The Cresperian Alliance (3 page)

"No shit?!” Bangler wasn't able to keep the excitement from his voice.

"Not a bit of it. You'll be going out with others for security details. Starships. Other planets.” The senior NCO's eyes gleamed.

Bangler was so excited he forgot to eat. “Damn! I always read a bunch of science fiction but never thought I'd be living it."

"Yeah. You'll read about true stuff tomorrow. Two ships have already gone out."

"When do we leave?"

"Not for a little while yet. Scientists and other crew are being recruited and integrated. It's all a goddamn mess right now. The air force and navy are fighting over which one should control the space service. The army got the first two but that was special circumstances. I'm betting on the navy to control it eventually."

Bangler finished the rest of the meal in a daze. Before he retired that evening Bangler found out that he would eventually be wearing one of the funny uniforms himself, with the diamond insignia on the shoulder. They belonged to the Space Marines, to which he had been provisionally assigned. But first, the unit might have an Earth based mission to perform. He would find out about that tomorrow. For the time being, he intended to get some sleep while he had the chance and let the news sink in.

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Lieutenant General Caleb Washington found himself wishing he didn't have so much rank. He might be able to get into space himself then. As it was, he had to be satisfied with commanding the Cresperian Operations and R&D center in West Virginia. The big hole in the ground always felt dusty to him even though he knew it wasn't. It was just expanding so rapidly that he felt as if it should be dusty. More and more tunnels and rooms were being excavated every day to make room for more and more scientists and soldiers and sailors being processed for crews to man the starships being built. There were already a half a dozen of them under construction and the first two commissioned hadn't even returned yet. Wouldn't it be a huge cosmic joke if none of the ships worked? Terrible, but huge.

He touched a button on his desk, an electronic marvel almost devoid of the paper high ranking officers were usually swamped with. His predecessor had made a valiant effort to keep operations as simple as possible and in the main, had succeeded. The chain of command was still rather mixed up and no one knew for sure yet which of the armed forces would ultimately command the space service. He really didn't care. He was in command of the most fascinating assignment of his career.

"Dianne, please contact Colonel Chadwick for me,” he said when Sergeant Torres’ face appeared on his monitor. He loved the communications equipment here!

"Yes, sir.” The alert expression on her face changed for a moment as she seemingly gazed into space, then it came back, more attentive than before. “General Washington, you just received a request to call the Pentagon. The Chairman wants to talk to you."

Uh oh. Chadwick can wait.

"Belay Chadwick, Dianne.” He punched off the monitor, pulled open a drawer and lifted out a phone. It was encrypted both in the hole and at the Pentagon. He punched in the number without referring to an index. He had all the numbers memorized.

"Chairman."

"General, this is Caleb. You needed to speak to me."

"Right. Things going well with you?"

"Confusing sometimes."

"I shouldn't wonder. Listen, Caleb, our first ship just reported in. There's lots of new intelligence, including finding some bad guys out there. You'll be getting all that over the next few weeks, but right now the President has decided that White Horse is a go. And we're going ahead simultaneously with Red Horse and Black Horse. Hit ‘em all at once, so nobody has advance warning."

"I'll be damned. Diplomacy didn't work, huh?"

"Not with who's running State."

Washington sighed his understanding. “All right, sir. I've already had them activate the planning as you suggested. When do you want it executed?"

"As soon as possible. The
Zeng Wu
was spotted by some astronomer and she spilled the beans all over the world. The President is going to have to go public with the news we have starships, but he wants White Horse to be a done deal by then."

"Shit. How long are we talking?"

"He'd have it done yesterday, if it were possible. Within the next two to three days, five at the outside."

Washington's dark skin paled slightly. “That's really pushing it, sir. Hell, we just got the last of our personnel in."

"I know, but that's what contingency planning is for. Admiral Terhune has already ordered a Sea Wolf sub into the area. In fact it's the ship of the line, the
USS Sea Wolf
herself, he's putting in the North Sea. It'll be ready to evacuate the team once they bring out the Crispies."

