It's Going to Take Some Hard Nasty People
to Stop the End of the World
To Jim Baen: My publisher, mentor and friend.
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
And as always:
For Captain Tamara Long, USAF
Born: May 12, 1979
Died: 23 March 2003, Afghanistan
You fly with the angels now.
Acknowledgments
There were a bunch of people I had to get research help from on this one. As usual, Ryan Miller and Mike Massa contributed to technical operational help as well as HALO training details. As founding members of RingTAB (the Ringo Tech Advisory Board), they have put up with much.
I'd like to thank Christopher Austin, former member of the Army High Altitude Rescue squad, for really professional input on the mountaineering portion. My experience in mountaineering is decades past, and techniques and equipment have, ahem, changed considerably. It turns out serious mountaineers hardly ever wear leather boots and wool sweaters anymore . . .
Retired Master Sergeant Sean Fleenor contributed helpful smacks to the head over weapons-use while failing to convince me not to issue the Keldara beer.
Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, author of On Combat and On Killing, sent me an incredibly detailed proofread of an early version of this manuscript. Among about a billion other things, he pointed out that Ranger School was longer than I'd remembered. In addition, both of his books were seminal to several aspects of this novel. On Combat, especially, is highly recommended to anyone who is in the business of regularly or occasionally bringing violence upon others.
James Cochrane, husband of my coauthor Julie, and Emil "Praz" Praslick, of the Army Marksmanship Training Unit, supplied helpful advice on long-range shooting about which I previously knew virtually nothing. (Much as I write about it, I'm a "broad side of the barn" shooter.) I'll add that James, on the spur of the moment, took over a necessary four-hour drive when I was so sleep-deprived from writing I was babbling. The fact that I didn't die in the midst of writing this novel is probably due to James and Julie. Thanks.
As usual, any mistakes are mine.
Last but not least, I'd like to thank my daughters, Jennifer and Lindy, for accepting "Daddy's under deadline" as a reason for my almost total mental absence over the last couple of months. Hoowah.
Baen Books by John Ringo
Ghost
Kildar
Choosers of the Slain
Unto the Breach
There Will Be Dragons
Emerald Sea
Against the Tide
East of the Sun, West of the Moon
Princess of Wands
Into the Looking Glass
A Hymn Before Battle
Gust Front
When the Devil Dances
Hell's Faire
The Hero (with Michael Z. Williamson)
Cally's War (with Julie Cochrane)
Watch on the Rhine (with Tom Kratman)
The Road to Damascus (with Linda Evans)
with David Weber:
March Upcountry
March to the Sea
March to the Stars
We Few
with Travis S. Taylor:
Von Neumann's War
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Michael Harmon has been there and done that. Rescued co-eds, killed major terrorists, stopped nuclear assaults. Now he'd just like to kick back and relax with his harem of lovelies. Unfortunately, the world keeps turning. 