When the Devil Dances

“With the ‘unfortunate’ loss of Admiral Chen and his replacement by Fleet Admiral Wright we might get some movement,” the speaker said. He turned to the side and picked up a piece of paper. “To give you an idea of how precisely useless it is to have us sitting here, our total actions on Irmansul for the last month were forty patrol-sized actions against unbonded, and in most cases unweaponed, normals. This is what our mutual amie would call ‘fucking bullshit.’ Not that I would use such language about our benefactors the Darhel. Wright has at least allowed the detachment of a few ‘scouting’ forces. And I am told that the armor team on Titan Base has made some breakthroughs, so there may be help available from that quarter.”

The speaker spat out an untranslatable French epithet that had something to do with donkeys. “My own forces realize that there is nothing for which to return. However, we strain at the leash nonetheless. Yes, there are still Posleen on this planet. There are now and probably always will be; there are too many wilderness areas to eliminate them all and they are in the food chain at this point. But they can be ‘managed’ by a small police force and the killersats. The Fleet won the last action decisively and with small loss, but if Earth is totally lost it will be for nothing. We must return and we must return soon. And if the Darhel do not release us, soon, we will take that signal honor upon ourselves.

“No matter what.”

“Crenaus, out.”

Horner smiled like a tiger as the image winked off. It had been clear to him from almost the First Contact by the Galactics that the Darhel were playing their own game. And that the survival of the human race was, at best, incidental to it. However, it was not until fairly recently that he realized the extent to which the Darhel were inimical to the concept of Earth surviving as a functional planet. The Galactic society was very old, very stable and, above all, very stagnant. The humans were more than just physically dangerous; the philosophies, thoughts, processes and methods that they would bring with them would be a deathblow to the Galactic society, a society that the Darhel controlled absolutely. Just the concept of democracy, true, unfettered democracy, and human rights, would in all likelihood destroy the Galactic Federation if they were allowed free rein. Thus it was imperative that the human race be turned into a non-threat.

He had begin to wonder lately why, exactly, the Darhel had waited until practically the last minute, only five years before the invasion, to contact the humans. There were a thousand and one hints that they knew about Earth long before that, from the prepared medicines to the knowledge of all world languages. Some of it was certainly “fear”; the Galactic aliens were nonviolent and nonexpansionistic and the humans were anything but.

General Taylor, the previous High Commander, had wondered some of those things aloud. Just before he was assassinated by “Earth First” terrorists. Of course, five senior Darhel were killed in that spasm of violence, so suggesting it was the Darhel assumed that they were willing to cover their actions by killing five of their own. And it also assumed that the Darhel could kill, period. There were indications that in fact they could not even order killing, much less kill someone themselves.

But that didn’t mean that Jim Taylor had gone down to terrorists, either.

It might all be paranoid delusion, but the arguments for not redeploying the Expeditionary Forces were becoming more and more specious. All the arguments were becoming more specious. And even if the EFs left Irmansul orbit at this moment, the only major country with any continuity left was the U.S.; everyone else was for all practical purposes gone. India had some significant hold-out areas and Europe as well. But the fractions that existed there were insignificant compared to the Cumberland basin.

What were the Darhel waiting for? The Americans to lose too?

His AID chimed a priority message and he regarded it balefully for a moment. The device was Galactic provided. And it was more likely than not that the Darhel could read anything sent over one, such as the last message from General Crenaus. Which Crenaus knew as well as he did. So had they already taken the hint, that the message was directed as much at them as at him? He smiled again, a sure sign of displeasure, and tapped the device to answer the call.

“Incoming message from Sergeant Major Jacob Mosovich, Fleet Strike Reconnaissance.”

Horner vaguely recognized the name; Mosovich was one of the old hands who had been transferred to Fleet when they swallowed the U.S. Special Operations Command. He also vaguely recalled that Mosovich was the team leader of the LRRPs at 12^th Army so he was probably the team leader sent out against the globe that had landed opposite Rabun Gap. But that didn’t explain why the sergeant major was calling him directly. “Put it through.”