«He sure could talk the talk, though,» said Harry, bitterly.
«He stiffed Harry for a goodly bill. And ate us out of house and home,» Bob commented.
Mike's nod was unseen in the darkness but they stopped when he did. He reached into the depths of his jacket and extracted a card from his wallet. It was easily discerned by the faintly glowing purple stripe around the edges.
«You forgot to ask for my ID,» Mike noted, handing it to Bob instead of Harry. As he did he tapped a control on the lower face of the electronic ID.
A full-length hologram of Mike at parade rest in combat silks sprung up as an electronic voice intoned the appropriate statistics. Name, rank, service, Galactic ID number, height, weight, sex and age were all recited by the combination ID and dog tag. The IDs were made of the same refractory material as the suits, designed to take damage and still be able to identify their users. In a pinch they made a dandy weapon in trained hands.
The group had stopped when the hologram blossomed. When the recording ended the only thing that could be heard was the buzz of mosquitoes and the occasional idle swat. Bob handed the ID back.
«Hmmph,» said Harry, noncommitally. «Okay, you're really in Fleet Strike. Big deal.»
«And my wife's an XO of a frigate in Fleet,» said Mike mildly. «And if you give her the same ration of shit I've gotten I'll feed you your left arm.»
There was a general chuckle from the group in the darkness and a movement towards the pub. «I think he means it,» said Bob, chuckling at the store owner's discomfiture.
«Yeah, well,» said the aging hippie. «It's been so long since I had any red meat, it might not be all that bad.»
«Things are getting a tad complicated,» admitted Mike.
CHAPTER 24
Washington, DC, United States of America, Sol III
1937 EDT October 2nd, 2004 ad
Monsignor O'Reilly regarded the small piece of electronics that had mysteriously appeared in his cassock pocket. It looked like a standard flash memory card, but there were no manufacturer's marks on it. Nor were there any instructions. He finally put it in the flash reader attached to his computer and checked its directories.
The chip was apparently named «Religious Documents.» The first directory was titled «Rig Veda,» the second «Koran,» the third «Talmud» and the fourth «The Franklin Bible.» He opened up this directory and stared at the single file titled «Install.» He twisted his face a few times, took a deep breath and double-clicked the file.
It asked for a password. He thought about it. He had not been given a password. The likelihood was that if the first guess was wrong, the chip would erase instantly. Finally he typed, «We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.» The computer chirped and the installation began.
Either the chip had more memory than any flash card should or the file had been hyper-compressed. The tiny file was expanding to dump a mass of files into his computer. If he had to destroy the evidence it would be nearly impossible to track them all down. He nearly pulled the chip in panic, but the file dump finally ended and a text box popped up.
«Welcome,» it read, «To The Franklin Bible Complete Study of Human Archetypes And Pre-Historic Myths.»
There was a new icon on his taskbar, a tiny blue world with a telephone on it. He drifted the mouse across it and the caption «New Messages» popped up. He clicked it.
«Dear Monsignor O'Reilly,» the simple text box read, «in the event that you do not want this program to stay on your computer, simply uninstall it using the uninstall icon on your desktop. Uninstallation will remove all files created with this program, all messages associated with this program and every bit of evidence that it ever existed on your computer. This will take less than fifteen seconds with the system it is currently installed on. You may also do this by simply saying, 'Dump the Post Office.'
«At this time these are the critical messages for the Society of Jesus.
«The Tir Dol Ron is en route to Earth. His first stop will be the United States.»
The message that followed was much the same information he had received from Kari. It did, however, include some expansions. Apparently the reason that the Tir was coming to finalize the negotiations was that the humans could not possibly kill this messenger.
The message contained detailed data on requested defensive systems, construction rates for Galactic-supplied weapons and Fleet construction rates. Actual rates were graphed against planned and currently reported rates and the difference was obvious. The bottom line was that less than half the equipment requested for Terran Forces would be available before the invasion. There would, however, be sufficient materials to equip all the expeditionary forces. Those forces, by solemn and binding agreement, came first.
With America asking for more grav-guns and fewer being available, it should be an interesting meeting.
The final piece of information was a note on subsystem suppliers. He nearly overlooked it but a particular note caught his eye. All sixteen Darhel clans were participating in supplying materials for the Fleet and the Terran Defense systems. And all of them were behind on their schedules. However, one particular clan, the Tindar, was farther behind than any of the others.
He narrowed his eyes and wondered about the significance of that bit of information. The list had been intentionally sorted by negative production rates. It was definitely a clue to something. After a moment's introspection and a mental memo he returned to reading the primary message.
«We have no suggestions or requests at this time. The installed software has complete plans for a variety of Galactic systems including descriptions of production and use.
«All messages will completely clear themselves five minutes after reading; there will be no trace of them on the system. The flash card will erase itself in twenty seconds and will dissolve if submerged in water. We are happy to once again be in contact with our human comrades.
«The Bane Sidhe.»
CHAPTER 25
No-Name-Key, FL, United States 0f America, Sol III
0922 EDT October 3rd, 2004 ad
Mike woke to the to sound of the wind-up radio they had brought with them. It was forecasting four more days of perfect weather to be ended in the season's first severe cold front. Hurricane Janice was proceeding to the north of Bermuda and was not expected to make landfall in the United States. The United States Ground Force command had recently upgraded its forecast likelihood of early Posleen landings. The new forecast called for small-scale landings to begin occurring no later than two months from the date of forecast.
Mike snorted and threw aside the poncho liner he had been sleeping in, flipping a small lizard nose-over-tail through the air. The silky, smooth nylon and polyester blanket was a near-perfect camping accessory. It was the one item that Fleet Strike had eliminated from its inventory that Mike disagreed with. Although he understood that the replacement item was supposed to be better in every way, there was an atavistic thrill to the simple polyester fill product that the newer one did not have. In addition to that, there was also the fact that the GalTech version was virtually unavailable, whereas the South Carolina factory that made poncho liners was running three shifts and had ample supplies on hand. It had recently been moved up the waiting list for Sub-Urb production facilities on the basis of the product being designated «critical warfighting supplies.» Not bad for an ersatz blanket.