Honor of the Clan (6 page)

Yes, implementing the Epetar representative's final contract—or, more accurately, enabling its implementation—would be very much in his group's interests. Properly controlled, of course. Which would include taking care of the matter himself.

"AID. Compile me a list of humans with contracts to our group, prioritize by ancestry outside the predominant Fleet or Fleet Strike personnel strains, and then by aggressiveness of personality type." He had no need to give his AID a name. It knew the voice of its master. Keeping an AID depersonalized reduced the risk of dependence, which was small risk for his species, but had been known to happen.

"Displaying," the device replied.

Memories and musings chased themselves around inside Shari O'Neal's head. She had come a long, long way from the Waffle House in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where she had worked until the first wave of Posleen scout ships had landed practically on top of their heads. The situations she'd been driven through had been like successively hotter fires, refining away the bits of this and that, over and over, until everything was burned away but the pure, bare metal sought. Sought by whom and for what, she had no idea. Whether by some strict, near-merciless divine providence or by the uncaring forces of history winnowing down the masses to the hardiest survivors, she didn't know. For all she knew, it was a bit of both, leavened by blind chance.

It was the story of her life. Other people saved the world. Shari O'Neal had all she could do and more just saving her kids.

Which brought her to her meeting with Cally.

"I don't suppose Papa told you how we were supposed to feed, clothe, house and pay DAG?" Shari asked. "Not to mention their dependents?"

"Why are we handling that?" Cally asked. "Half of them are Bane Sidhe. Okay, most of those are O'Neals or Sundays but it's still on Nathan." She paused and regarded the woman. "Right?"

"No," Shari said, shrugging. "It's a bit like a puppy. We brought them in, we have to deal with them. Nathan was clear about that."

"Well, he could have brought it up with me," Cally said.

"He brought it up with The O'Neal," Shari said, making quote marks. "So I was hoping that Papa told you what he had in mind. He told me he
had
a plan, but not what the plan was."

Cally grabbed her head and squeezed for a moment. She was just coming to terms with having to manage the Clan. Adding DAG to the load was going to be a nightmare.

"Nope," she said. "Not a clue. But the ones that aren't here on the island are with the Bane Sidhe, right?"

"Most," Shari said, biting her lip. "And that's another thing. They're out in the cold now and most of them don't have any real experience of that. I'm . . . worried about them. There are going to be repercussions to the Epetar . . . thing."

From Shari, that meant something. The woman had the best survival radar of anyone Cally had ever met, Granpa included. She'd had to have.

She was also everybody's mama. If she had decided these people were her baby chicks, as well try to move Mount Everest as sway her. Now that Cally had the job on her own shoulders, the wonder of it was that Granpa had grumbled so little over the years. She remembered the old rule about officers not bitching in front of the troops, hauled on her game face and tried to think of something to say. Ah.

"I shall endeavor to satisfy," Cally said, then winked. "Got it covered."

"Thanks," Shari said, getting up. "Want some tea?"

"Love some," Cally said as the woman walked from the room. "Now,
how
do I have it covered?" she asked herself.

Thursday, December 24, 2054

It was after seven, dark and cold with a harsh wind blowing in off the Atlantic, when Cally finally got a moment to go see Jake Mosovich and David Mueller. She remembered them well, she thought, from their brief visit to Rabun Gap when she was thirteen and a cocky, savage warrior—albeit one eager to learn the mysteries of make-up and men. She had had to think in terms of men. Billy and the other kids with Shari and Wendy were the only actual boys she'd seen in a coon's age, and they didn't count.

Anyway, Jake and Mueller had made an impression. Mueller, despite his pretty gruesome facial scars, because of the way he looked at her. Oh, he hadn't leered much, but when nobody was looking, and he was preoccupied, it had leaked through. It had made her feel . . . powerful. Not at all like that creep whose knee she'd had to shoot out. And she had to admit that one of the times she'd bent over to pick something up while David was around, she'd dropped it on purpose.

Therefore, she had no idea who she was looking at when a juved guy, no relative or Sunday as far as she remembered, with "seen action" eyes answered Ashley Privett's door. "I was looking for Jake Mosovich and David Mueller?" she asked politely.

"You found 'em. They told me you'd changed, Cally, but
damn
." He looked her up and down with open appreciation.

