Part 8

The sound of several hundred voices singing in unison woke Martin. About once a month one of the units on post detoured their morning run through the on-post housing area. He slid closer to his wife, cupping one of her ample breasts with one hand. Outside the sound of the running unit's cadence drew closer. Jocelyn stirred as the singing grew louder. This morning they came right up Martin's street. Two doors down lived the Sergeant Major for the Provost Marshal. Right about the time he expected, the cadence caller saw the CUCV (a militarized Blazer) with the police lights on top of it.

"Fucking grunts," Jocelyn groaned, "Why did they pick today? I've got a final this afternoon."

"I thought you liked fucking grunts."

She made a sound that was halfway between a groan and a laugh. "That's not funny Paul...." Whatever else she'd been going to say was interrupted by a cry from the other bedroom. She started to get up, but he held her down and kissed her.

"I'll get him Jo," he said and walked naked into the other room. Felicity was still sleeping, and Joe quieted as soon as he saw Martin coming for him. The baby wasn't wet, and when he took the boy in to Jo, he only sucked for about ten seconds and closed his eyes. "I guess he's just lonely; wanted someone to snuggle with."

"He missed his mama," Jo agreed.

"Well if he doesn't want it, I do," Martin teased, bending down to lick her other nipple, then gave it a little suck. Primed by little Joe's cries, her milk came out instantly, warm and sweet. "You taste great, but I gotta do PT first, or I'll stay in bed with you all morning." He covered them with a sheet, got dressed and went outside. After some warm ups, he started on his Thursday routine, pushups, sit-ups and a three mile run followed by pull-ups before he went into the house for a shower.

Jo was asleep again when he came in, but a look at the clock told him the alarm was about to go off anyway. He turned it off and crawled into bed with her. Moments later he slid into her hot wet channel. She was still slick with sperm from the night before. Jo clenched him tight as he rode her to a noisy orgasm. Her stifled screams woke little Joe up and she shifted him to her breast where he sucked greedily as she came down from her peak. Drops of milk formed on her other nipple and slid down the curve of her breast to the valley between them. He didn't quite manage to bring her off again before he came, squirting ropes of cum into her womb.

Martin held himself up with one hand, barely able to move from the sensation of her squirming pussy on his cock, while he used his thumb to bring her over the edge. "Uh, uh, uh," she panted, shaking her head back and forth.

Their baby ignored the noise and movement, concentrating on filling his belly. Molly had never done anything like this for him. She'd never done anything with one of their babies in the room, even if they had been asleep. He frowned, banishing the thought of his ex-wife from his head and lay down beside the love of his life. "Morning, my love. Were you serious about another baby?"

She shifted their son so she could scoot closer. "Yeah, I know how you feel, and I liked being pregnant. In a year or two we won't be able to have another one, I really think they are going to make me get an implant. They'd probably let me get out instead, but I want to fight. If I get pregnant by next year, the twins will be at least six, and maybe even eight or nine when the Swarm gets here."

"The twins?"

"It could be twins, they run in the family. Look at me and my sister, or my cousins. Besides, if we plan for twins, we'll be ready when they get here."

Martin shook his head. "Twins are fine, just don't be too disappointed if only one shows up. I don't mind trying to get you pregnant."

Jo kissed him hard. "Don't mind," she laughed. "You love it and you know it." She turned serious. "Not tonight though. My last two finals are tomorrow morning. I'm going to study tonight and go to bed about twenty-one hundred. What about a nooner? Can you get away?"

He shook his head. "I have to go out to a DZ on the far side of Mackall, I won't be back 'til late again."

Their bedroom door opened and Felicity walked in, her fine blonde hair standing up at odd angles. "Mommy, I'm hungry. Can I have eggs?"

"I'll make you some in a little bit," Jo told her. "Go get your school clothes on." When their little girl had gone, Jo turned back to him. "Can you stay for breakfast? Omelet and coffee?"

"That would be great. I've got some paperwork to file; give me about half an hour?" Martin dressed quickly, ACU pants, boots and brown t-shirt.

It actually only took him about twenty minutes. He'd filled out the 'Contact with an Agent of a Foreign Government' forms before. They were required to keep his security clearance. The 'Extraction of Family Member' forms were a lot quicker, even though he had to fill out four of them. The Milnet website auto-populated most of the information for him. He sent an email to his daughter, writing a quick note and dragging over the pictures folder, logged off the computer and walked into the kitchen.

