“So you say,” the Tir hissed. “A Fleet matter. Obviously the Fleet needs to be brought to heel.”
O’Reilly smiled darkly and shook his head. These Darhel were so easy. What the hell had taken the Bane Sidhe this long to trip them up? “That is, surely, your prerogative, Tir. But for now, there’s a victory celebration and I’m missing it.”
With that the Jesuit rapped on the table with his knuckles, stood up and went out to find a bottle of Bushmills. Surely the Father Church would permit him one night of celebration.
And tomorrow it would be back to the wars.
Of course, some people hadn’t stopped.
Tulo’stenaloor blazed a trail through deep woods, showing his oolt’os how to hack open a path. He didn’t know why he bothered; the humans had taken control of the orbitals. Any ship that attempted to lift out was being destroyed. All that he could do was run and hide like an abat. It was humiliating.
He snarled as the oolt’os in the lead stopped, then reached for his rifle. Ahead in a clearing there was a single Indowy standing alone.
“Stop,” Tulo’stenaloor said, waving at the oolt’os to lower their weapons. The green ones were never a threat. But what one was doing here, at this time, was an interesting question.
He stepped forward and gestured at the little being, but the Indowy just waved.
“You are Tulo’stenaloor First order Battle Master of the Sten Po’oslena’ar?” the Indowy asked in Posleen.
“I am,” Tulo’stenaloor replied, looking around. Suddenly the bushes in every direction spouted armed humans. They did nothing, though, just waited, their weapons bracketing his bodyguards. He waved at the oolt’os to lower their weapons. “Who are you?”
“I am the Indowy Aelool,” the little one said with a broad and toothy, and very feral, smile. “And I would like to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”
“So what do we do now?” Elgars asked the placement officer.
The officer was short, overweight, balding and apparently harassed. And clearly in no mood for handling troops that had misplaced their units.
“For right now I’ll assign you a BOQ room,” the officer said. “And I’ll put the two NCOs in the NCO’s quarters. Then I’ll send a memo up to DA asking them what in the hell to do with you. Until we find out, just stick around the area.” He handed each of them a slip of paper and waved at the door.
“This seems… I dunno,” Elgars said as they walked down the corridor. The Asheville Corps headquarters seemed to have completely lost its head. With the return of the Fleet, half the soldiers expected to be out-processed immediately and all the little routines were gone. Suddenly, no one knew what the future would hold. In a way, it was better facing the Posleen.
“Abrupt,” Mosovich said, holding the door open for her in a gesture that was chivalrous rather than rank based. “When you work odd jobs you get used to it. Every now and again you get a heap of thanks; usually you just get ignored. The difficulty of the mission or how well you did it rarely seems to have anything to do with the outcome.”
“What now, boss?” Mueller said.
“Well, if the captain can be seen slumming with a couple of enlisted pukes, I suggest we find a bar and get really drunk,” the sergeant major replied.
“Good idea,” Elgars said, looking towards the gates of the compound. “Follow me!”
Mueller chuckled as they headed out, the two males having to work to match her stride. “You seem to be… more whole these days.”
“I feel whole,” Elgars replied with a smile. “I haven’t had a personality pop up in a few days, everything feels… integrated. As if, for the first time since I awoke, I’m myself.”
“And do you know who you are?” Mosovich asked carefully.
“Yep.”
“Who?”
“Anne Elgars,” she said in a definite tone. “Just Anne.”
“Must come as a surprise in the morning, huh?” Mueller said with a laugh.
Mosovich shook his head and looked at the woman for a moment. Then sighed as if for the death of a friend.
“Yep, time for us to get stinkin’ drunk, ma’am.”
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 147th G-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?”