Bright Red Line by J.N. Chaney & Terry Maggert

Author:J.N. Chaney & Terry Maggert [Chaney, J.N. & Maggert, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Variant Publications
Published: 2024-07-14T00:00:00+00:00

17

The next visit, though, came later that afternoon from an entirely unexpected source. It was our old friend Colonel Mandeville.

And he didn’t show up amid a wall of self-importance and armed soldiers, either. Rather, he came up the road from the general direction of Elkader, alone, walking with a limp. Perry, circling overhead, was the one who noticed him.

“Either he’s just coming to talk or it’s the saddest, loneliest attack in history,” Perry said.

I walked out to the front porch. Sure enough, I could see him limping toward us.

“Rab, set up your BAG to cover, in case this is some sort of convoluted—I don’t know, convoluted something. Everyone else stand ready, but just keep working on getting the VSS rigs running.” With that, I headed down the front steps and waited for Mandeville to come walking up the driveway.

“Hope you didn’t walk all the way from DC,” I said to him as he limped to a stop. He gave a rueful smile.

“No, from just a few hundred meters up the road. My driver took one look at those damned spaceships and froze up. I guess I could charge him with disobeying a lawful command when I told him to keep driving, but he’s just a kid and, well—” Mandeville shrugged.

I narrowed my eyes a touch. Gone was the swaggering, arrogant man who’d walked up to my porch with an ICE team in tow, all set to take over the farm, jail me and my crew, and seize the Fafnir. This man was subdued, maybe even a little diminished in comparison. I’d intended to have whatever confrontation was coming out here in the yard, but I gestured instead to the front door.

“Why don’t you come on in, have some coffee, and get off that leg of yours. I’m assuming it’s the wound you got in DC?”

He followed me up the stairs and inside. “It is. Unfortunately, looks like I’m stuck with a limp from now on. Some mistakes stay with us, I think.”

I waited as he shucked his coat, then eased himself into a chair in the kitchen. I poured coffee for us both and sat down, giving him my undivided attention. It was the least I could do.

“Doesn’t have to be,” I said. “I’ve got a friend that can make it as good as new. Better, even.”

“Someone from up there, you mean,” he said.

“With antennas, yeah. And an attitude. And she’s a bit handsy, frankly, so she’ll probably put the moves on you. But she’s the best field doctor in known space. Even better than Funboy, and he regards germs as a personal insult.”

Mandeville sniffed. “Known space. Damn. You know, when I signed up, it was with visions of fighting the usual suspects. Flying sorties in the Middle East, maybe. Or, God forbid, the Pacific, or Europe—” He sipped coffee and shook his head. “I did not expect to find myself facing extraterrestrial beings.”

“But here we are.”

He nodded. “Here we are.”

“Why are you here, Mandeville?” I asked him. As I did, the house trembled slightly.

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