Chapter 8
Sandy stood head down in the shower, hands against the shower wall, leaning into the jets as the water coursed hotly over her head and down her body. The flowing water plastered hair to her face, clung thickly to her forehead, her closed eyelids, her ears and cheeks. She breathed deeply, thick, pleasant lungfuls of steamy air.
Her head felt unnaturally clear. The dim bathroom lights flooded her brain with white, artificial light. Water thundered and drummed against her skull. The heat against her skin was somehow both sharp and numb, a confusion of sensation. She tilted her head back, face up to the water jets. For the first time in days her system was free of drugs. It felt strange, to say the least. Perhaps, she pondered, this was what it felt like to be hung over. She didn't like the sensation.
No drugs. No restraints. No guards ... no, that wasn't true, the security perimeter of the Presidential Quarters were crawling with guards. But no personal guards. No watchful armed presence hovering over her shoulder, alert for that one hostile movement. A movement that now, by all appearances, was no longer expected.
"Christ," she murmured to herself tiredly, and dropped her head so water fell over her shoulders and down her back. Suddenly she was trusted. Trusted by President and Presidential security alike. It was too fast, far too fast. Her head was spinning from too much awareness, echoing like an empty room, and she was in no condition to process such political machinations. No condition at all.
Something twinged in her side, and she removed a hand from the wall, trailed light fingertips over the incision above her ribs ... light penetration. Would have ripped the lung of an unprotected straight. The hand trailed down, over a flat, bare stomach, probed lightly at a second and third incision, already healing. Sighed deeply, eyes still closed beneath the cascade of water.
Bad fight. Bad situation. What the analysts at DS Intel would have called a defensive counter. Grunts called it a fuckup. That covered any situation where the enemy held more cards than you did. A big, big-time fuckup. Not quite the biggest in her experience. But close.
Dark Star they'd been, all of them. It was possible, she knew, that she might know the unit. GI 23s and 25s. She'd never liked the designations, personally. Had never really known why, until she'd lived among civilians. 23s and 25s were just people, really. Kind of. Different from herself, obviously, but then she'd never met a GI who wasn't. And then, they were all different from each other too.
But they were predictable. She'd always found them so ... and had known that Federation soldiers always said that their one advantage against Skins was creativity. Fixed mindsets could only improvise so far, however creative their tape training. Sandy had found them painfully obvious. And not just in their combat patterns, either—their personalities were just as bad. Sometimes she'd spent time wondering if that was the model designation or the environment, or the tape. Or all three combined. She'd never really figured that one out, but somehow she'd never got too upset when some group of mid-twenties walked into a Federation ambush and disappeared for good. God knew, it had happened often enough. Not like her guys. Her lips pursed reluctantly, suggesting a smile. Not like Tran. Not much, anyway.
She remembered Tran asking her why she bothered reading those old books. Reading a few pages herself, before losing interest and going off to clean her weapons. Tran asking her if all wars had been as boring as this, once when they'd been stuck in systems patrol and recon for the better part of a month without having seen a station, let alone a planet.
Tran wanting advice over weaponry interface adjustments, moments before she was due to go under the scalpel for an upgrade. And Tran once challenging her to explain what an orgasm was, interrupting her and Dobrov in the act on Sandy's bunk to get an answer. They had not been alone to begin with—in ship berth you never were—and Dobrov hadn't bothered stopping for her to deliver an answer. Her explanation had become more of a moment-by-moment demonstration than a technical answer. She and the half-dozen others in the berth had found that very amusing.
Tran had looked up to her. They all had, to one extent or another. She was the Captain. She had an unusual designation. She was, in their own personal opinions, by far the best Dark Star unit commander ever. Which she was. She kept them alive, where other commanders expected heavy losses. They appreciated that, very much so. Worship was too strong a word, and was too emotive anyway. But they obeyed her utterly and without question. The Captain was always right. Sandy knew best.
Tran had taken this very much to heart. Unlike her compatriots, Tran had a mind full of questions. The Captain was the holder of all truths, the knower of all answers to every question ever invented. She always asked Sandy first. It had been occasionally irritating. But it was character, a rare trait among her underlings, and she was loath to discourage it. Tran without questions would not have been Tran at all. And by God, did Tran have questions. Sandy smiled, finding it amusing even now.