"At-Ease!" Felicity bellowed, in a credible command voice. Jo popped out of her chair where she'd been trying to get the baby to eat mushy cereal. She popped out of her Kimono too. The belt fell to the floor and the two halves parted exposing her bare breasts and panties. The tableau only lasted an instant, but it was enough to get him hard again. Well, halfway anyway, he wasn't as young as he once was. Felicity nearly fell out of her chair laughing. He found himself laughing too.

Jo just shook her head and sat back down. She didn't bother to do her kimono back up and he could see clearly inside it as he sat down at the table. "You two have the same sense of humor. Just you wait, in three weeks, you'll have to salute me."

Martin leaned over and kissed her, sliding one hand inside her kimono to cup one ripe breast, feeling the nipple hard against his palm. "I salute you every time I see you, Jo."

She reached down and fondled him through his pants. "Already? I wish I had time. I have to take the joker here to school, drop off Joey at day care, then go to the library for my study group." She handed him a spoon. "Here, you feed him and I'll get your breakfast."

Little Joe didn't want to eat the food, he just wanted to play with it. After a couple of minutes of trying to stop the little boy from smearing it in his hair, he gave up and handed the spoon to his son. "Go for it kid, you can't do a worse job than I was." Jo brought him a ham and cheese omelet, poured him a cup of coffee, and then sat down and started up her breast pump. Martin took a few bites then reached into the fridge behind him for the cream. There wasn't any. "We have any cream Jo?"

His wife swallowed a bite of food before she answered. "No, the entire dairy section of the commissary was closed. They're installing replicators there. Our grocery budget is going to stretch a lot farther once everything is in place. Milk, meat, bread, everything perishable is going to get a lot cheaper. For now," She unscrewed the half full bottle from the pump and poured some into his cup, "try it this way." She said with an evil grin on her face.

"Eeeww, gross Mommy," Felicity said.

Martin surprised them both by stirring it in and tasting it. It tasted a little sweeter than normal, but that was the only difference. The only difference in taste that is. He was rock hard again, and wanted more than anything to drag Jo upstairs for a rematch, but they just didn't have time. "We can save more money this way, if that's the way you want to do it," he told her. She didn't say anything, just shook her head and smiled, blushing. After breakfast he helped her get the kids in her truck, then left for his unit.

The morning was uneventful until about 0900 when he was about to head out to Drop Zone Lima. One of the other instructors ran over to him as he was climbing into a Hum-Vee. "Sergeant Martin, you need to report to Colonel Fletcher over at 6th group HQ"

"What about the selectees?" Martin asked. "I've got to be there for the drop."

"I'm supposed to take over. You might be over there all day."

Colonel Fletcher was the commander of the 6th Special Forces Group, which had been re-activated last year. They were based right here on Camp Mackall. Martin had met him before, back when he was a Major in 3rd group, when they were over in the sandbox. He'd heard that the Colonel had led the 5th Group C-Team that had disappeared for about six months a year before the announcement about the Swarm's approach to earth.

He grabbed his gear from the vehicle and put it in his wall locker. After putting on his reflective vest, he tucked his beret under his belt, grabbed his helmet and rode his bike over to 6th group HQ. He found a visitor space right by the HQ buildings. They were old and dilapidated having been constructed during Vietnam or earlier. The colonel's office was in a Quonset hut. The only signs of modernity were the air conditioners protruding from the curved sheet metal, and the satellite dish on the roof.

He knew all of the NCOs and two of the three officers in the orderly room. He checked to be sure the Colonel was ready for him and then knocked on the door. A voice sounded through the door. "Enter."

Martin shut the door behind him, walked to a faint ridge in the paint where a balk line had been painted over, came to attention and saluted. "Sir, Master Sergeant Martin reports."

Colonel Fletcher returned his salute. "At Ease. In fact, have a seat." He pointed to a chair and waited for Martin to sit before he continued. "I'm jumping the gun a little here, so I'd appreciate it if you don't spread it around. You've only got ten weeks left in your tour, and you're not going to get that extension you put in for. That's because in nine weeks the 12th Group is being reactivated. I'm losing a third of my people, including fifteen of my Command Sergeant Majors." There were only twenty-one CSMs in the entire group. "Keep it quiet, but you're being promoted. I need you here."

That was fast, he'd only just made Master Sergeant a year ago. "CSM in a B-Team? I can handle that."

The Colonel smiled. "I know you can, but I want you take the second C-Team. We've got to get everything together. In three months we deploy, so as far as I'm concerned, that rank and position is effective now."

A C-Team, that was the equivalent of a brigade. Deploy? Where the hell to? The Middle-East was out, with industrial replicators churning out oil that area just wasn't important anymore. The reconstituted 6th Group's AO was North America, they weren't supposed to deploy anywhere. It wasn't something he could ask, so he just said, "I won't let you down Sir."

