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  "I did. He told me to ask you."

  "When?" he asked, pouring another hit of the fiery moonshine.

  "Shortly after I first met you. I asked him what was with you, you know, why you were so . . ."

  "Loony?" he asked.

  "No, just . . . well . . ."

  "Eccentric then," he prompted with a shrug.

  "Okay, eccentric. And he told me you'd had an interesting career. And you've talked about other stuff, but never that. And hardly at all about Vietnam." She cocked her head to one side.

  "You were born in, what? Seventy-two?" he asked roughly.

  "Three," she corrected.

  "Lessee," he said scratching his chin. The action reminded her so strongly of Mike Junior for a moment that she caught her breath. "In nineteen seventy-three," he continued, "I was at Bragg, but I went back in seventy-four."

  "I thought we pulled out of Vietnam in seventy-two and three," she said, puzzled.

  "Oh, we did, sure." He smiled slyly. " . . . all except the 'Studies and Observation Group.' "

  "The what?"

  "The SOG. What was the SOG?" he asked rhetorically. "Well, first of all, we were guys that you absolutely could not introduce to mother, or to Congress, which amounts to the same damn thing. We were a bunch of major bad-ass hard cases for which the war just could not be over. It could not be a loss; therefore, they created a way for us to go back into the jungle.

  "SEALs, LRPS, Rangers, Phoenix, SF, Marine Recon, they all contributed. Its purpose was, basically, payback. The brass knew the war was lost. Hell, officially and effectively we had pulled out, but there were some targets that we just felt should not survive the experience, a few situations that needed cleansing in a big way." He took a pull from the two-hundred-proof liquor and stared at the crackling fire, mind far away in time and space.

  "I really didn't understand the fuckin' Vietnamese then. I mean, the fuckin' VC were such absolute stone-cold motherfuckers. They would do things to people I still wake up in a cold sweat over. But some of them, hell, maybe most of them, did it because they were patriots. Maybe some of them got their rocks off, but quite a few of them were as sickened by it as I was. They did it because the mission was to unite Vietnam under communism, and they believed in that with the same hard cold light that I believed it was evil incarnate. It took me damn near fifteen years to come to that conclusion." He shook his head over old wounds, bone deep.

  "Anyway, we were there to arrange permanent solutions for some of the more unpleasant examples of dialectical materialism as manifest on Earth.

  "There were two targets that stand out in my mind. It was one of those situations when there was a fine dividing line. There are a lot of situations that are black and white, but most are shades of gray. This was a situation where two people disagreed on what shade one of the targets was. They were both consummate motherfuckers, no disagreement there, but one motherfucker was, officially, on our side and the other motherfucker was, officially, on the other side.

  "Well, I finally decided that I was tired of distinctions like that, so I killed them both."

  She looked at the glass clutched in his hand, thick crystal formed into a handleless mug. On it was a legend so chipped and marred as to be illegible, but from a faint outline of a shield and arrow she knew what the inscription would be: De Oppresso Liber, "To Liberate the Oppressed." It was such a high-minded motto, dropped in the Devil's cauldron of Southeast Asia, where the oppressed seemed to seek oppression over freedom, where enemies were friends and friends were enemies. For the lesser soldiers it was the moment-to-moment fear of the booby trap, the mine and the sniper. For those who ruled the jungle, it was the fear of betrayal, the knife in the back. Across more than thirty years, the jungle of the mind seemed to reach out and touch the tough old man across from her.

  "Anyway, it really pissed off the brass. However, giving the real reason it pissed them off wouldn't work. But everybody was into something, back then. Some of them were smuggling drugs back to the World, some of them were moving comfort rations out to the front. Whatever.

  "Me? I had been moving some equipment back to the World for the last few tours, the kind of equipment guaranteed to not make the ATF very damn happy. Anyway, they put that together with a couple of other things and whomped up a court-martial for smuggling and black market. Twenty years in Leavenworth was the verdict. I got shipped off about when Mike was born. After three years a particular appeal worked and I was out." He snorted faintly at some remembrance and Sharon realized that the hits of white lightning were finally starting to have some effect.

