John Ringo - Queen of wands

By the bright light that was coming from somewhere, Barb could see the thing that had Janea. And it was nearly to the cave.

She sped up, dodging through trees with a grace she normally used for heavy traffic.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she said, actually using Janea to bound over the thing and block the way to the cave.

“Nice to see you,” Janea said. She was tapping at one of the tentacles with her axe and looking thoroughly pissed. “Sort of. You’re doing your glowy thing and it’s whiting out my goggles.”

The thing was clearly in a quandary. It had a bunch of its tentacles wrapped around Janea, and more were necessary for propulsion. It tried to free up some of the ones holding Janea, and the redhead was able to nearly struggle free. Then it tried to use some of its ground tentacles and it nearly toppled over.

“Uff,” Janea said as she was tossed through the air.

All of those tentacles free, the thing attacked.

“Thank you,” Barb said, cutting off a half-dozen tentacles at once and driving the glowing katana deep into the belly of the beast. “Eat God’s power, you hell spawn.”

“You know,” Janea said, sprawled out on the ground. “It’s not exactly a sin, but it’s extremely embarrassing for an Asatru to get captured.”

“Be glad that’s all that happened,” Barb said. “Did you get any of them?”

“Two,” Janea admitted. “Not that I want these things as my servants in Valhalla. Freya, please note, I’d really prefer not to have these things as servants in Valhalla.”

“Your little firefight woke up the neighbors. We’re already getting queries from CNN, and it’s the middle of the night. The Director is not going to be a happy camper tomorrow.”

Assistant Deputy Director George Grosskopf was, for his sins, the FBI official in charge of managing Special Circumstances. What he was currently trying to figure out was how to manage the cover-up on this one.

“This may be too big for a cover-up, alas,” Germaine said over the videoconference. “And please note that the Great Powers are in agreement on maintaining confidentiality. It is possible that They may intervene to prevent a widening hysteria. But we cannot depend upon that. Their ways are ineffable.”

“Seismic sounding,” Janea said. “I just thought of it on the way over to the trailer. There’s a kind of seismic sounding system that uses a series of explosions, sonic something or another. Trot out a geologist to spin it as a way to map the cave system.”

“We need to clear this whole area,” Barb said. “There are probably more of these things. And what’s the word on our caving team?”

“The military has found a few personnel who are able. And willing to keep quiet about it,” ADD Grosskopf said. “They’re also bringing special weaponry. Refresh me on the thing with the rounds. The rifle didn’t work as well as a pistol? That sounds backwards.”

“Well, sir, the M-4’s not a real killer, sir,” Randell said. “Never has been.”

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Barb said. “And I have a theory. But that’s all it is.”

“Go,” the ADD said.

“These things are mostly a mass of tentacles with a very small body,” Barb said. “And they regenerate like mad. Even if you hit the body, you don’t kill them unless you break it up. And the same goes for the tentacles. You have to do a lot of damage. High velocity rounds kill and wound primarily through hydrostatic shock. These things don’t respond at all to hydrostatic shock. You have to really chop them up. The sword actually worked better than my pistol, you just have to get way too close for comfort. Bottom line is, the bigger the round, the better. Coupled with the more rounds you can put on target, the better. I’d suggest that the SF bring a really good forty-five SMG with them.”

“I’ll pass that on,” Grosskopf said. “The only one that comes to mind is a Thompson. There are some newer ones but most of them aren’t all that great.”

“I’d hate to have to work a Thompson through the caves,” Barb said with a sigh. “But if that’s what we have to work with, that’s what we’ll have to work with. God’s ways are, as Augustus said, ineffable.”

“Any thoughts on something that will allow us to clear the entire area and not be worse news, or as bad as, an invasion of demonic entities?” the ADD asked. “So far we’ve floated a meteor strike, radioactive release, and a spill of poison gas that was on its way to be destroyed. None of them are considered politically palatable enough. The Powers That Be would rather tell the truth than any of the above.”

“Yeah,” Janea said, nodding thoughtfully. “And it would kill several birds with one stone. You’re going to need some briefed-in experts who are willing to lie their asses off, and create a bunch of false data, but it just might work.”

“This is CNN in Goin, Tennessee, where the federal government has just announced a major threat to not only the local area but the entire region…”

“Methane gas?” Barb said incredulously, rubbing her hair with a towel.

“Hey, it worked,” Janea said, yawning. It was just after dawn, and that afternoon they were headed back into the caves to try to find the lair of the Gar. They were going to need sleep. “Methane gas builds up underground all the time. All it needs is one spark, and boom! There’ve been four instances of major methane explosions in known geological history. The geology is totally wrong for it in this area, and there’s no way that it would affect as large an area as they’re clearing. But it gave us a reason to get civilians out of danger, a reason for Professor Argyll’s death, and people are buying the bogus seismic charges story, so we don’t have to explain a major firefight in a sleepy neighborhood. The neighbors are now complaining about not being warned about the charges and being awakened in the middle of the night instead of insisting it was a firefight. You know people are buying it when they’re complaining about the wrong things. I deserve a pat on the back.”

“I’m starting to think you’ve got the wrong goddess,” Barb said, crawling gratefully into bed. “Ever considered Athena? No, not devious enough. Hera?”

“Bite your tongue,” Janea said, putting her hands behind her head. “Like I want to be the spider in the web. Give me someone who wars with gusto and lusts with passion. I spent a little time with a cult of Ishtar when I first got into paganism, but it was too ‘love is the answer.’ Love’s great right up until someone needs their ass seriously kicked. You might as well be Buddhist as Astara.” She paused for a moment then grimaced. “I don’t want to go to sleep.”

“Me neither,” Barb admitted. “I’m glad to be horizontal, but I don’t want to sleep.”

“Nightmares,” Janea said. It wasn’t a question.

“Worst I’ve ever had,” Barb said. “I woke up probably twenty times last night, same damned nightmare every time.”

“Want to talk about it?” Janea asked.

“Not on your life,” Barb said. “I just want to forget them. I’ve never been particularly submissive.”

“Held in place by an amorphous form?” Janea asked, frowning.

“In a dark place?” Barb said, sitting up.

“Skip the rest,” Janea said, sitting up in turn. “Recurrently?”

“All the time,” Barb said. “I had one intervention, I think, by a messenger. But other than that, every time I woke up it was from the same dream.”

“That’s not a dream, that’s a projection,” Janea said. “Do you feel…a longing?”

“Repulsed and pulled at the same time,” Barb said, nodding. “Like wanting a chocolate but knowing it’s got acid filling.”