"Your first question is probably 'where'. I'll ask you, where, or rather doing what?"

"A cadre mission, got to be, but I've got no idea where," Martin answered.

"What do you know about Iceland?"

The short answer was 'not much'. "I heard we reopened Keflavík, and there was something on the news a couple of months ago about a travel embargo because they had so many extractions."

"Right on both counts," Colonel Fletcher said. "What you didn't hear is why. The Confederacy is taking most of the country. The embargo is so they won't get flooded with refugees. Flights in and out are tightly controlled, only returning Icelanders, relatives and some planes full of orphans. Their coast guard has been turning back all sea travel. They've had to sink two ships that resisted, but between us and the Confeds we were able to hush it up because both of them were from the Middle-East. In three months, they'll be finished, everyone who is qualified and wants to go will be gone."

"Is there anyone who doesn't want to go?"

"Sergeant-Major Martin, your CAP score is seven point six, almost half a point higher than mine. You reenlisted knowing that if you did, you couldn't get picked up. Why did you do that?"

The bald declaration of his CAP score surprised him. The military was operating under a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy for CAP scores. It was hard to explain why he'd done it, even when he talked it over with Jo, neither of them had said why although he was sure her reasons were the same as his. "Well, Sir," Martin began, "Getting picked up is chancy and there's no way to be sure. We figured our best chance was to beat the lizards here. Besides, I..." He hesitated to just come out and say it, "It feels like running away, abandoning our country."

Fletcher nodded. "I feel the same way. So does everyone who reenlisted. So do about six thousand sponsors in Iceland who refused extraction, including their president, Freya Astridsdottir. She's a fucking communist, but she's got some guts. They've got a weird government over there, A parliament with a prime minister, plus an elected president, a kind of holdover from the Althing. Anyway, the Confederacy offered them the same deal American Samoa and some other islands got. The Prime Minister couldn't decide, and the parliament argued about it for weeks. Now, their president doesn't have any defined duties in the constitution. Nothing says she has any power, but nothing says she doesn't either. So what does she do? She tells the Confederacy yes, and orders their Coast Guard, and National Police, the closest thing they have to an army, to seal off the country. Then she calls us and says that under the NATO treaty we have an obligation to help."

That probably upset a lot of the brass at the Pentagon. "She was right, the Swarm are coming and we promised we'd defend them. So what happened?"

"It was only a blip in the news here. Parliament told her she couldn't do it. The Coast Guard said she could, because the president had command in time of war. The National Police said they didn't care, their job was to keep order. They weren't going to let in a bunch of refugees, and they would use existing laws to keep them out.

"There was a nasty political fight, a vote of no confidence and a general election. The new parliament declared full support for the president. They sent everyone the details of how the extractions were going to work, a lottery kind of thing going on to see who goes first, and asked the president to preside over the first one.

"That's when she dropped the real bombshell. She got up on stage with some of the Coast Guard and police and they all showed their CAP cards. Every one of them qualified as a sponsor. She announced that they were staying, that no lizards were going to take their beloved island away from them.

"There were only about thirty-one thousand possible sponsors on the island, and over six thousand of them volunteered to stay. They and most of the ones who couldn't go, about seventy-thousand total have volunteered for their new army. They're calling themselves the Einherjar, the warriors training to fight at the end of the world."

"And we get to train them," Martin commented. "It'll be a change from the kind of guys we had over in the sandbox. At least their president stayed, not like that bastard Jackson. He was gone before the ink dried on the treaty."

The Colonel ignored that last comment. "It will be practice for when we do it here. Most of them speak English, and they can all read and write. We have some support from the Confederacy too. We'll get sleep training in Icelandic, they'll get it for some basics. Iceland is getting enough replicators to feed all of them and some galactic air defenses.

"The Confeds will even let us use their transporters to come home on weekends." As talked, the Colonel wrote on a pad in front of him, then held it up. In block letters it read: 'Leave your cell phone here and wait for me outside when I dismiss you.' "They've got some of their people here running through our basic training and OCS, what they don't have is NCOs. They managed to get a dozen medtubes and an AI to run them, and they can cut fifty years off anyone. If you know of any retired combat vets who don't have a high CAP score, they can apply."

Martin held up his cell phone and put it on the desk. "I might know a few Sir."

"Good, I'll send you a briefing packet so you can get started. You can email me personally with any questions, and I'll let you know who your commander is going to be as soon as I find out."

