Honor of the Clan

Chapter Twenty-Five

It took Papa O’Neal less than ten minutes to revise his opinion. O’Reilly was right. His PA was a treasure. By the time he was through talking to Tommy and getting the short version update of what the hell was going on, Alan had a subordinate up with a pouch of the good stuff and an empty, disposable plastic cup. God, but that good. He sighed blissfully at the taste of good tobacco, and the relief hitting his nicotine-starved veins.

He looked around at the atrium and the civilians industriously assembling claymores for the DAGgers to wire up, with more than a few operators mixed in among them helping out. Bane Sidhe operators, he corrected himself. They were all operators, of course. It wasn’t going to take much getting used to, because the men and women instantly identified as fellow members of the spec ops profession. It would still take some. For the DAGgers it must be like getting folded, whole, into something like Delta Force if you hadn’t known such a thing existed. Something like that, except different.

He looked around again, at the large room with its fake blue-sky window overhead letting in “natural” light, people distributed throughout assembling high explosives into convenient devices, and smiled. It was good to be home.

After an hour of watching the saved news coverage of the Indianapolis Sub-Urb fire, one hundred and eighty-three people dead from an as yet unidentified “suicide bomber.” A double handful of people had gotten basically cooked by proximity to the blast, or having their burning clothes melt on them — three cheers for cotton/polyester blends.

When the foam fire suppression system in the cafe finally went off, it had merely served to impede emergency personnel from getting to the injured. Several people had died of third degree burns from the decorative “wood beam” ceiling falling in on them. It all just happened too fast for them to get out.

The rest of the deaths came from a flash fire of the grill’s grease trap. Heat had ignited decades of crud and lint in the ducting system, allowing the fire to spread. Badly maintained — or simply unmaintained — fire suppression systems malfunctioned, and the flames ate up the interior of five blocks before the Urb’s volunteer fire department got it under control. It hadn’t helped that the fire had set off a meth lab that had apparently been a fairly large operation. Urbies still cooked their crank the old-fashioned way.

After getting the “facts” of the collateral damage from the hyped up newsies, he’d gotten a terse but clear briefing on the op itself, both plan and AAR, from Bryan Wilson of Operations. In Papa’s role as a field operator, Bryan was his boss. The O’Neal was another matter, and Papa had his clan head hat on. Technically, he ranked as an equal with the Indowy Aelool.

After getting the real information, he’d patiently listened as Aelool had a cow, at length, and O’Reilly tried to diplomatically soothe, at length, both other leaders making the same functional error. He caught Bryan’s eye and wordlessly let him know that he was not making the same mistake. Not for a minute. He was just waiting until they wound down.

Eventually, the both of them ran out of words, looking at him as if just then realizing that he hadn’t spoken.

“There’s one thing both of you are forgetting. Men are not potatoes,” Papa O’Neal, Vietnam and Bane Sidhe veteran said.

“Potatoes?” Aelool looked completely bewildered.

“You buy and sell potatoes by the pound. More potatoes are worth more, less potatoes are worth less. Men are not commodities to be traded off by the numbers.” He held up his hands, forestalling Aelool and O’Reilly respectively. “My turn,” he said.

He looked at both men and sighed, which came out in a single huff, then spit his tobacco into the cup so he could talk without his face distorted. People seemed to pay more attention that way.

“I’m not going to explain that; the explanation isn’t relevant. You can look it up.” His eyes made it clear to both leaders that he still held the floor. Bryan didn’t like his moving on from that so quickly. Tough, for now.

“The relevant facts in a nutshell: A man who horribly massacred dependents of our men, targeted because they were dependents of our men, lived in that Sub-Urb. We sent a team in to take him down. They took him down. We had an exfiltration plan which was fundamentally sound. Since the enemy commissioned the massacre of dependents to make the perpetrators his stalking horse and find this base, the team members were equipped to deny the enemy vital information by denying capture and destroying evidence. In the course of the operation, it became necessary for one member of Team Jacob to use her self-destruction measures. In the course of her self-destruction, civilian collateral damage occurred. We lost a really good operator because if she hadn’t sacrificed her life it would have put all of our lives, and those of the Indowy we’re trying to protect, in danger. Those are the relevant facts. If you’d rather just call the Darhel, give them our location, and give yourselves up for slaughter,” Papa said, tossing his PDA onto the desk, “pick up the phone.”