"David?" she asked, blinking. Now she could see it around the eyes. The lack of scars had confused her, but somehow he wore his face as if they were still there.

"Yeah. I wouldn't have recognized you, either, except there couldn't be two girls on the island to fit your description." He goggled at her breasts cheerfully, as if he sensed that he was one of the few people that she wouldn't have slapped down like a sledgehammer.

"My eyes are up here," she snapped, but couldn't hide that for once she found it funny.

"Yup. But I'm enjoying the view."

She grinned. "I won't slap you unless you keep me standing out here in the fucking cold."

"Oh, damn. Yeah, come on in." He moved back, opening the door wider and yelling over his shoulder. "Hey, Jake. Got an old friend at the door."

"Old friend, my ass. I
would
have remembered. Unless you were two or something." Erstwhile Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Mosovich stepped around the corner out of the kitchen, mumbling around a mouthful of gingerbread.

"He missed the briefing," Mueller said with a grin.

"Close. Thirteen," she said.

"
Cally
?" he squeaked. "Damn, girl. You've grown. An' I'm not just talking
up
."

Cally stepped through the black, faux wrought-iron curlicues of Ashley's storm door. A green mat like coarse astroturf absorbed the inevitable sand grains falling off her sneakers.

She invited herself in and sat in the painted wooden rocking chair, whose gold-colored built-in seat cushions would have been okay without the worn orange terry cloth pillows someone had added for comfort. Unconsciously, she sat on the edge, her weight tilting the chair forward onto the front of its rockers, arms pulled in at her sides almost as if the ugliness of the room and its furnishings could bite her. Ashley was a nice woman, but Wendy's good taste had clearly skipped a generation.

The men didn't appear to have noticed. David took a seat on the couch at right angles to her, almost knee to knee. The coaster with his glass of iced tea—consumed here even in winter—sat in front of him as if to prove that he wasn't sitting closer than necessary, but just returning to the place he'd left. Jake grabbed the rusty plush recliner and scarfed down another bite of his cookie.

"So, how the hell are you, girl? And when is your disreputable grandfather going to get his ass over here and help me get my men situated?" The words carried a hint of question as to whether the DAG Atlantic people brought underground were still "his" men.

Cally's face fell. "You haven't heard, then."

"Heard what?" Mosovich's face had instantly gone from relaxed to "oh, fuck."

"It's not that bad. It's just that Granpa's been . . . called away on clan business. This isn't just a social call. He left me, along with Michelle, in charge of Clan O'Neal. Catching up with you guys is at the top of my list, but I'm mostly here to touch base and make sure you and the other guys are settling in okay for now."

"So you're in command?" Jake asked.

"It looks that way," she said.

Mosovich's face shifted subtly from surprise into a bland surface that was hard to read.

"Don't sound so enthusiastic, Jake. Most of DAG is here on the island but we can't keep them. Right now, over the holidays, it sort of looks like a big family reunion."

"Which, much to our surprise, seems to be the case," Mueller said. "One of these days you've got to fill me in on how you packed one of the most top-secret and elite spec-ops groups on Earth with half your clan."

"More like a third," Cally said, grinning. "The answer is: We're good. Very good. But at the moment we're stretched. And our usual support isn't . . . quite so supportive."

"So you've got major logistics issues," Mosovich said. "Where do we come in?"

"Right now you're in holding pattern," Cally said. "After the holidays we are going to scatter some of the men, and especially dependents, into safe houses and bases. And we'll get started on the plan for how to use DAG long-term."

"Which is?" Jake asked.

"Right now it's under OPSEC," Cally said, shrugging. "I'll bring you guys in as fast as I can."

"So this
was
a social call," Mueller said.

"No," Cally said. "This was 'Hi, I'm your new boss. Same as the old boss.' And that I'll get you fully briefed in as soon as I possibly can."

"Roger, dodger," Jake said, nodding. "Been a mushroom before, I can be a mushroom again. For a while."

"Keep the troops straight and we'll get through this just fine," Cally said, standing up. "Any questions?"

"So how
did
you . . . ?" Mueller said.

"We're very good," Cally said with a sigh. "It's complicated. Any
real
questions?"

"Just how big
are
those?" Mueller asked.

