hard thwack to her thigh as a round penetrated the barrel and continued through her leg. She absently noted the lack of an exit wound and figured a chunk of the lucky bullet’s momentum must have been sapped off by impacting the barrel. Dammit. He exposes himself and gets me hit. If we survive this, I’m gonna kill him.

As a top-level field operative, Cally O’Neal and the rest of her team had very complete nannite packages in their bodies. In her case, this meant that the blood coagulated almost at once, and a highly selective nerve block made it feel like she’d been smacked with a broom handle rather than a sledge hammer. She automatically and unconsciously diverted her other pain through a post-hypnotic melange of Vitapetroni’s that acted like a psychic Demerol, without the loss of function. You still felt all of it, you just didn’t give a damn. Ongoing blood loss was a weeping trickle from the constricted capillaries whenever movement cracked the jelled proto-scab.

“Wish we had a magic pill for morphine,” she groused, picking off one of the hostiles who had picked the interior wall to try to rush around the corner. Tommy and George got one each, and she got another one, as they went past. The only reason they got so close to the far wall before Granpa and the closest trooper got the last of them was they had to hold back until their field of fire didn’t include Tommy.

That took seven more, but the odds were real bad. Men, even untrained ones, fought far better per individual than Posleen. The horses had overwhelmed with sheer numbers, the literally moronic Posleen normals being totally heedless of danger in service to their own God Kings, driven by a hunger that made voracious a pathetically inadequate descriptor. Men, contrariwise, were each as smart as a single God King. They’d spend their lives, but not heedlessly. Unfortunately, it had yet to occur to these dumbasses that they could just break off, quit firing, and be allowed to run away whole and healthy. Or, more likely, they were under a light compulsion that hadn’t yet broken under the instinct of self-preservation and a glimmer of nonpanicked thought.

She winced, not at her wound, but at the knowledge that a similar rush up the other side, with more people, would likely make it — at least with a couple of people to negate DAG’s cover by exposing them to fire on all sides of each box stack. Tommy and George would be unable to provide supporting fire, having to conserve nearly nonexistent ammo for clearly hittable targets. Two of their remaining DAG guys, and Granpa, would have their line of sight obscured by other stacked boxes. That left the two closest and Cally to take down a rush. Good shot though she was, with only three people exposing themselves to hostile fire, one of them was certain to be hit. None of these ruminations took more than a tenth of a second to come together in her brain as a unified picture of their (bad) tactical position.

Two minutes is an eternity in situations like theirs. Inevitably, the rush down the other side occurred to the enemy, which would likely have been the end for them except for the absurd entry of yet another DAG trooper through the far door, face to face with the lead guys in said rush. The moment that followed was one of those that perfectly illustrated the concept of time dilation.

Both sides faced each other, and even though Cally couldn’t see their facial expressions, she could imagine as both retreated back to their previous cover in a jumble. Geez! Couldn’t they hear the shots outside? What the hell kind of acoustics did this place have, anyway?

Somebody in their relief force was on the ball, though, for what happened next was a crack of the outside door and what looked like a slap of something on the top and bottom of the inner door frame. She was subconsciously bracing for an explosion when a voice, amplified by the stereo separation of the tiny speakers, poured in the room at a volume loud even to people who’d just been in an indoor firefight.

“Security personnel. This is Colonel Jacob Mosovich of the United States Army Direct Action Group. This facility is under assault for violation of Federal law and terrorist activities. Drop your weapons and come out, one by one, slowly. You will not be harmed. Your names and job titles will be taken and you will be released to go home or seek medical attention. People, we are interested in the big guys, not you. You’re little fish, and immunity may be offered in exchange for testimony.” The voice paused, as if to let the orders and information sink in.

“Come out, unarmed, with your hands up. You will not be assaulted, arrested, or detained. You do not need to die for this employer today, but you will die, within minutes, if you continue to resist.” There was another pause, probably to see if the security weenies were moving. Not fast enough, apparently. She did hear a couple of clatters as some arms dropped.

“We have an entire, armed, counterterror unit of elite soldiers,” he continued. “Well-armed soldiers with unlimited ammunition. You have low ammunition, light armament, low numbers, and no training. Surrender now, and come out. You will not be harmed. You will be released. We do not want to kill you, but make no mistake that we will. Your time is up. Surrender now,” the naggingly familiar voice said.

There were more clatters as the closest former guards apparently decided that this was a damned fine offer and walked towards the door, hesitantly glancing in the direction of their surviving enemies as if wondering if they would be shot as soon as they broke cover.

When the first two made it out the door alive and unharmed, the rest started to form up in an orderly queue, more used to standing in lines than fighting, anyway.

That was, at least, what started to happen before Cally suddenly found herself unable to move. Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw the security guards frozen in place, as if someone had taken a still holo and they were all trapped in it.

Alone in the center of the room, a short man in an expensive suit stood glaring around as if deciding who or what to deal with first. The human mentat Erick Winchon had come home.

He wasn’t alone for more than an eyeblink, as Michelle O’Neal, brown mentat robe stiff as the skirt of a porcelain doll, stood in the center of the room as well, glaring at him .

“So. You are truly insane after all. Do you think the rest of the Wise can or will tolerate your reckless and haphazard direct intervention, running around like a little tin god? How long before larger and larger sections of the Milky Way would become your play toy? How long before simple boredom drove you to take everything down in your own, individual calamity?” Her sister’s stress on the word individual was so soft it was almost indiscernible.

“Oh, like you haven’t intervened wherever and whenever you pleased. Killing a Darhel. Congratulations. I thought in you the legendary O’Neal barbarism had skipped a generation.”

“I did not kill Pardal. I have not intervened directly once. Not until this moment when your own recklessness made it worth everything to the rest of the Wise that someone stop you. That I stop you.”