Micheal O’Neal, Sr.’s, face could have been carved of granite.

“This is not pleasant,” Aelool said unhappily.

“I’ve been out there doing ‘not pleasant’ for a long time, Aelool,” Papa said. “This isn’t unpleasant, this is everyday business.”

“My actions led to the deaths of innocents,” Aelool said. “I am trying to explain so that you understand.”

“And I am understanding far better than you can believe,” Papa said. “We have fought in the shadows for many years. But in those battles, innocents have died no matter how hard we try to avoid it. Now our enemies are targeting our innocents. To protect them and to maintain our Clan and our community, by human culture and genetics, we must not only protect those innocents but strike back at the enemy. That has been what Bryan has been doing. And fighting at that level means that others are going to get hurt. Again, you can surrender or you can let us do our jobs. And go back to not thinking about what that means. But send me a memo because I am done with this discussion.”

Papa gestured to Bryan and headed out the door, giving them no time to start in again.

“Thanks for backing me up in there, man,” Bryan said.

“Just doing my job, same as you,” Papa shrugged roughly. “But you’re welcome.”

The squat redhead hit the floor with a thump as he found himself bowled over by a great, painfully enthusiastic hug. “Granpa!” Cally said.

Papa O’Neal and James Stewart walked along the side of the trench the men were carving out of the frozen ground by brute force, with picks and shovels, underneath an improvised canopy of white sheets to match the snow. It was like something out of the nineteenth century, but what use did a clandestine underground base have for things like bulldozers and backhoes? They hadn’t even had the picks and shovels until the Sohon kids made them out of some kind of nobody knew what. Nobody but them and the Indowy, anyway. Nobody had time or energy to care.

Papa spat on the ground and harrumphed. “At least Michelle screwed the Indowy and not us, thank God,” he said.

Stewart grinned. “Too funny. Those were pretty much Cally’s first sentiments. Once she was speaking to me again.”

“Yeah, well. Michelle didn’t get off too badly. I’ve followed some of her business deals over the years. Somebody gets left holding the bag, but it won’t be her. She’ll take it out of their hides with no mercy if they miss a payment, or try to pay late.”

“I knew she would, or I wouldn’t have written the deal that way. She’ll make one hell of a collection agency. It’s not like the Indowy clans can’t afford it. It’s a lot of money, but they’ve got a lot of people to spread the pain around to. A large tax base, if you will. They find it easier to sacrifice individuals to debt than distribute a cost across the clan, but screw ’em. The people they’re shipping here are obviously too valuable for them to just allow to starve. Fine. The clans can show a little responsibility for once. Or, they can pick some individuals to sacrifice as unpaid labor.”

“If they try that on Michelle, she won’t blink,” Papa warned.

“I was counting on it. You guys are in this because you think it can save humanity from Darhel domination. I don’t see it making much of a difference, but if that’s what you want to do, it’s your life. My organization is in it to make money. We’re more than happy to help — for the right price.” Stewart shrugged. “I think we’ll ultimately have more effect than you do. You have to trust the other Galactics to share your goals. Darhel domination is economic. The human way of working together is a lot more effective at countering that than the Indowy way of working together. We’re going to beat the crap out of the murdering bastards in the long run — at one hell of a profit,” Stewart said. “Not to change the subject, but have you got your head around all the changes yet?”

“Close enough. Did Cally just have a wild hair when she made us responsible for all of DAG? Troops are expensive,” Papa grumbled. “But to hear them tell it, it must have been the greatest speech since St. Crispin.”

