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  "Washington! He's going to hold a summit with President Edwards to finalize the sale of the heavy weapons for the planetary defense centers in the U.S.!"

  The professor shook his head. Kari was a wonderful girl, but it was early for her particular brand of cheerleader enthusiasm. "That is wonderful news. But why were you up all night?"

  "Oh," she said, letting out an exaggerated sigh. "The summit won't be for months, but the protocols for the High Tir are just sooo complex. Previously the WHoPo thought that the only significant similar human protocols seemed to be among the Mandarin. But that was just being narrow-minded. I was able to convincingly demonstrate that there were more similarities with observed Egyptian motifs. . . ."

  O'Reilly leaned forward and gave her every bit of his attention. While in many ways Kari epitomized the image of the dumb blonde, she was one of the most brilliant young ladies it had been his privilege to teach. Her insights into early societies' interactions probably exceeded his own. If she were not such a natter-head or had an inkling about what was actually happening in the world around her, she would be a perfect recruit for the Société.

  He nodded his head as she made a point about the surprising similarity between Minoan court protocols and the protocols of the Darhel. He was aware of the similarity, had in fact pointed it out to her on a previous visit. Unlike Kari, however, he had a pretty good idea why the similarity existed. The protocols of the court of Minos derived from both Egypt and Phoenicia. Since becoming a member of the Société, what he had to say about Maya, Egypt and Phoenicia was no longer printable. He could not, unfortunately, teach the truth. That was the part that stuck furthest into his craw.

  "So, anyway," she finished her dissertation, "we had to completely restructure the plan. I swear, those idiots from the State Department think that the Darhel are just funny-looking Chinese or something! They had no idea at all that the manner of precedence is reversed with the Tir. They had no idea about food protocols; they were going to serve roast beef to vegetarians!"

  "State is usually more competent than that," commented the professor, chuckling. "Surely they have dealt with the Darhel's idiosyncrasies before this?" He knew that they had. Kari was not the only former student who came back for occasional "chats."

  "I don't know what moron concocted the menu," she answered. "But we got it straight. The precedence thing has apparently been overlooked before."

  "Well, not this time," the professor said with a smile. "You seem to be doing well?"

  "Oh, I don't know." She sighed, her normally vivacious face deflated. "What the heck is the point? We're still going to have hell on earth, no matter how good I am at protocol."

  "We each must do our small part for the future," he said with a reassuring smile. "Think of the poor people who labor in factories or even work in a convenience store. At least you work at the White House."

  "Hmm," she said with a pensive frown. "But, lately I feel like I should be doing more."

  "Such as?"

  "Larry offered me a position on his staff," she said.

  "You want to enlist in Fleet?" he asked, surprised.

  "Not enlist. Get a commission. They need officers who can be liaisons with the Indowy and Darhel."

  He regarded her somberly for a moment. If she left the White House not only would he lose a very good source, she would be like a fish out of water. She simply had no concept of how different military life was from anything she had ever previously experienced.

  "Kari," he said carefully, "why did you say the Tir was coming to visit?"

  She wrinkled her brow prettily and cocked her head. "There's a problem with the heavy grav-guns going into the planetary defense centers. The Galactics can't produce as many as had been planned for before the invasion. Also, the new plan to defend the cities is going to require more than the Pentagon had planned for. The Tir is coming to decide the final apportionment not only for the United States but worldwide."

  "Hmm," the professor murmured, nodding his head. "Do you think that the Tir would have been more or less favorably disposed to the United States for more grav-guns if the President had shaken his hand, walked at his side to dinner and fed him beef?"

  Kari's eyes widened. "Oh."

  The old man's face creased in an engaging smile. Kari thought that when he did that it took thirty years off him. He still had the greenest eyes she had ever seen. She wondered for a moment what he was like as a young man. She knew he had come late to his current profession. And he had flaming red hair before it turned white. He was probably a pistol as a kid, she thought.

  "So," he asked, "still planning on taking that position with Fleet?"