"Any real and
relevant
questions?" Cally asked, shaking her head.

"Nope," Jake said as Mueller started to open his mouth.

"See you soon," Cally said, walking out.

"You get the feeling I'm getting?" Mosovich asked as soon as she was out the door.

"You mean the part where it sucks rocks, or the part where it sucks ass?"

"Yeah. Me too," Jake said glumly.

In the blank gray Galplas mess hall, a baker's dozen of men sat on tables, or leaned, or stood. A silver and black furred alien sonofabitch stood in front of them, hooded cloak thrown back to reveal pointed ears that twitched occasionally as he spoke, in patterns that looked less nervous than some inscrutable form of facial expression. His eyes were such a bright emerald green that they practically glowed, especially against the faintly purple-tinged whites of his eyes.

The tables were of local human manufacture, taken from the pattern of cafeteria tables all over the US of A back on Earth. Plastic tops were a flat pinkish brown, edged around by aluminum. The major difference was that the hardware underneath the table top was also Galplas, as steel mills were a foreign concept to Prall and wouldn't have fit in with the Indowy development plans, anyway. Galplas was actually cheaper. Chairs were the same ugly plastic as the tables, bolted to and supported by heavy aluminum frames.

Garth Karnstadt listened to the Darhel with frank disbelief. There would be a catch. There was always a catch. This guy was trying to make the job sound like the best thing since the invention of beer, with that smooth voice of his that took so many suckers in. Garth had a pretty easy charm of his own, and admired the alien professionally, trying to pick up tricks, but no more than that. In a world peopled with suckers and players, Karnstadt was one of the players, and knew it.

His straight, blond hair had a touch of frizz caused by the peroxide he used to lighten it, but it pulled women better this way, god only knew why. He had big, cobalt blue eyes that seemed to affect females in about the same way a box of chocolate did a fat chick. A complete lack of guilt gave them a quiet, good humor that invited trust. On work runs, he took the heaviest loads and volunteered for the missions with the most strenuous treks. That, and carefully disciplining himself about what he chose from the limited options in the chow hall, ensured that his physique lived up to the promise he offered with those eyes—when he chose.

He had a sweet deal running where during the week he laid a couple of women a bit below his standards for the sake of obtaining a little of whatever baubles or treats their regular lovers or husbands had brought in from town. Most of them well-appreciated a little
good
sex on the side from someone a little rough like him—but who was always careful to leave them looking and smelling pure as the Virgin Mary. He had cultivated a reputation for advising women on the little details that could have tripped them up. It kept his life smooth, and everybody was happy. Including the husbands and lovers who weren't the least bit hurt by what they didn't know. Then, on the weekends, he traded the little prizes to the hookers in town for
their
services, essentially getting all his sexual needs met for free and—most importantly—with no strings. The truly hilarious part was the husbands had probably bought the shit from the hookers in the first place. He'd gotten a few good laughs out of that in the two and a half years he'd been on Prall.

It had all been pretty sweet until one of the bitches in the barracks had slipped and gotten herself knocked up with what, from the timing, was likely to be his and to look nothing like the naturally red-haired husband and wife. What could he say? He liked redheads. And, for a barracks-bitch, she was pretty cute. She only needed Garth because her husband had the libido of your average turd. Having a reputation among the hens for discretion paid off. Anyway, whatever the catch to it, this deal might be just the thing to get him out of Dodge before the piper came around for his pay.

If a few fuzzy greenies died quick and messy instead of slow and starving, what the hell? Dead was dead, and to hear this fucking Elf tell it, everyone on the list was gonna die pronto, one way or the other. Funny how carefully the bastard had to dance around the concept of killing, stopping now and again to breathe deep like the yoga fanatic Karnstadt did on Wednesdays. Thirty-eight, unjuved so far, and her face looked it. As soon as they juved her, she'd be pretty hot and his party would be over, if he was looking for pay. Although, with juv women, the process pumped their libido so much she just might be available anyway and worth missing one of his hooker dates. She learned quick enough. Damn, not that he'd be here. If Claire had just fucking gone into town for an abortion before the pregnancy turned up on medical, he wouldn't be in this fix. Now, of course, she was confined to base. Abortion was a contract violation, and the fucking Elves on Prall were taking it seriously.