“It’s not caedite eos for God’s sake, Mike,” Wesley said, shaking his head. “You know I’d never suggest that! I’m, frankly, insulted that you’d suggest it.”
“Sorry, man,” Mike said. “But I’m old enough to remember Waco.”
“So am I and I’d completely forgotten it,” Tam said, his eyes wide. “Good God, it is really easy to forget something like that after all the hell of the war.”
“I’m sending the ACS platoon and you,” Wesley said. “This thing is the political hot-potato to end all political hot-potatoes. And it has to stay totally black. I don’t even have an ACS suit anymore and I’ve got the feeling that managing something like this, from back here, isn’t going to cut it. We need someone with, let’s just say more experience than an LT, on site.”
Mike put his face in his hands again and shook his head.
“Problem being, as discussed, I’m not sure I disagree with their objectives,” Mike pointed out.
“Which we’ve discussed,” Tam said. “And my counter arguments. Bottom line, General. Are you willing to take this mission and carry it out to the best of your ability?”
“Define the mission clearly,” Mike said.
“The mission of the 29th ACS Platoon (detached) is to locate and eliminate hostile insurgents at specified location and to detain any Indowy there present pending charges of conspiracy, rebellion and treason against the Galactic Federation.”
“ROE?” Mike asked, not looking up.
“As much force as is necessary for completion of the mission,” Tam said. “Noting that the primary mission is the capture of the Indowy there present. Try not to kill the Indowy and, frankly, try to keep all casualties to a minimum.”
“Enemy forces?” Mike said.
“About eighty insurgents with light to medium Earth weaponry,” Tam said. “They had some rocket launchers. Most of the rest of the stuff was pretty standard rifles and machine guns.”
“Sounds like we can take them all alive,” Mike said. “Except…”
“They’ve had Indowy support for an unknown time and to an unknown level and therefore…”
“May have GalTech standard weaponry,” Mike said. “And may or may not contain elements of DAG. Joy. What’s the nature of this enemy base?”
“No real clue,” Tam said. “It’s all below ground. But there are one hell of a lot of people in there and they’re packing Indowy in like there’s no tomorrow. Guess? It’s a Sub-Urb.”
“How the hell do you put a Sub-Urb in in Indiana as a secret base?” Mike asked.
“If it dates back to the war you build one and then lose it off the books,” Tam said, shrugging.
“Lose it off the books?” Mike asked, incredulously. “Tam, how much are you not telling me?”
“I’m telling you everything you need to know, General,” Tam said. “Hell, I’m telling you everything that I know. There is a rebel force of about eighty shooters and an unknown number of supports dug in in Indiana. The mission is to detain them, primarily the Indowy, and then turn them over to Fleet Penal. How you do that is up to you. Do you accept this mission?”
“I wonder if this is how General Lee felt at Harper’s Ferry?” Mike muttered, putting his head on the table. “Or if he just viewed it as a perfectly acceptable mission. Yes, I’ll do it. I’m sure as hell not going to throw it on that poor lieutenant. And at least it gets me out of these Goddamned meetings!”
“Thank you,” General Wesley said.
“If you would, please, General,” Mike said, lifting his head. “Get those jokers back in here and have them clear out all this junk. Then if you would, please, ask Lieutenant…”
“Arthur Cuelho,” Shelly prompted.
“Cuelho and his platoon sergeant…”
“Sergeant First Class Thomas Harkless,” Shelly added.
“To join me here,” Mike said without a pause.
“Done and done,” Tam said, standing up.
“One other thing,” Mike said.
“Yes?”
“Shelly, do you know that from time to time you get… balky when sticky little questions of Galactic politics come up?”
“I am never balky!” Shelly said.
“Riiight,” Mike said. “I don’t know what I’m going to need to know. And I can’t be worried that my AID is suddenly going to not be able to tell me things. Or lie. Send word to whoever needs to know that I need to know. I’m not going to ask questions I don’t need answered. I have come to the conclusion I don’t want to know. But when I ask a question, I’m going to need a clear and honest answer.”
“I’ll… try,” Tam said.
“Try,” Mike said. “Try very hard.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“We just got an intel dump,” Monsignor O’Reilly said. “They’re sending the ACS platoon.”
“And that is the ballgame,” Tommy said. “How fast can we get everyone out?”
“If they’re pulling in ACS it means they’ve got full authority to use anything,” Papa said. “At this point we’ve probably got laser interdiction topside.”
“So we are now trapped,” Aelool said, softly. “I will inform my people. When will you set the self-destruct?”
“Who says we’re trapped?” Papa asked. “We just use the back door.”
“What back door?” Aelool asked, his face wrinkling.
“The one I had installed cause I wasn’t going to be in a place without a back door?” Papa replied, grinning. “We did it through the Himmit. It’s miles long. We start everybody out that way and by the time we have to blow this popsicle stand they’ll be behind enough blast shields they’ll survive.”
“I will inform my people,” Aelool said, nodding. He looked… discomfited.
“Hey,” Papa said. “Be glad we didn’t tell you. It seems like they know pretty much everything the Bane Sidhe know.”
“You must stop them!” The senior Indowy had not been introduced. Everyone just turned and looked at him.
“Stopping them is out of the question,” Tommy said. “We’re going to be lucky to slow them down.”
“If we are captured,” the Bane Sidhe said, desperately. “If we are destroyed… It will be the end of everything!”
“And that means exactly what to us?” Cally snapped, rounding on him. “Now that you need us, all of a sudden our ‘evil skills’ are important?”
“Cally,” Nathan said.
“No, Nathan,” Cally said. “If they don’t like what they do then why don’t they have the moral fortitude to just give themselves up? They can’t have it both ways. Either our skills are important, and the little issues that go along with them, honor and duty as humans view it, are part of those skills, or they are not. So they need to choose. Now, here, this moment, they need to choose.”
The Indowy looked as if he could not decide if he was more afraid of the woman… or what she had just said.
“It is a point I have been trying to make with them for some time,” Aelool said gravely. “But not one they appear possible of grasping.”
“Also beside the point,” Papa said. “You needed the intensive course in alien diplomacy I just went through, Granddaughter. Whether they like our skills or not, the fact that we are using them to save their sorry asses is all that matters. As of the first contact with ACS, the debt the Bane Sidhe owe Clan O’Neal is unpayable. They will never have the credit to pay for our sacrifice. Effectively, we own them, not the other way around. Am I wrong, Master Indowy?”