John Ringo - Hell's Faire

Colonel Garcia got out of the personnel elevator shaking his head like a doctor about to tell the family that little Timmy wasn’t going to be coming home.

“There’s not much we can do, Colonel,” he said to Mitchell, looking around at the group. The whole SheVa crew, plus Kilzer and Major Chan, had gathered to hear the news.

“The engineering area is covered in pebbles,” he continued. “It’s as hot as I’ve ever seen. Then there’s the battle damage. Given that most of the SheVas are going to be decommissioned, it will probably be left right here. We’ll pull the MetalStorms off and anything else that is salvageable, decommission the main gun and then seal it up with a bunch of radiation warnings all over it. This whole area is hot enough it will probably be closed anyway.”

Mitchell nodded and sighed, looking around at the devastated landscape.

“I’d hoped for better, but…” He looked up at the mountain of metal that had been their home for the last few days and shook his head. “What now?”

“Get some rest?” the repair commander said.

“Will do,” Mitchell replied. He looked at Indy and Chan then shrugged. “Ladies, I do believe there is an officers’ club in Asheville that is calling our names. Can I buy you ladies a drink? I’m sure we can bum a ride.”

“Hey, what about us?” Pruitt asked, gesturing at Reeves. “You’re just going to walk off into the sunset with the girls and leave us in the middle of a radioactive wasteland?”

“Pruitt, an officer’s first duty is to his men,” Mitchell replied solemnly, holding his arms out on either side to the warrant and the major. “You and Reeves have a four-day pass. Report to the 147 thG-1 in four days. Don’t drink and drive. This completes your pre-pass safety briefing. Have fun.” With that he turned around and started walking towards the nearby vehicle park.

“Well, that sucks,” Reeves growled. “Where the hell are we supposed to go?”

“After them,” Pruitt said, spotting Major LeBlanc striding up the hill. “As fast as we can!”

Kilzer spotted her at about the same time and looked around wildly. She was between him and the vehicles, and going back into the SheVa without a rad suit was suicide. But he considered it for just a moment. He suspected he was going to lose his balls anyway, might as well be to some more or less painless radiation damage.

“ Mister Kilzer,” the major said, walking up to him and planting both fists on her hips, “a moment of your time?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Paul said.

LeBlanc looked down to where his hands had just naturally fallen to protect his groin.

“I’m not going to kick you in the balls,” she said, with a shake of her head. Then when he smiled and moved his hands aside she did exactly that.

“Oh!” she cried, kicking him again as he rolled around on the ground. “I’m sorry ! My mistake ! I meant to say ‘I am going to kick you in the balls!’ I don’t know how that ‘not’ got in there! Maybe a side-effect of radiation poisoning?”

“Aaah! I’m sorry! It was a mistake!”

“Yeah, I know you are. Sorry that is.” LeBlanc stepped back and shook her head. “Get up, you look like a baby down there whining and clutching your privates in pain.”

“Are you going to kick me again?” Kilzer groaned.

“Are you going to be an ignorant asshole again?”

“Oh, shit.”

“Get up. I’ll let you buy me a drink.”

“You’re really not going to kick me again?” Kilzer said, getting painfully to one knee. “Promise?”

“Not unless you screw up again.”

“Damn.”

“We have to quit meeting like this,” Wendy said softly.

“You’ve only seen me, what, once before in the body and fender shop?” Tommy said from inside the tank. He was fully submerged in a red solution, but a bubble of air was open around his mouth and nose. He grinned through the nannite solution and pointed to where a darker, more opaque cloud was worrying around his shoulder. “Hey, if only they could increase the size of my cock!”

“You don’t need that,” Wendy said, looking at the tank and suddenly seeing it as old technology. It was practically magic to most people, able to regrow limbs and heal almost any wound short of death. But she had seen real magic, for which even death was not an impossible barrier. And she really wondered what in the hell was going to happen when someone figured out what she knew. The world was already a very dangerous place; she didn’t need non-random enemies.

“I’ll be out in a couple of days,” Tommy said, when she seemed to have drifted off. “I’ll have some leave coming and with the Fleet back, well, I’m not sure what they’re going to do in the way of forces. Anyway, I was wondering… you wanna get married?”

She looked at her boyfriend and shook her head. “You can’t kneel in that condition and it would be hard to hold out the box and then put the ring on my finger. So, under the circumstances, I’ll accept the method of proposal!” she said with a broad grin.

“Great!”

“What about Fleet? What are they going to say?”

“Fuck ’em. What are they going to do, send me on a suicide mission?”

“Not anymore, love,” Wendy said quietly. “No more.”

“Well, I’ve got to do something ,” Tommy said in a worried tone. “They’re talking about cutting back the Fleet and even Fleet Strike. I might be a discharged lieutenant with no training and no future. That wouldn’t be fun to be married to!”

“We’ll cross that bridge when or if we come to it,” Wendy said. “But I’d be just as glad if you weren’t working for Fleet, to tell you the truth.”

“Well, I’ve got to do something .”

“I’m still trying to get straight if you guys are white hats or black hats,” Papa O’Neal said, taking a sip of coffee.

The meeting room was apparently deep under ground. Now that he had seen what a Himmit ship could do to rock, he was not surprised. What he had been surprised by was the briefer.

“The Bane Sidhe would, I think, qualify as white hats,” Monsignor O’Reilly said, quietly. “You’ll be told some of our history and background. You of course understand the term ‘need to know.’ You will be told what you need to know. For the rest, well, we’re the people who saved you. We have done favors for your son as well. This is in our interest, you understand. Michael O’Neal is one of several possible paths to victory over the true enemy in this war. And it is for that that we saved you, in the hope of recruiting you to this great task.”

“Uh, huh,” Cally said. She had a Coke in her hand but so far she hadn’t touched it. “Who is the real enemy, then?”

“The Darhel, of course,” O’Reilly said. “It is they who waited until the last minute to warn Earth. It is they that, when it was apparent humans were going to be even more inventive than they gave them credit for, slowed production of essential war materials both off-planet and on Earth. They have supplied the Posleen with critical intelligence, without the Posleen’s knowledge by the way. On a personal note they forced the choice of commanders on Diess that nearly got your father killed, hacked the Tenth Corps data net and did various other things, including sending an assassin after you when you were eight, to make your life less pleasant than it could have been. The only personal loss that is not directly attributable to them is the loss of your mother. Random chance does play a role in war. And even there… she should have been in command of a cruiser, not stuck with a half-finished, poorly constructed, poorly designed frigate. This, too, could be laid at the door of the Darhel.”