  "Now, I could have, probably should have, come home. But I never was into the story of the prodigal son; if I found myself shoveling pig shit I wasn't going home until I was chief pig-shit shoveler.

  "A buddy clued me that there were positions available for someone with my skills. Positions where I'd probably meet a few old friends. The Feds wouldn't care for it, but, hell, they don't like anything they don't directly control while being spot on any evil they do. So I went back to being a soldier. On my own side." He shook his head again at the futility of the long war between East and West. It was fought on battlefields throughout the world, most undeclared. And it killed more than bodies.

  "But you know, me and my buddies, we sure could win the goddamn battles but we could never win the goddamn wars! It was Vietnam all over again. In Rhodesia, my unit, the RSAS, we had one team rack up the highest kill ratio in history. Five guys wiped out a guerilla regiment, poof! Gone! And we still lost the goddamn war.

  "It was then, after Rhodesia, that I just got fed up. I was making a living, but I sure as hell wasn't making a difference; the gooks won every fuckin' time. So I came home and became a farmer like my father, and his father, and his father. And someday, God willing, Mike will come through that door again and only leave horizontal."

  He turned blazing eyes on his daughter-in-law and she realized that he was finally talking to her as a fellow soldier, not just a civilian in uniform. "Know this, Sharon—and this may be the last time I get a chance to teach a young officer—it really is true that you have to pay more attention to your friends than your enemies. You can defend against the enemy, but it is damn hard to defend yourself against your own side." He shook his leonine head again and poured more moonshine, the fire of his soul suddenly damped.

  "Papa O'Neal?" she said, after some thought.

  "Yeah, L-T?" He did not look up from swirling his moonshine.

  "I'm glad you shot him. If you hadn't, you wouldn't be here for us." She smiled faintly. "God works in mysterious ways."

  "Hmmph," he commented. "Well, in any case I didn't shoot him. I used a knife. I wanted to see his eyes." He shook his head again and threw the fresh white lightning onto the fire where it blazed like a beacon in the night.

  CHAPTER 6

  Washington, DC, United States of America, Sol III

  0812 EDT May 23rd, 2004 ad

  The President hunched forward in his chair, watching the video from Barwhon. The scene was a large, dry open area in the towering forests and swamps. Debris was scattered across the field, bits of cloth and torn tents. Ripped packages of combat meals could be discerned in the foreground, the Mylar linings reflecting the omnipresent purple sky.

  The voiceover from the reporter was unnecessary. A clip taken the week before of the same crew's visit to the command center of the First Infantry Division had preceded the current view. Where the brigade of logistics and management personnel had been was now a wasteland of shredded equipment and camouflage uniforms. There was not a body to be seen.

  The mistake had been trivial, a battalion being rotated out of the line, their relief missing the "handoff" by a slim margin, an unanticipated Posleen assault. Suddenly a mass of Posleen equivalent to a division was in the rear area. While the flanked line brigades of the division had struggled for existence, the Posleen had sliced through the lightly armed and undertrained rear area personnel like a buzz saw through balsa.
/>   The final casualties were still being counted. As always with the Posleen, it was the Missing In Action column that was the largest. Virtually all of them could be counted on as dead. Many would be rations for aliens, others bits and pieces lost in the ruck the Armored Combat Suits had made of the Posleen.

  The ACSs, a British battalion this time, had led the rescue divisions. The suits, heavily reinforced with fire from the oncoming support, had slashed through the centaurs and relieved the survivors of the American infantry division. Then they had led the French reinforcements into their positions and hunted the Posleen into the ground.

  But the losses were enormous. Most of the division was missing, which meant dead. And during the primaries, he was not in a position to take the heat from this debacle.

  He flipped off the television and spun in his chair to face the secretary of defense.

  "Well?" the President asked.