"Nothing to do but try if the President is this adamant about it. I take it you told him the chances of success goes way down when getting a mission of this sort off the ground with so little planning?"

"He knows it and is prepared for the risk.” He heard a short chuckle. “At least this one has some balls. He's willing to lose the unit and will take the site out if it fails."

"I guess that's what we get paid the big bucks for. Okay, I'll send them off. Wish us luck."

"You got it.” The line went dead. For a moment Washington simply stared across his desk at nothing. He had been associated with the army all his life, including being an army brat when his black Oklahoma father married a white Italian beauty. He had faced the mixed race epithets and seen prejudice up close. He had been in some extremely hairy situations over the years. None of them bothered him nearly as much as the thought of losing one of his units to the expediency of politics. And while going into combat against a supposed allied country of long standing at that.

The United Kingdom had been holding three of the aliens since their lifeboat crashed in Scotland at the same time all the other dozen or so lifeboats scattered literally over the world. At first they indicated that they were intending to share what intelligence they gained from the alien technology but somehow it had never materialized. Delay after delay and excuse after excuse was all they ever shared. He put a major part of the blame for the situation on the Secretary of State, Sandra Fellowes. President Waterman had put her in the cabinet in exchange for something he wanted that was never made clear. He supposed the woman did a fair job in normal situations but he and the rest of the military would gladly have given her a cigarette and a blindfold on the occasion of any military crisis. She was inept and helpless where fighting might occur and would much rather talk than take action, even when action was the proper course. Rumor had it she was a dyed in the wool pacifist, but he had yet to meet the woman personally, so he couldn't be certain.

Stop the woolgathering, and do the hard thing,
he told himself.
You're procrastinating.
He punched a button on his desk. The image of his enlisted aide, Sergeant Dianne Torres, reappeared.

"Yes, General?"

"Dianne, please run down Colonel Chadwick for me and have him report as soon as possible. Highest priority."

"I believe he's in the training area, sir. If not, I'll find him."

"I know you will. Thank you. When he's gone, send in Lieutenant Hank Anderson.” The monitor blinked into an image of a dachshund puppy on its back with its paws in the air and tongue lolling from its smiling mouth.
Would that the world were that innocently happy,
he thought. A moment or two later Colonel Peter Chadwick knocked, then entered.

"Coffee, Peter?"

"Er. No thank you, sir. I'm about to flounder in coffee as it is."

Washington laughed. Some days he felt the same. “I hear that one, loud and clear. All right then, let's get to business. The Chief wants the Horses on the road as soon as humanly possible."

"Mmm.” Chadwick rubbed his chin. “Can you give me a week?"

"NO. Not unless you absolutely have to have it. Or let me put it this way. He realizes a rush job risks failure. But if it works out that way he's prepared to take out the site and every person in it, including your people if you're not clear."

"Wow. Shit. The man is in a hurry."

"Right. I don't have the full details yet but the
Zeng Wu
is back and word is that there are bad guys out there.” He pointed up by way of illustration. “The President wants this other stuff cleared up so he can concentrate on what to do about them."

"Is he going to try for the other aliens, too?"

Washington shrugged. Lines formed on his brown forehead. “It certainly looks that way. All except for India, at least. Don't know why he's excluding India, and I'm not about to ask. All you're responsible for here at the moment is... well, with three of ‘em going at once, not all four, they're not calling it Operation Four Horsemen anymore. I haven't heard what the new overall code name is. Anyway, I'm going to authorize you to take Sira with you on the White Horse segment. If we get in there, she'll be helpful in communicating our intentions to them."

"He doesn't mind risking her?"

"Apparently not."

"Will she go?"

"To help her friends? I imagine so. I would."

"So would I but we aren't Crispies."

He shrugged again. “With her or without her, it's a go. Three to five days from now. Can you do it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good man."