  "No," she said, shaking her head. "Your logic, as usual, is perfect." She smiled back. "What about you?"

  It was his turn to look rueful. "Well. The Ministry did not feel it necessary to reactivate a former subaltern, whatever his later accomplishments."

  She shook her head. "What idiots. They could use you in Fleet Intelligence. You seem to understand more about the Galactics and the Posleen than anyone I've ever met in the military."

  His face displayed none of the terror that little admission fired in him. He had thought his understanding of both their Galactic "allies" and their putative enemies was carefully hidden. Apparently he had been insufficiently circumspect.

  "Well, it seems to me that knowledge of humanity and its many foibles gives more than enough background to understand our allies and enemies. We are, after all, not so terribly different."

  She nodded and yawned. "Oh!" she exclaimed with a hand over her mouth. "Sorry!"

  "No problem, dear," he said with a twinkle in his eye. "I think you need some rest."

  "Mmm," she agreed, getting up and heading to the door as he stood in anachronistic gentility. She paused at the open door. "I'm going to be busy for a while, so I may not be able to see you. Take care, Monsignor."

  "And you, my dear," he said as she walked out. "And you. Most definitely take care."

  He sat down and went back to parsing out the Sanskrit tablet on the screen as his mind worked on many different tracks. He began to mutter a tune that had nearly fallen out of favor except as a corrupted nursery rhyme.

  "Yankee Doodle went to town a-ridin' on a pony . . ."

  CHAPTER 8

  Ft. Indiantown Gap, PA, United States of America, Sol III

  1023 EDT June 6th, 2004 ad

  "Does he ever lighten up?" asked Lieutenant Nightingale as she stepped onto the covered porch of the company headquarters. Tall and greyhound thin, the blonde XO had just been the victim of an O'Neal smoking. She now took a moment in the shade out of sight of the troops to regain her composure.

  "I don't think so," said Lieutenant Arnold, her fellow sufferer. The tall, balding thirty-two-year-old weapons platoon leader shook his head.

  Until the arrival of the second draft, he had been the executive officer of Bravo Company. He knew exactly how stringent their commander's standards were. He had come to grips with them. Teri, on the other hand, was having problems.

  In the captain's eyes, the faults of the two lieutenants were too numerous to list.

  The job of an executive officer was usually to ensure that the unit was functioning smoothly first and learn to be a company commander second. O'Neal, however, had put "tuning" the company in the lap of their extremely competent first sergeant and insisted that Nightingale become as competent as he was at maneuvering the company in combat. She had thus far failed miserably.

  She was having a hard time adjusting her command style to combat troops. The gentle cajoling that worked well with the techs who had been in her previous intelligence company was perceived as weakness by grunts. She also seemed to have no tactical sense at all. The fact that she was for all practical purposes a neophyte was beside the point. From Captain O'Neal's uncluttered point of view she was one heartbeat away from having his company in her hands and either she could cut the mustard or she could not.

  In Arnold's case, the
new weaponry and employment techniques were the problem. He was having to adjust to ranges of fire and maneuver he had previously never considered. At the same time he was overseeing the training of troops in a variety of weapons beyond their dreams.

  The military had learned some lessons on Diess and Barwhon, and the ACS weapons platoons now packed so much firepower they were jokingly referred to as the Grim Reapers. They had initially been deployed with 75mm automortars and terawatt lasers. Diess had proven that the standard suit grenade systems were superior to the automortars at short ranges while the lasers were too bulky and awkward for the sort of rapid movement ACS had adopted. The mortars and lasers were effectively retired, but in their wake came a diversity of suit-mounted special weapons. From this diversity the platoon leader was supposed to choose which would be appropriate for the probable mission. Since no mission ever went as planned, there were far more wrong choices than right.

  If the probable mission was indirect fire-support, the platoon packed individual multimortars. These were enhanced grenade launchers and each weapon-suit packed four: one on each shoulder and one on each arm. They threw 60mm rounds up to five miles with pinpoint accuracy and had fourteen separate munition types from which to choose.