  "It's not as if it hasn't happened before—" said the secretary, only to be cut off.

  "Not in the last year. We lost heavily in the first year's fighting, but this is the first big loss anyone has had this year."

  "The Chinese just took a big hit on Irmansul, Mister President," commented his national security advisor. The former infantry commander rubbed the side of his nose. He had made his suggestions the first week he had been with the administration. Now to see if they would take fruit.

  "But not NATO forces," the President snapped. The treaty was nearly moribund, but the term was still used to indicate the units from "First World" countries. NATO forces commanded far higher funding from the Galactics than counterparts from other areas of the world; a NATO division cost the Galactics twelve times as much as a Chinese division. "Let the Irmansul consortium get what they paid for! But we cannot afford these sorts of losses. And they have to stop!"

  "It's war, Mister President," said the secretary, casting a sidelong glance at the NSA. "You win some and you lose some."

  "Well, I've never been a 'loser,' Robby," the President snapped, angrily. "And I've got to wonder if that's the case with all of our commanders?"

  "Do you have a problem with the chain of command, Mister President?" asked the secretary.

  "I don't know," said the President, snidely. "Do you think we have a problem? First we have all these news reports about training and discipline problems. Then we're still reeling from the arguments over whether we should defend the coastal plains or not. Then we have this. I have to wonder if we have the right people in the right jobs!"

  "There are several issues currently—" the secretary started and was cut off again.

  "I don't want to hear about issues!" the President snapped. "I want to hear about results! Now, do you have any suggestions?"

  The secretary of defense finally understood what the President wanted. The President wanted a "policy-maker's" head. With the campaigning already started, he wanted to be distanced from the failure on Barwhon, while having the blame pinned precisely. That meant placing it at a high enough level that the administration could be seen as "doing something." The secretary suddenly realized that he should only offer his own resignation if he really meant it.

  "I think we need to consider a new command team for Ground Forces," said the secretary, carefully.

  "I think we need to consider more than that," said the President. "I think we need to completely replace the upper command and change the command structure . . ."

  The NSA hid a small smile. Fertile ground indeed.

  * * *

  The general gave a broad and humorless smile. It was a well-known mannerism that countless subordinates had fallen victim to. "He did what?"

  General Jim Taylor, Chief of Staff to the Ground Forces High Commander, gave a huge grin and balanced the Fairbairn combat knife he was playing with on one finger. "He canned the commander and the vice." Jim Taylor had dealt with plenty of Marines in his time, and as far as he was concerned, the vice commander was just a guy wearing a Marine's hat. "And he's completely changed the command structure. The High Commander will command Training Command, Intelligence, Logistics, what have you. Including 'Base Support Command.' "

  "CONARC," said the other general. He gave a resigned sigh. At least his position had finally been given its correct name. He had held the position of CONARC for the past two years, ever since completing his assignment as head of the Infantry branch of the Galactic Technology Board. It had been an intensely frustrating period. Not only was his background as one of the most experienced combat commanders in the Army being squandered, he was responsible for bases that were out of his control. He was the "commander" of the base personnel and "owned" the bases, but he did not have command of the units assigned to those bases. And those units were halfway mutinous and engaging in almost daily riots. Then the cost of the cleanup for those riots came out of his budget. So he was watching a previously stellar career come crashing down because of others' failures.

  "Nope," said General Taylor. "Continental Army Command is the biggest change. There will be two 'Force' commands under the High Commander: CONARC and ExForC. Continental Army Command and Expeditionary Force Command. The commander of CONARC will have direct command and control of all combat forces in the continental United States."

  The silver-haired general Taylor had been addressing sat bolt upright in his chair and pinned his ebony-skinned superior with a glacial-blue gaze. "Are you kidding?"

  "Nope," said Taylor with a grin. "And, before you even ask. Yeah, Jack, you get to keep the position. I say that as the new High Commander," he added with an even wider grin.

  General Jack Horner sat back in his chair and a rare, real smile violated his normally serious mien. "Congratulations. Jesus, there is a God."