“Hardly.” Stewart laughed. “I’ve seen the holo.” He stopped and looked at Papa seriously. “She may suck at business, but while we’re chuckling, remember who she is. The business thing is mostly — all — ignorance. You always did all that for her. It — the mass adoption I mean — was inspired leadership. She recognized her moment and took it. You know how bad a blow the DAGgers have to have taken to their sense of identity, as a unit, by defecting. Sure, they’re a unit, but who are they, what are they, what are they for? She gave them an acceptable new self-identity. Their emotions were all stirred up, they were one big mass of rage and purpose. Sure, they’re still a unit; they were all feeling the same thing, but they weren’t unified.” He clasped his hands together. “They wanted to be a whole again, needed to be one, all they needed was an excuse that led them in the direction they wanted to go.”

“And a Bane Sidhe moron saying the right stupid thing at the right time took all that emotion and crystallized their formation of loyalty and identity to Clan O’Neal instead of the Bane Sidhe, pulling them one way instead of two,” the O’Neal finished. “My own private army. How about that.” He grinned, shaking his head disbelievingly.

“It’s not like it isn’t ensured you’ll have funding to keep them up and running, and work for them, and without having to rent them out to strangers. Strategically I’d say your granddaughters did you proud,” James Stewart puffed up a little in pride for his wife.

“You’re probably right.” Papa said.

They had walked out to the end of the trench as they talked, and now turned to walk back, facing a sight neither of them particularly wanted to see. A mass of little green Indowy crunched around on the much-trampled, muddy snow, having poured out of the shuttle in a packed jumble, and now moved to and through the barn doors in the same blob, waiting for the elevator to take them down into the base. In less than an hour, the shuttle would land with another load, as it had all morning, disgorging lot after lot of refugees from the first Himmit scout ship to arrive.

“Indowy Central Station,” Papa said sourly.

“And more coming. No end in sight,” Stewart agreed.

“Too many. We’re gonna get found,” the O’Neal looked at the rapidly deepening trench. As a holding action, it could buy them some time to get all these little buggers to safety. If not all, which he conceded would probably be impossible, then as many as they could. Right now he was not kindly disposed towards Indowy or Galactics generally, but dammit, they were civilians. You had to protect civilians, even when they were stupid and it sucked. He sighed.

“Definitely,” Stewart said. “All you can do is buy as much time as you can. I’ll do what I can for you, but a lot of it’s going to come down to how serious the Darhel are about this little war.”

“Oh, believe me, I’ve had to choke down way more Galactic politics than I can stomach in the last few weeks. I know. Sometimes, Stewart, it’s all I can do to keep from throttling the green and ten-footed and froggy and weasel-faced bastards when they treat human beings, my family and my men, like we were expendable pieces on one of their fucking aethal boards. Some days I just hate the whole smug, superior lot of them and wish we’d been off to the side and could’ve just let the Posleen eat their asses.”

“Like today, for instance?” Stewart asked.

“Yep. Just like today.” Papa O’Neal spat bitterly on the ground and grabbed an unclaimed shovel. He could spare an hour or two. Besides, nobody could bitch at him for beating up the ground.

In the atrium, which had had all its munitions work pushed up against the wall, volunteers had set up the rows and rows of folding chairs, cafeteria chairs, office chairs, just about any kind of chair they could get their hands on.

Team Jacob was back in and all the targets accounted for. This run of targets, anyway. The victory celebration, which this was, would be grim, and not just from the loss of Agent Grannis. Revenge, justice, had a flavor of satisfaction entirely different from joy. Just as fierce, but different.

It would be a celebration. Beer kegs lined the wall, sunk in tubs of ice. Piles of freshly baked hamburger buns sat next to ketchup, mustard, pickles, and sliced cheese. Large, deep, steel trays, covered, wafted out the aroma of real goddammed cow. Beyond those, platters of lettuce, onions, and tomatoes sat invitingly. Farther down, huge bowls nearly overflowed with freshly fried potato chips.

It was a feast like few of the base staffers, the ones who still remained, had seen in years, and a true luxury for everybody.

Honest to god real, fresh-brewing coffee permeated the air, and a great big sheet cake, the kind with the fluffy frosting, sat downstream as the final destination for the hungry hordes.