  The basic munition was a standard high-explosive (HE) round that could be set for airburst, surface detonation or delay. The weapons graded up from there through "enhanced conventional munitions," i.e., cluster bombs, to antimatter rounds with a "soft kill" radius larger than the range of the mortar. Thus any unarmored humans, or Posleen, in the immediate area of the mortar platoon would be fried if these were used. Unfortunately, for everyone involved, these heavy weapons suits could run through the available onboard rounds in twenty seconds. The "Reapers" joked that they all needed one platoon of grunts apiece, just to carry ammunition.

  If the probable mission was close support there were three separate weapons systems to chose from, depending on how close and how personal. The simplest was a set of super shotguns with multiple types of rounds from which to choose. From there it got complicated.

  Unfortunately each suit could only mount one type of weapon and choosing the right weapons mix could make or break an engagement. The Old Man was actually beginning to perfect some beautiful sucker moves for the playbook that involved the heavy weapons platoon. But they required that the platoon leader be able to read his mind. As the playbook got firmed up it might be a little easier but in the meantime there were far more wrong mixes than right.

  "Well, I don't care what anybody says," continued Nightingale, angrily, "there's such a thing as— What the hell is that?" she broke off.

  "Those are Indowy, I think," said Arnold seriously.

  Outside the headquarters the Pennsylvania summer sun stirred up the yard of the company area in playful dust devils. Emerging from the swirling dust was a group of squat green humanoids. Looking superficially like fat children, their coloring derived from a chlorophyllic symbiont that wavered across their lightly clad skin like green fur. Their faces were nightmarishly batlike but their eyes were large and round, giving them an ingenuous expression that actually went well with their personalities. In their midst they towed a large crate on an anti-grav dolly.

  "No, that. It looks like a coffin," said Nightingale.

  "Little coffin," commented Arnold. Neither of them had ever seen the traveling carton for an armored combat suit.

  The nine Indowy were led by an individual with somewhat more ornamentation, but otherwise indistinguishable to the pair of officers. When the lead Indowy reached the bottom of the rickety metal stairs leading to the company headquarters it stopped and bowed. The following Indowy set the box down and shuffled nervously.

  "Is this the clan of the most illustrious Michael O'Neal?" The AID translation was in a higher pitch than the two were used to, almost off the audible scale.

  Arnold nudged Nightingale.

  "Yes," she said. "Yes, it is. I am Lieutenant Nightingale," she continued more firmly, "his second-in-command."

  "I bear a gift from my master, the Indowy Aenaol," said the leader with a deep bow. At a gesture the remaining Indowy righted the sarcophagus and touched a button. The box opened to reveal a small combat suit that sported some notable modifications from the standard command suit.

  The first thing the officers noticed was the ornamentation. The suit was covered in complex designs that at first appeared to be three-dimensional, an absolute no-no when dealing with penetrating fire. On closer examination they appeared to be holograms somehow incorporated into the armor. There were some elegant fins running down the arms and legs that might help with heat dissipation, a major fault of most combat suits. The helmet was formed into the face of some sort of demon or horrific alien creature, smooth to the front with pointed demon-ears and fangs dangling nearly to the suit's chest. Both arms sported underarm daggers and more weapons peeped from unlikely places. It appeared that if it was surrounded the whole suit might start blasting. More of the company were gathering around to look at the apparition as First Sergeant Pappas stepped through the door.

  "Okay, what the hell is . . . that?" the tall, Herculean Samoan NCO said, uncharacteristically dumbfounded.

  "The captain's new suit, Top," chuckled Arnold. "Why don't you go get him?"

  Mike walked through the door a moment later to the relief of the Indowy team, who were becoming nervous at being surrounded by humans. For the Indowy, dealing with humans had much the same effect as a human dealing with a tiger. The trainer can tell you all day it is harmless, but once you're in the cage it is just a damn big carnivore.