  Taylor shrugged and expertly threw the knife into a cork dartboard with a picture of Jar-Jar Binks pinned on it. "There are other problems. He wanted to switch back to Ridicuplan, but I talked him out of it, I think. But we have to maintain forces on the coastal plains during the main invasion."

  "Oh," said Horner with another thin smile. "Great."

  "Yeah. He's got a point; public opinion is dead set against losing the plains completely. It would tear us apart as a country to fall back on the Appalachians and the Rockies, giving up all the major cities . . ."

  "Nice recitation," commented Horner. "Are you considering running for Congress?"

  "Say that and smile, partner," said Taylor, with a warning grin. "No, but it's also true."

  "Sir," said Horner, formally. "There is no way to defend the plains."

  "Oh, don't get me wrong, Jack. I know that and I'm not gonna piss away boys' lives trying. And I'm not gonna let the President, either. What we have to do is come up with a plan to defend certain key cities."

  "Which ones?" asked General Horner, frowning slightly in agreement. "That I can live with, if we don't have to defend too far out."

  "Well, we're going to decide which ones and where. But I more or less promised that if it is 'historic' it would get defended."

  Horner nodded. "You know, I played around with that a while back. Defend the inner part of all the 'major' cities that we were planning on losing. But we don't want to do it with a normal population."

  "I told him that, too." Taylor nodded. "We'll plan on evacuating all but the military and an essential civilian presence. No children stay."

  Horner nodded with another positive frown. "Good. This will actually be a better defense plan, you know."

  Taylor nodded with a grim smile. "The cities will pull some of the heat off of the mountain defenses."

  "That and it will keep some of the Posleen where those refurbished battleships can reach them," Horner noted. "I'll have a list of recommended cities for defense by the end of the week. Count on Norfolk, DC, San Francisco and New York."

  "Okay," said Taylor. "And start thinking about ways to pull out the defenders if it gets too hot. They'll have to be planning on staying for five years, without external support. But if they're going to get overrun, the
re will have to be a plan."

  "Something else for the ACS to handle," Horner said with a frown. He had just the person in mind to write that part of the plan. Always call on an expert.

  CHAPTER 7

  Washington, DC, United States of America, Sol III

  0605 EDT May 28th, 2004 ad

  "Good morning, professor!" came the call from the door.

  Monsignor Nathan O'Reilly, Ph.D., the Reagan Chair of Archaeology and Ancient History, looked up from the computer screen and his eyes lit. The young lady in the doorway was not only one of his favorite former students, she was a notorious gossip. Since her new job often included gossip that he wanted to hear, it was always a pleasure to see her.

  "Kari! Come in," he said, rising to his feet to rearrange chairs. "Sit," he commanded, pointing at the comfortable armchair placed by the desk. "Coffee?"

  "Oh, no!" she gasped. "I couldn't hold another drop. I've been up practically the whole night and I'm headed to bed!"

  "Since when does the White House Protocol Office work swing shift?" he asked with raised white eyebrows. He took a sip of his own coffee and glanced at the cesium-quartz clock on the wall. Among the bric-a-brac of ancient alembics, archeological relics and old books it stuck out like a nuclear reactor in a Roman coliseum.

  The clock had been a gift from another former student. The newly promoted Vice Admiral with the Federation Fleet had presented it to his old mentor with the joke that now he could always be sure what century he was in. It indicated that Kari was returning home shortly after six in the morning. While he was habitually early to work, he knew from experience that Kari, while quite beautiful and intellectually brilliant, was a tad lazy. Her working through the night was something he would have deemed impossible.

  "Oh!" she exclaimed, tossing her head to clear an errant blonde hair. "It is just so exciting! The Tir Lord Dol Nok is coming on a state visit! And the first place he is visiting is right here!"

  "Kari, Kari," the professor soothed, "calm yourself. Precision, darling. By right here are you referring to George Mason University or Washington?"