John Ringo: Sister Time

None of that had mattered to Granpa or Tommy at the time. They would have pursued any feasible extraction plan to save her. However, the larger political calculus had meant that the next time she saw the Base, the other side of the split was mostly packed and gone. Aelool and Beilil had taken the position that the O’Neal was making a decision as clan head to preserve a vital asset of his clan, and had also pointed out the “as yet” tiny size of Clan O’Neal and the corresponding magnification of the value of each member. Cally thought that may have been just an excuse, out of blood loyalty from the Battle of Diess. If so, she could live with that. Loyalty was loyalty.

She shook herself out of her reverie as she passed an Indowy with a bay mare, about six and a half hands and clearly gravid, headed down to the trotting ring. Obviously “travelling in pairs” included their equine pets. Hey, whatever worked. It wasn’t like they were going to run short on corn any time soon, and hydroponics easily turned out everything else.

She passed through workroom administration and back into equipment supply. Someone had obviously reported her presence, because Aelool and Father O’Reilly had preceded her and were standing next to a machine she hadn’t seen before, chatting. It was a plain gray cube with beveled edges. Small seams outlined shapes on its surface that were probably panels of some sort. Other than shape, the thing it most reminded her of was the slab. God, she missed the slab. She rubbed the small of her back with one hand as she took the small evening bag out of her purse, opened the pouch, and handed it over.

Father O’Reilly took it without comment and placed one of the keys against a matching shape where it clicked into place, only to click back out almost immediately as a beep nearly too high for human ears sounded and a spate of Galactic Standard appeared in the air above the device.

“Cally, what the hell did you steal? ” Father O’Reilly asked, looking at the readout.

“ Me? ” she spluttered. “You’re the one who told me to! I followed that ops plan to the letter.” Well, okay, the ops plan did not say get the drawer’s override code from your Michon Mentat sister, but it’s the thought that counts.

Aelool’s ears had turned in slightly and shoulders tightened in the expression Cally had learned to interpret as “pensive.”

“It is not a disaster. It is simply not useful to us at this time.” His tone said not useful ever.

“What’s wrong with it? It was where you said it would be. It looked just like the holograms in the briefing. Is it broken or something?” Okay, bad enough that I have to stoop to being a cat burglar. Money’s tight, I know that. But I would like to at least not be blamed for someone else’s bad intel.

“Cally O’Neal, it is not that it is broken. And it is not your error. It is that our generator is only authorized to read and execute level three and lower code keys. One of many redundancies in a system designed with the best of intentions to prevent dangerous industrial accidents. It is unfortunately also useful as a tool of political control.” Aelool explained patiently, “These are simply more powerful keys. Almost certainly level fours, or perhaps even level fives.”

“But you sounded like they aren’t worth anything. It seems like we could at least fence them. Can’t we?”

“No. It is that we cannot use them ourselves and they are too overheated to fence.” He sighed.

“Too hot?” she echoed.

“Isn’t that what I said?” He cocked his head at an angle in a questioning gesture he’d copied from humans and other terrestrials.

“More or less. So it was a busted mission after all. Sorry. Other than that, is there a problem?” Cally would have been the first one to admit that the business side of the organization was not her forte.

“The Darhel will not be happy. But it was a low budget mission and a small cost to us. And Darhel happiness has never been one of my priorities.” His face crinkled, amused.

“You lost what? ” The Epetar Group executive suddenly understood why the useless, decayed, folth of an underling, Pardal, had insisted on a meeting without any Indowy body servants and had meticulously searched out and disabled the spy devices from rival groups that tended to accumulate over time. He began his breathing drill and spent a few moments making sure he had himself under full, tight control before continuing.

“You have delayed shipping, ” he said coldly, raising a hand to forestall interruption by his hapless subordinate. His clear displeasure did nothing to detract from the hypnotic, melodious tones for which his species was renowned.

“You will explain to me how any Darhel, however incompetent, can contrive to lose six level nine nanogenerator code keys in a single night. You will explain this in detail. You will pause when necessary to control yourself and you will not go into lintatai before you have completed your explanation. Afterwards feel free. ”

Kieran Dougherty was not a tall man. Not to put too fine a point on it, he was downright short. At least, he thought so. When he was on the ground. Which was one reason he liked to fly. The gray-eyed man with short, straight mouse-brown hair and an extensive collection of freckles liked to fly the way retrievers like to swim. The biggest design flaw of airplanes, in his opinion, was that they usually had to land to be refueled. The other options were unfortunately beyond the resources of his organization at the moment. Still, he could accept that, just as he could accept that an old and perpetually restored puddlejumper was a lot less conspicuous than something with a lot more range and capability. Besides, he liked prop-driven planes. You could really feel the air in them. Not that he would have turned down something newer and fancier, mind you. He stopped daydreaming and focused his full attention as he began his descent for Charleston. Any way you cut it, his worst day flying was still better than a day stuck on the ground.

As he slid into the pattern, Schmidt strapped into the copilot seat beside him and looked out the window at the city lights as they came in. When he wasn’t talking to the tower, Dougherty kept his mouth shut. He knew Schmidt was listening to the engines. It wasn’t by the book, but damned if Harry wasn’t the best aircraft mechanic he’d ever had. The guy loved engines, and was almost psychic in his ability to detect anything that wasn’t quite right with “his” bird. He was pretty damned good with the other stray aircraft they had to cope with now and again on this crazy job, too.

After landing, he got Lucille into the hangar and left her to Schmidt while he went outside for a cigar, waving goodbye to Cally and Papa as they wheeled a couple of carefully anonymous black and gray bikes out the back door, mounting up and disappearing through the chain link fence, hair and faces hidden under the ubiquitous black helmets. Charleston airport was salty, and sandy, and the air was thick with cold moisture that smelled like rain. Wind blew sand against his cheeks and he had to squint to keep the little bits of grit out whenever the wind shifted. He took deep drags off the Cuban cigar, staring at nothing and wishing he was still in the air. He finished it and dropped the butt in the ashcan by the door before going back in to hear Harry’s update on his aircraft.

“So how is she?” He looked over to Schmidt, who was whistling as he pulled on a coverall and got his toolbox out of its locker.

“Well, she sounds real good. I should be able to just go down the list and have her all checked out before I leave tonight.” He pulled a wrinkled and oil-stained piece of paper out of the box and spread it out neatly on the rolling cart where he was beginning to lay out the well-used and carefully cared-for tools in their precise places. Harry didn’t really need the list, he was just a touch obsessive. Dougherty could understand that. It was one reason he trusted the other man to work on Lucille. On the other hand, Dougherty had a personal life, sort of, when he wasn’t in the air. Since he’d been assured he wouldn’t get to fly again for at least seventy-two hours, he was eager to go make the acquaintance of the pitcher of stout that was calling his name. Maybe even find a girl with the right combination of looks and loneliness. And a no expectations of permanence. A few minutes later he waved cheerfully to the security guard, leaving the airport in search of beer and women. Song was optional.