  "Top, clear these people out," Mike said, instantly analyzing the situation. He turned a bit of dip between his lip and gum, then spat in the dust to the side of the porch.

  "What the hell does this look like, a fuckin' circus?" the first sergeant said, rounding on the first NCO in sight. "Sergeant Stewart! Move your squad out of here before I find something useful for you rag-bags to do! What? None of you have anything better to do? Maybe we need to GI a few barracks?" The crowd rapidly dispersed leaving only the captain, the lieutenants and the first sergeant.

  "Indowy Aelool, taon, I see you," said Mike, making a fractional bow. He had not dealt with any Indowy since Diess, but he had kept current with the position of the human military ranks in the complex hierarchy of the Federation. However, the decorations marked the Indowy as a senior craftsman. As a Fleet Strike captain Mike outranked the Indowy by several degrees despite the fact that it might command thousands of Indowy. In the Federation scheme of things, Indowy had incredibly low caste.

  O'Neal was not certain but he suspected the senior craftsman was a transfer/neuter. That Indowy sex had a natural advantage career-wise, since they were only peripherally involved in childbirth; they also were a strong political force within the Indowy ranks. That made his assignment to a fitting team unusual to say the least. Mike would have expected a lower-rank female craftsman.

  "Inspired Lord O'Neal, I see you," the Indowy intoned.

  "Inspired Lord?" asked Mike. It was an Indowy rank equivalent to a clan leader; he was not aware that it was ever bestowed on non-Indowy. He could not immediately determine a human equivalent, but there was rarely more than one per planet, sometimes none on a minor planet.

  "It was the determination of the grouped clans that such would be your rank among the Indowy, henceforth until time should end. Never has one done so much for so many. I grieve that no greater lord than my humble self could greet you as fit."

  "I understand the difficulty." And he did. The Darhel would probably look poorly on this example of Indowy independent thought. "But," he continued determinedly, "the success on Diess was the result of the actions of many."

  "So you have said, repeatedly," the Indowy Master agreed. "Yet the strategy for success did not exist until you showed your own commanders the Way. The forces necessary for success were freed by the action of men under your command. The final action, protecting the assembling defenses by
single-handed destruction of a command ship, was not done by others." It wrinkled its jowls, an Indowy head shake. "Your humility is in keeping with the finer traits of the humans, but it is false. Argue not, you are an Inspired Lord, in thought as well as deed.

  "In keeping with your new assumption," it continued, "it was found mete to gift you with this token of our gratitude. A free gift, freely given as you gave so freely to our brothers." He gestured grandly at the suit. "It incorporates every aspect of suit design that you called for, that was possible to construct."

  "Power source?" asked Mike glancing quickly at the suit. He moved the bit of dip to the side as a slight smile violated his face.

  "Class Two antimatter reactor, as you specified. Equivalent to a five-kiloton antimatter warhead, but small enough to armor against almost any strike. Just such a warhead could go off next to the armor and not penetrate the energy core, so strongly is it protected."

  "Armor?" Mike asked on a rising tone.

  "Sixty-millimeter frontal monomolecular uranium-silicon alloy with energetic reinforcement. The energetic reinforcement is logarithmically autocontrolled against nonrelativistic–velocity projectiles. As the round comes closer to a penetrating angle, the deflection energy increases logarithmically."

  Mike stepped gingerly down the steps and ran his hand down the front of the suit. "Inertial systems?"

  "Two hundred eighty gravities with full lift and drive, seven inertial sump points. Sorry," he said with a shrug. The gesture was shared by Indowy and humans. "It was the best the Tchpth could do."

  Mike turned with a closed-mouth smile—he knew what the sight of teeth did to the Indowy—and gleaming eyes. "Tell the Indowy that I accept with thanks!"

  "Umm, sir?" interjected Nightingale.

  "Yes, Lieutenant?"

  "Is that legal? I mean, isn't there some law against it?" she asked.

  "No," he responded definitively. His face was quite closed as he turned slightly to spit out another stream of tobacco juice.