There were speeches. There had to be speeches or it wouldn’t have felt right, but nobody remembered a word of them. They all boiled down to, “We hunted the fuckers down and killed them dead.”

A lot of people cried when they presented the medal to Kacey’s mom. The organization had never been big on things like medals before. The straight line of Tommy Sunday, Papa O’Neal, Cally O’Neal, and James Stewart at the very back of the room, standing tall, made it clear that somebody had insisted. It felt right.

The few who questioned Stewart’s right to be there, among the others, were quickly shushed by those next to them. It was an open secret on base that Cally O’Neal’s husband was the James Stewart, part of Iron Mike O’Neal’s ACS battalion back in the Posleen War. Bane Sidhe or not, a legendary war hero who had been instrumental in keeping the remnants of humanity from being eaten had earned honor enough that they were honored to have him, not the reverse. In an organization with many heroes forever unsung, an ACS war veteran was still something damned special. Particularly a war veteran from the O’Neal ACS.

The few who had to be clued in kept their mouths shut the rest of the evening, to avoid further embarrassment. At least, they did until enough beer had flowed from the kegs to loosen inhibitions and wash the self-consciousness away.

They drank to absent friends. Working full time for the Bane Sidhe, either as base staff or in the field, people tended to acquire them. Field operators weren’t known for longevity; everyone had their own specific collection of memories, missing faces who belonged in the crowd.

The common bond fed the shared mood. Vengeance had been taken. It would never, never be enough. But it was a start.

The Tir disliked Earth’s single, overgrown moon, even more than he disliked the whole civilization-forsaken, monkey-barbarian, upstart, omnivorous-puking Sol System. For one thing, he seldom came here, so his quarters sucked. They were decorated to his tastes of several years ago, and he spent so much time in his quarters that he liked a bit of variety. Also, something had gone wrong with the useless blasted Earthtech artificial window and he hadn’t been able to get another one yet. Cheap, ephemeral, worthless Earth crap, but they were the only ones who made the things. Just one more reason he loathed humans. At first, he had felt a kind of amused contempt. That was the appropriate emotion, after all. They were intellectual sub-morons, their understanding of the larger universe was pathetic and they had no concept of mature social interaction or they’d understand and fall in with their place in the Galactic order — namely, their place at the bottom of it.

Any one of the Galactic races could slag their whole vile little, single home world without breaking a sweat. The Indowy wouldn’t, the Tchpth wouldn’t, the Himmit were too damned curious for their own good. For his race, however, it would take a single Darhel finally annoyed enough to break into lintatai at the helm of a ship with weaponry that was uncommon, but not that uncommon.

If the Darhel had simply wanted to kill Posleen in the trillions, they could have gone out slagging planets. The only thing they needed humans for was to act as a kind of counterinfection, the balancing germ to reduce the Posleen illness of a Galactic planet to a sustainable level — like digestive system microbial balances — so the Galactics could re-take possession. That’s what the humans were in the Galactic order — digestive microbes to be excreted out with the other wastes.

The thing that had changed his emotions from amused contempt to pure loathing, which he insisted to himself was not so pure and was still mixed with contempt, was their persistent refusal, morons that they were, to have that simple truth finally dawn on them.

His main payoff for this job, his primary anticipated satisfaction, was being a close witness to that fabulous enlightenment that must come sooner or later to the tree-swinging, barbarian, fucking stupid omnivores.

His growing frustration was that it hadn’t happened yet. Humans were, in fact, that stupid. They might actually be too stupid to ever comprehend the truth. They were like their obligate carnivore symbiotes, their dogs. They knew they had a master, but they fancied him on their own level, as part of the same pack. Humans were, in fact, far closer to their dogs in intellect and ability than they were to the real sophont races. They were just bad dogs. Very, very bad dogs. The Tir had found, among the humans, a dim analog to his own feelings. He was, in essence, “not a dog person.”

And worst of all, the blasted barbarians insisted on getting in his way.

The only good thing about Earth’s barren moon was that it was so very barren. So many fewer of the Aldenata-be-damned humans.

