John Ringo - Cally's War

She was getting used to the transit cars now and didn’t have any trouble finding one going in her direction and taking it back to the Corridor.

On the second level from the bottom, on the Fleet and Engineering side, was a sports bar that attracted a solid mix of everything on Titan but colonists, tourists, and nonhumans. It was popular with its clientele because the drinks were relatively cheap, the food filling, and the games on the tank were as close to live as it was possible to get, being tight-beamed up as part of the normal Earth-to-Titan bandwidth. A perceptive client would have noted that people tended to drink more when the drinks were cheap, that drunk people tended to gamble unwisely, and that the establishment provided very convenient access to the house bookie should anyone wish to make a friendly wager on the game.

The sign above Charlie’s was a work of art. Instead of glow paint that looked like neon, it was an actual neon light. Well, neon or one of those other gases. Anyway, it was a big curvy tube of glass instead of glow paint. Like a lot of establishments on the corridor, the bar had double doors to reduce the mixing of too much station air with the air inside. In the case of Charlie’s, this was more to keep the pollution in than out. It was one of the few places on base you could smoke tobacco without either carrying around a filter to clean up after yourself or paying an extra air-scrubbing tax. The proprietor, whose name bore no resemblance to “Charlie,” believed, correctly, that the distinctive bar smell held many nostalgic associations for the class of patrons he wished to attract, and tended to drive away prudes, tourists, and colonists — all of whom would be bad for business in his particular niche.

The briefing materials from the Bane Sidhe had warned Cally what to expect when they chose this particular bar for any necessary in-person meetings, but it was almost impossible to describe the reality, as she found when she stepped through the double doors and into the fog of intermingled stale and fresh tobacco and cheap beer — with almost no undertones of Titan’s particular mix of swamp gas. It was the first place she’d been since the shuttle port in Chicago that actually smelled like anywhere on Earth. She felt a sharp prickling at the back of her eyes as she took a deep breath. The smoke must be irritating them.

The bar wasn’t packed, but it had a healthy crowd for a weeknight. She wove her way through the tables and the clouds of smoke to get to the bar. She had read that at one point Charlie’s had tried a holotank, but forced to choose between holos and tobacco, it had been no contest. Consequently, the tables were all grouped in easy view of large high-definition flatscreens. It wasn’t the flatscreen above the bar that caught her attention, though. The thing that really made her glad she came, regardless of the mission, was the sign, posted next to the impressive array of bottles behind the bar, that said, “Proudly Serving 100% Imported Jamaican Coffee.”

“Coffee, please. With a shot of crème de cacao.” She put some cash on the counter and left a tip out of her change, turning slightly to watch the screen. Baseball. Indianapolis versus Topeka. The Braves were down by two. She didn’t look around the bar. It would have been bad tradecraft, and she had scanned the room thoroughly as she came in. He wasn’t here yet. When he arrived, he’d let her know.

The score was unchanged, but McKenzie had just allowed a double with a runner already on, and she was on her second coffee, when a redheaded man approached the bar and ordered a shot of Kentucky bourbon, and a spare cup. After downing the shot, he tucked a wad of chewing tobacco from a small pouch in his jaw, and looked up at the screen, rubbing his jaw for a second before spitting in the cup. He looked back up at the screen and muttered something that would have been difficult for anyone without enhanced hearing to weed out from the general noise of the bar.

“I told him their bullpen was weak,” he said.

Cally waited until she saw his eyes skim over and past her, fixing intently on someone off to her left for a moment, as if he had found who he was looking for. She finished her drink and got down from the barstool. Contact had been made, the full team was in place. As she wove back through the tables on her way out a particularly large spacer intercepted her with an outthrust arm, sweeping her into his lap as she let out a shriek.

“Hey, baby, I got something you’re just gonna love!” he leered.

Cally delivered a ringing slap that rocked his head to the other side, leaving a bright red handprint on the side of his face. The other hand slipped a cube into his pocket as she pushed herself out of his lap and stalked off towards the door, the picture of feminine indignation. There were rough chuckles from the mostly male assemblage as the large and apparently very drunk spacer rubbed his cheek in bewilderment.

“What’d I do?!” he protested to the air.

Wednesday morning the coffee at the office tasted even worse, since she had had something recent to compare it to. And General Beed was apparently not the kind to be contented with a little roll in the hay now and again. When they were alone, he insisted on touching her, grabbing bits here and there. It wasn’t that she was against a little mutual sex here and there in a fuck buddy sense, but good God, had the man no notion of personal space? Apparently not. She smiled at the annoying beast when he came around now and then and generally took it in stride. Honestly, the man was worse than a lonely cat!

Fortunately for her, one of the general’s theories of proper leadership was that a leader should be seen, frequently and unpredictably, by the men he commanded. While in practice this worked out to a tendency to micromanage his subordinates and get in their hair instead of letting them get on with the job at hand, Cally had to be somewhat grateful for it because it tended to get him out and about for a few hours each afternoon during which she could finally have a few minutes peace.

This particular afternoon he had elected to make a visit to the detention facility, which would keep him out of the office for half the afternoon, at least. Pryce had not gone with him, being busy making arrangements for the general’s wife’s birthday party, the sort of social obligation which was one of the strange but true realities of military bureaucracy in the Galactic age.

And thinking of Pryce, the one absolutely completely good thing about screwing Beed is getting some of those built-up hormones under control so I won’t be tempted to drag anything male behind a bush… or, well, okay, potted miniature tree. So thank God for getting decently laid… or, well, okay, that was a little bit blasphemous… um… whatever. After this mission, I’m definitely hunting down Father O’Reilly and asking him to hear my confession. I’ve… kind of let that slide.

She was filing the printouts of the morning e-mails, while envisioning creative and artistic ways for Beed to die, when she heard a crash and jumped, whirling to find the lieutenant sitting on the edge of her desk, her stapler lying nearby on the floor. He shrugged apologetically.

“Good Lord, Pryce! Don’t sneak up on me like that!” She clapped a hand to her chest. “You scared the hell out of me.” How the hell did he sneak up on me? Me? Nobody sneaks up on me. It’s just… wrong. I feel okay, I don’t think anything’s wrong… geez, he’s quiet. Well, until he trips over something or knocks something over, anyway.

“S-sorry, ma’am. I just dropped by to see how you were settling in.” He grinned mischievously. “Well, and to take a break from my canapé passing and preparations thereto.”