John Ringo: Yellow Eyes

In a way, it was a bit too much light. The remains of several hundred of Des Moines ’ crew — uniforms and shoes for the most part, sometimes bones if those had been cooked before sinking — littered the decks. Blood and flesh were gone, however, a small mercy for which Boyd gave great thanks.

Deep below decks he could hear the odd sound of underwater welding resonating through the bulkheads. The pumps he could not hear, though he knew they were working. The Galactics built well, and to fine tolerances. Their pumps were noiseless.

“This way,” Sally’s avatar suggested, pointing downward to a ladder leading deep below decks.

“What’s down this far?” Boyd asked.

“I’m not sure. Something. There’s a power source down there, and not a small one.”

“The pebble bed reactors?”

“No… they’re dead. And there’s no radiation to speak of. It’s something else.”

Boyd shrugged his shoulders and, reluctantly, descended towards the bowels of the ship.

“Are you sure there’s enough air down here?” Boyd asked.

“Does it stink?” Sally queried in response. “I suppose it must. But, yes, as the water drained, fresh air was drawn down. It would last a single man for years. Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” the human snapped. “And, yes, it stinks.”

“Turn towards the stern,” Sally directed. “The power source is back there.”

Boyd and the avatar emerged from a long corridor into a large, mostly open space surrounding a solid looking, circular mass. Boyd looked around the open space, saw numerous tables and stools.

“Ship’s mess?” he asked.

“The main mess, yes. Those were the galley, butcher shop and garbage grinder we just passed. Just ahead, to the stern, is a ladder. The power source is near the base of that.”

Still reluctant, Boyd continued on and then down.

“I’m getting to be a little old for this, you know,” he complained.

“Mr. Boyd,” Sally answered, formally. “You know damned well you do not have to be old. A simple form to be signed, off-world passage to be paid, and you could be seventeen again.”

“Bah. And spend another lifetime going through that shit? No, thank you.”

“Up to you.”

“Well, at least there are no rats aboard.”

“No,” Sally agreed. “They all drowned. Which makes me wonder if I shouldn’t have myself sunk for a bit and re-raised. They itch, you know? The rats, I mean. Nasty little feet and claws always traipsing along the decks whenever there isn’t a human about.

“Turn to your right,” she added, “back toward the stern.”

Boyd asked, “What was back here?”

“It was supposed to be storage, bunkerage.” Sally answered. “But here also is that power source. Behind that door.”

In the dim light Boyd made out several Posleen skeletons. He counted the number of skulls. Five of them. Unlike the humans, something in the makeup of the aliens’ bones had prevented them from dissolving into the ocean’s water. The skeletons made the old man shudder but he pressed on nonetheless.

Boyd looked through the small view port in the watertight door. It was light enough inside to see that there was no leakage. He put both hands on the wheel and began to twist. The door’s locking mechanism resisted at first, than gave way only slowly and reluctantly, and with an agonized whining. Boyd stepped back and allowed the door to swing open.

Inside was a bare room, oddly shaped and with one wall sloping. The room was bare except for a conical glowing object — the power source, he guessed — and a pearlescent coffinlike box about four feet by four feet by maybe ten. The box had an almost square projection on one side, with a glassy plate on its sloping top.

“What is that thing?” he asked Sally’s avatar.

Sally didn’t answer directly. Instead she instructed, “Place your hand on that plate.”

Boyd did and was rewarded by a whooshing sound as the center of the coffin split and the two sides lifted up and peeled back. He jumped back in surprise, heart pounding.

When he had recovered and stepped forward again to look into the coffin he saw something very like a fog, though it was a fog that would have put to shame London’s foggiest night. Boyd heard a distinctive click, as of a power switch being pressed. He sensed a stirring in there, hidden by the fog. Awful feelings, a sort of essence of well-done vampire movie feelings, assailed him. He reached over to place his hand over the plate in the hope that it would close the coffin again.

“Wait,” Sally said, this time making it an order and not a request. “There is no danger.”

The stirring inside the coffin grew as the fog began, ever so slightly, to dissipate, running down slowly over the sides of the box and gathering on the deck. Something was plainly moving down there.

Boyd nearly jumped out of his skin as a clawed foot appeared out of the fog, and stretched. The claws were followed by a head. The head was furry and tiny, with outsized, pointed ears.

Morgen the kitty asked, “Meow?”

Both John and Tom have served in the Republic of Panama, John for some weeks while attending the Jungle School at Fort Sherman, Tom for four and a half years with Fourth Battalion, Tenth Infantry (as a sergeant) and Third Battalion, Fifth Infantry (as a lieutenant). Tom says, “If the place where you were happiest in life is home, then my home is Fort William D. Davis, Panama Canal Zone, with the 4 thof the 10 thInfantry, from 1977 to 1978.”

It’s a magic place, Panama, and we highly encourage our readers, or anyone, to visit it. (Did we play some games with the terrain in support of the story? You betcha. But Panama is still a great, wonderful and very beautiful place.)

Can they fight, though? Is the portrayal of the defense in the book realistic? After all, the United States took them down in a bit over twenty-four hours back in 1989. How good could they be?

And that is an interesting question. In 1989, in Operation Just Cause, the United States launched a sudden and surprise attack on the then existing Panama Defense Forces and did crush those forces in about a day, picking off holdouts over the next three to four days. This would not appear to be a great recommendation.

That is, it doesn’t appear to be until you look at the particulars. We hit them in the night, where we have an overwhelming technological advantage. We hit them with little or no tactical warning. We hit them with greater, and in places overwhelming, numbers and overwhelming firepower, even though the use of that firepower was somewhat restrained. Further, we hit them with complete air supremacy and used that air supremacy to deliver, over and above the rather large forces we had in Panama already, three of the best trained, most lethal infantry battalions in the world, the three battalions of the 75 thInfantry (Ranger) (Airborne). More forces followed on, later, as well.

The wonder is not that we took them down in a day, but that they were able to hang on that long. Indeed, if there’s any wonder in the story it’s that, even when abandoned by some (one remarkably loathsome and cowardly wretch, in particular… West Point… Class of 1980) of their U.S. trained officers, the others held on and fought.

The wonder is that at their Comandancia, parts of a couple of Panamanian infantry companies fought against hopeless odds, nearly to the last man. There were only five prisoners taken there, and all of those were wounded. The rest, true to their duty, died in place. Moreover, they drove us out of the compound more than once before they were finally subdued. There were more Texan prisoners taken at the Alamo.

The wonder is that, despite all those disadvantages, the PDF managed to inflict about three casualties on us for every four they took.