Martin stood up and saluted. "Thank you Sir."

Colonel Fletcher returned the salute. "Looking forward to working with you Sergeant-Major." Martin only had to wait about twenty seconds before the Colonel joined him outside. "Walk with me." He didn't say anything else until they were under the cover of the trees behind the cluster of buildings. "Tell me Sergeant-Major, are the Confederates our friends?"

"They need us, but if it wasn't for the Swarm, they'd never have even let us know they existed."

The Colonel grunted as they turned a corner of the trail and headed down into a draw. "It's worse than that. If they didn't need us, they would have done whatever they could to keep us on this planet. They have mind control technology and don't hesitate to use it. The Swarm is real, I've seen them with my own eyes when I was out there with the 5th, but for the six months between when we got back and they were announced to the world I couldn't tell anyone about them without getting blinding headaches."

They stopped outside another Quonset hut, this one earthed over with brush growing on top. It wasn't guarded, but when the Colonel knocked someone looked though a fisheye lens in the door before opening it. The guard in the anteroom was armed with a .45 and there was a sign on the inner wall that read 'Secure Area, no electronic devices beyond this point.' They went into the back of the building, which was bigger than it looked on the outside. There was either more than one hut buried here, or part of the structure had been dug out of the hillside. The Colonel led him past some clacking typewriters to another office with maps and charts on the wall. A table in the middle held a colection of colored balls on wires. He pointed at it. "What do you make of that?"

At first he thought it was some kind of modern art sculpture, then he realized it was a map. A star map, with Sol in the middle. Some of the other stars were labeled clearly, others had question marks after the names attached to them. Still others had no lables at all. Several were marked in red, with a 'swarm' notation. One of the clearly labeled ones was Spindrift. It was off to one side, past the ones marked 'swarm', and he hoped that meant his kids would be safe. Martin touched it lightly with his finger. "My daughter is on her way there."

"We know. That's why I brought you here."

Wait, what? He felt very apprehensive. "I don't understand Sir."

"I have an unusual proposition for you, I want your word that you'll keep it to yourself if you decide not to accept."

Martin nodded. "You've got it."

"There is a theory that the Confederacy is going to give us just enough help to slow down the Swarm. Enough for the Confederacy to win, but not enough for us to save the Earth. I think we have to assume that's true. Have you thought about what happens after we beat the Swarm?"

Martin hadn't thought that far ahead, not really. He figured if they lived through it, it would be time to retire. "That's a long way off."

"What we think will happen is that they'll try to put the genie back in the bottle, keep the dangerous savages away from civilized folks."

"That's an old story," Martin responded, "soldiers and dogs keep off the grass."

"Exactly, only in this case, the soldiers are the whole human race. We're coordinating with other countries, sharing information and tactics. If we're going to change anything, we have to have priorities. First we have to win here. If we can't do that, we won't be able to do anything else. After that, we'll have to see."

"Yeah," Martin said cautiously, "but what can I do about it that I wouldn't be doing already?"

"How is your relationship with your daughter?"

"Surprisingly good, I got to talk to her last night after she got picked up. Wait a minute, you're not going to involve my kids."

"They're already involved. We have to assume that every communication with those that have been picked up is monitored. What we want you to do is stay involved with her, write her letters, let her know you love her. Be a good father, do the things you should do anyway. What we want is for you to let us know everything she tells you, even small details can be important. Sometimes we might have a question for you to ask her.

"Your report said she's assigned to a fabrication unit. We don't have contact with anyone doing that. Little details could be important. Say she solves an efficiency problem, it might take us years to get that out of our official contacts. On the other hand if she solves a problem she'll be happy about it and want to tell someone who cares. If she knows you care, she'll tell you and we'll find out a whole lot sooner."

"But they'll know she told us."

"They won't care that she told us. If they cared they wouldn't let her tell us. Each AI has a different personality and some let the humans they watch have more leeway than others. They don't seem to overrule each other very much, though. There isn't any risk to her, because they know she doesn't know what our goal is. We're pretty sure they don't know what our goals are, in part because we don't talk about them or put them on computers, but also because our main goal is apparently perfectly acceptable to them. They know what information we have, because they gave it to us, and they know we know that they know. There is so much that they don't seem to care about, like technology that is ancient to them but still better than anything we or the Swarm have."

It made a lot of sense. From everything he'd heard, the AIs were logical and wouldn't blame Chrissy for something they hadn't told her not to do. He nodded. "I guess it would be alright, I don't see how she could get in trouble."

Colonel Fletcher offered his hand. "Welcome to the Einherjar."