"Of course I'll go, Paul. They've been there much too long already.” Sira Whitman turned her calm, steady gaze on the colonel.

"Thank you,” Chadwick said. “I thought you'd jump at the chance but I also wanted to make you aware of the danger, too. There's a possibility none of the unit will return and that your friends will die along with them.” He tried to gauge the young woman's response and knew it was impossible. She was an alien, a Cresperian stranded on Earth when their starship was lost. She was alien even though she looked entirely human and most of the time even thought like a human. She even had a human lover.

"I don't know that they're friends, Paul. All I can tell you is that I'll know of them, not that I knew them personally. The ship was huge compared to the ones we're building and it was impossible to be close to everyone aboard. They were more like... mm, spaceborne cities."

It seemed like a long, long time ago to Chadwick that Sira had been a Cresperian, complete with the tall, four-limbed, pyramid-headed and orange-eyed body. Thinking she could never return to Cresperia after being rescued by the Americans from Libyan captivity, she had allowed Jeri Leverson to talk her into changing her form to human. He had heard her remark on what an easy decision it had been, considering that Jeri Leverson was also Cresperian and had not only taken the human form but actually married a human. Everyone knew how extremely happy Jeri was with her decision and how wildly she was in love with her husband. It was really too bad that all the survivors couldn't have landed near such a man as Kyle Leverson. He had helped Jeri make the transition gradually while retaining the core of her own personality and the perceptive sense all Cresperians had.

The perceptive sense was both a hindrance and a help on Earth. Using it, a Crispy could change not only his or her own form but a human's as well, giving them much improved bodies and an extremely long lifespan. Sira had done it herself for several people and so far hadn't appeared to be sorry. Mai Le Trung was the first. It had paid off big time because Mai was a brilliant geneticist. She discovered a flaw in the transition from Crispy to human and helped correct it. Mai would have gone on the mission without asking the cost, had she been here instead of somewhere in space aboard
Galactic
, so he hadn't really expected that Sira would refuse.

"Nevertheless, I'm sure they will be glad to see you, or to communicate with you through your perceptive sense, I should say,” he told her. “They've been badly mistreated by the British government. I'm fairly certain they'll not hesitate to come back with you."

"If we come back, that is,” Sira said. A tiny smile formed on her lips. “I'm sure they'll be glad to take the chance if I have any time at all to communicate with them."

"All right, then, get ready whatever you need to take with you. We'll be leaving very soon."

"How will we travel?"

"By plane for the initial insertion because it has to be fast. Our present plans are for covering fire while the unit parachutes in and assaults the base. They aren't dug in nearly as deep as us so it shouldn't be much of a problem to get in."

"It's getting out you're worried about, I take it?” Again she smiled.

"Exactly. A Sea Wolf submarine will be standing by with a Seal team to evacuate you after you secure the Crispies."

She touched her forefinger to her cheek. “Will John be going on the mission?"

"Yes. You know he will. He's the head of one of the units."

"Then I don't know why you bothered asking me. I would have insisted on going with him anyway."

Chadwick laughed. He already knew how protective Crispies were with their lovers. John Tomlinson had beenSira's friend and lover of some months now. After a period of experimentation she had finally fallen for a human, even knowing how dangerous his profession was. Of course Jeri, the first one, had known, too. Was that a trait? He doubted he would ever know.

As Sergeant Bangler seated himself in the small auditorium he couldn't keep himself from glancing over at either arm to admire the extra stripe of a Staff Sergeant. He had indeed been promoted. There was competition for his gaze, though. He could hardly stop himself from staring at the woman, Sira Whitman, either. Whispers had gone around the room that she was an alien, a Cresperian or Crispy in the colloquial term. It was hard to believe. She looked like a petite young girl just out of high school and a pretty one, too, with strawberry blond hair and a hint of dimples. Yet she was not only going to be with them during White Horse but was apparently a prime player. She was briefing the unit on the Crispies as he listened, still only half believing his eyes.