He had interrupted his post-workout, daily grooming massage to return to the inner sanctum of his lunar quarters, which housed the Altar of Communication for the Sol System. His AID had informed him that not only was the Darhel Ghin seeking him, but that he was quite inconveniently and with incomparable rudeness refusing to be put off for a few hours. The Tir was extremely annoyed. His annoyance was safely quite cold, but he was extremely annoyed.

“What?” he snapped as he answered the call. If the Ghin was to be so rude as to interrupt someone’s personal grooming, he could blasted well live with a return in ritual-bare rudeness.

“You will be more civilized when you realize that my haste was a courtesy to you, not, as you falsely imagine, an imposition,” the Ghin said calmly.

“Very well.” The Tir was conditionally mollified — if, as the Ghin said, the haste actually was to his own benefit.

“You have been seeking the intriguers’ hiding place on Earth. I contact you to provide the information that will help you find it, and quickly. I understand that you entrusted uncovering its location to human hirelings, and agree the decision was personally prudent of you. As long as your intriguers were mostly human and so forth, it was for the best.” The Ghin paused for effect.

Tir Dol Ron took a deep, slow breath, wishing for the other Darhel to simply get on with it.

“The new information I have for you is that Indowy are traveling to Earth in large numbers, destined for exactly that nest of annoyances. Ships can be camouflaged, but they do have to move from ship to doorway. I do not believe the intriguers have the facilities to hide embarking or debarking from the shuttles. There will be a large number of landings, one after another. Use the human satellites, and simply have an AID search for and take note of masses of Indowy. You’ll find them almost immediately, I believe. Somewhere in the North American continent near the town of… Chicago?”

“Indowy? What in the… ? What has been happening?” the Tir asked.

“You have not heard?” the Ghin sounded so patronizing, the misbegotten folth. “I have just sent you a file with an update on recent events in civilized space.”

“And?” the Tir asked impatiently. “When are all these Indowy supposed to be arriving?”

“Now. Or soon. Or already. You see the reason for my haste. I did not wish for you to miss your opportunity,” the Ghin said.

“I… thank you,” Tir Dol Ron said grudgingly. “If this information proves truly useful,” he added.

“I’m certain it will,” the Ghin said. “I take my leave.”

He closed the transmission without waiting, but this time the Tir didn’t mind in the least. “Start going through the human satellite records. Now,” he ordered his AID. “Then bring up the blasted update file,” he groused. “Ass end of the galaxy and I always hear everything last.”

On the other end of the connection the Darhel Ghin carefully completed the ritual propitiations at the altar. He hadn’t really skipped them, just moved them around a bit to needle the Tir. He knew he shouldn’t but Tir Dol Ron rose to the bait so very well, and the Ghin was a Darhel with much work and few amusements.

“There,” he said to the Himmit in the corner. There were no Indowy in the room, which was a rarity. He had dismissed all of them. This call had required privacy.

“The humans have a term for this situation. A marriage of convenience. Or is it an arranged marriage? Arranged reconciliation? Convenient rec—” He stopped, twitching an ear and looking straight at the Himmit, which was trying vainly to camouflage itself against the riotously busy patterns of the room. The Ghin had discovered he could spot the Himmit every time by carefully designing his décor so that a few spots were just a bit more regular in their decorative patterns than the rest of the place. The Himmit invariably went for one or another of them, then tried to camouflage itself. It was still hard to see. Anywhere in the room it would still be difficult to see. By narrowing the likely locations, though, the Ghin had ensured he could spot it every time, making it look easy. A little intimidation could serve as a large power multiplier.

“In any case,” he said, climbing back into his comfortable nest of cushions, “if I’ve got the timing right, the results should be just about perfect. The pieces are in place and in motion; all I can do now is wait.” He looked directly at the Himmit; it made them uneasy. “Can I offer you a drink?” he asked. “It may be premature, but I feel a bit like celebrating.”

A large power multiplier, the Ghin repeated to himself as the Himmit gave up and resumed its natural form, approaching the low coffee table the Ghin had made ready in anticipation. “AID, instruct my servants that I require them now,” he said.