John Ringo - Cally's War

The interrogation room had one-way glass, but not on the ground floor. Instead, it had two-story ceilings and the one-way glass formed a full perimeter of the rather large room. It reminded Sam Baker of a fish tank. At this point, since they had no idea who their prisoner actually was, and she wouldn’t say word one to any of his people, he had pulled the MP’s from the room, hoping that observing her alone would help them start to build a file that would eventually lead to a positive identification. Currently, the prisoner was dancing, very energetically. It was incredibly odd behavior, especially in the rather ugly prison-orange jumpsuit, but was more data for the file. Of course, they might not need that file after all. They’d probably know everything including what she had for breakfast by morning.

The SP detachment had arrived a few minutes ago under a lieutenant, j.g., one Wong Yan-Feng accompanied by a medic and a senior chief with very old eyes. Its presence was a calculated insult to Fleet Strike and tended to make the hair on his neck rise a bit. Still, with modern interrogation drugs, they could save a whole lot of time and the medic appeared to have a full set, including several that Fleet Strike internal regulations did not approve for use on prisoners. If Fleet’s medic could get this whole mess over with so he could get back to his own cases, he didn’t have a problem with it.

The whole platoon of SP’s struck him as incredible overkill for one prisoner, and made him vaguely uneasy, but as soon as they shot her full of drugs it was going to all be over anyway, so it was probably just somebody with too much a sense of inter-service rivalry trying to rub their noses in the insult.

The detachment had brought their own tea along with their supplies, and the lieutenant, j.g., sat with a fresh cup while the senior chief and the SP’s went in with a gurney, to strap the prisoner to it in preparation for the medic. Baker revised his opinion about the necessity for the number of men, after trank darts appeared to have no effect and given that four men were on the ground and several others appeared the worse for wear, in spite of swarming her, by the time they got her strapped down. He wouldn’t have believed a woman, even a combat trained one, would be that strong. He wouldn’t have expected it from most men, frankly, and he had worked beside her for weeks, besides. What in the hell was she?

Her response to the interrogation drugs, even the really nasty ones, closely resembled boredom. Good God. Maybe the Fleet team was not overkill. Finally, the medic made one last injection, not even bothering to wait for its effects, or lack of them, before leaving the room, leaving the SP’s who were still standing, including the one that had finally gotten up, to drag their fellows from the room.

It was almost half an hour before the medic reappeared with the chief and a mixed squad of SP’s. The chief stopped at attention in front of the lieutenant.

“We’ll need another five men, sir. Two of them permanently.” Senior Chief Yi Chang Ho’s face was a study in impassivity.

“You will get them.” The only indication of emotion in the officer’s face was a few rapid blinks, quickly resolving into stillness.

“What’s the last thing you gave her?” Baker just had to know.

“A little Provigil-C. If you were building super agents, would you make them immune to it? Task people to observing her overnight. If she doesn’t sleep, we can keep feeding in the sleep suppressors without boosting her alertness. It may be effective. Someone will need to go in and untie her. It will make observations about her sleep or lack of it more accurate.” His nametag read “PO1 Liao Chien.”

Baker suppressed the surprising tendency to swallow hard. But he wasn’t about to be responsible for letting Fleet Strike look bad in front of these smug Fleet bastards and the Darhel VIP. He ordered in a platoon of MP guards to loosen her bonds and make as graceful a tactical retreat with the gurney as the situation would allow.

Fortunately, she didn’t seem as interested in harming men who were setting her loose as she was men who were strapping her down. No additional casualties. Just an immediate return to her dancing. He was starting to recognize it. It appeared to be the same dance, over and over. Tartaglia had joined him at the glass, taking a thoughtful sip of his coffee.

“I wonder what she’s dancing to?” he said.

They’re not going to extract me. They probably won’t even try. I’ll die in here, under torture. The recuperative powers are great… usually. The only thing I can control is how long it takes — at least, so long as they’re stupid enough to let me loose in here. Eventually, my body’s reserves will give out and I’ll die. The less reserves, the sooner that will be. Sooner is good. So here we are back to Sister Dorcas in SERE. Damn, I hated that sadistic bitch. Find an anchor. He’s alive, whatever he turned out to be, he’s alive. That’s one. The last song we made love to. That’s a good anchor. I know it by heart. I could dance forever to it, and no matter what they do to me, it reminds me of anchor number one. He’s alive. Okay, something to hold onto, and a plan. Check.

And I really could dance forever to this. How could she have known, singing so long ago. Just like this. But he took the numbness away. And until now I never even realized it. How ironic. Only really alive now, when I’m about to die.

They won’t be playing patty-cake with me forever. Best get as much done as I can, before they get wise. And I was frozen in my heart. So cold. At least… at least I had him for a little while.

Oop. Here come the bastards, and with a gurney and Fleet pukes, they mean business. Darhel goons instead of honest soldiers, would be my guess. It would take their manipulations to get Fleet involved. No reason not to take on a few just on general principles. Maybe I’ll get lucky and rush somebody into killing me.

The transmission time lag between Earth and Titan Base, especially when the signal was getting encrypted, hidden underneath another transmission as static, and bounced around six ways from Sunday to hide both sender and recipient, was a pain in the ass even under normal circumstances.

As it was, Papa O’Neal was twisting a finger in his ear as if he couldn’t believe what he had just heard, and Tommy was afraid he was about to be treated to the legendary temper attributed to redheads.

“Are you sitting there and telling me that this organization I just devoted thirty plus years of my considerable professional expertise to is actually refusing to even consider the practical feasibility of an extraction for my granddaughter, who has also just devoted thirty plus years of her considerable expertise to said organization? Please tell me that that is not what you’re saying, O’Reilly.” His teammate and mentor’s eyes were cold, colder than Tommy had ever seen them. On the other hand, the way he felt right now, his own probably looked very similar.

The lag was interminable. Unfortunately, it gave both of them ample time to build up a fine head of steam. Fortunately, it also gave plenty of time to think of potential responses and counter responses and choose the ones most likely to be effective and least likely to be inflammatory and counterproductive. Every second was necessary.