And was surprised at herself, standing head down beneath a private shower in a Callayan Presidential Quarters bathroom, for even thinking of Tran. She hadn't before, when things had been going well. Assuming that things had ever truly been going well... but that had all been an illusion, hadn't it?
She had so little choice in any of it. Leaving had been her choice ... but in the painful glare of hindsight, even that seemed perhaps inevitable. Certainly she could not have stayed, not feeling as she had felt, and knowing what she had known. Surely she could not have stayed and remained sane.
And perhaps, she considered further, she had no more choice now than she had back then, when things were as they were for no particular reason and there was no way to question any of it. She remembered lying on her bunk and thinking thoughts of other places, other things she might want to do ... if one day, perhaps, the war would end.
Which was what Tran had thought. God. Had she ever been that naïve herself? As naïve as Tran? And she smiled faintly as she remembered what she had told the small, dark-haired GI—"The war will never end, Tran. Not for us."
Tran had frowned. "But when we win, they won't have any need for us any more, will they? We'll get leave, maybe even a discharge ... Don't know what I'd do if I got discharged, but there's gotta be something. You're smart, Cap'n ... tell me what I could do. Security maybe?"
It gave her a cold shiver, even now, beneath the pleasant wash of warm water. No, Tran. When the war ends, they won't have any need for us at all. Not until the next one anyway.
Dammit. She squatted in the shower, suddenly unsure of her balance. Hamstrings and buttocks pulled tight as the water coursed down and she steadied herself against the water-soaked tiles. Beneath the warm water she felt suddenly cold, her stomach tightened with knotted dread.
Only now was it setting in. The shock, and the fear. The things she hadn't shown before the President. And Neiland had been understandably self-absorbed at the hospital, given recent events.
The firefight had been bad, but she could deal with that. Had dealt with countless others, though perhaps not under quite such drastic circumstances. What scared her was the organisation. The precision. The specific movements, some of which she'd practically pioneered herself, the timing moves, the coordination signals on the integrated assault network she'd been unable to hack effectively during the attack, what with the sensor plug still in place in the back of her skull, blocking selected transmissions. But she'd just known. Her Dark Star minders had frequently failed to understand the effectiveness of many of her assault techniques. Analysts often refused to believe in instinct in straight humans, let alone in GIs. But she hadn't known what else to call it. She just knew.
And she knew that no straight human had planned that raid. No straight human knew those moves. No straight human could have planned and executed them in that fashion ... straights never commanded GIs, they lacked the familiarity, the gut instinctual knowledge of a GI's capabilities. Only GIs commanded GIs. She was the highest level GI in existence. But often other, mid-range levels would suffice.
Oh God. She slumped to her knees on the tiles, and sat on her heels, gazing with helpless dread at the blank tile wall before her face. She'd thought they were all dead. She knew they were. And now, it seemed, at least one of them was not.
And she had no idea what she was going to do about that now.
* * * *
She emerged from the bathroom in the dark blue bathrobe she'd been provided with. Clothes were available too, she'd been told—civilian clothes—but the shrapnel wounds would heal faster if unconstricted.
Even so, walking down the main corridor of the Presidential Quarters in a bathrobe felt decidedly strange. The polished wooden floorboards were cool beneath her feet. The portraits on the walls were of faces that Sandy felt she probably should have recognised but did not. Former Presidents, she guessed, pausing to examine one work, and then the next. There were no name tags on the works. Presumably visitors were expected to recognise the faces at first glance. Pity she hadn't read up more on her Callayan history before coming here. But she hadn't paid much attention to the past back then. That had been her intention, anyway.
She sighed, moving slowly on aching feet from one portrait to the next. She could hear footsteps and voices on the far side of a door further down the hallway ... her hearing improving with the drugs now gone. She fancied one of them was Neiland's, but too much concentration made her head hurt. From the other direction a TV could be heard, and the sounds of someone in a kitchen. And all about, on various unobtrusive frequencies, were the security channels, leaking vague, watchful emissions. It felt very solid, though. At least something was working properly today.
The TV channel sounded like the news, which aroused her interest. She walked unhurriedly down the broad, high-ceilinged hallway and emerged into a luxurious setting that could only be the President's living room. Everything was old-fashioned. A pair of French doors led to a balcony beyond shrouded by gauze curtains. The wide, open floor was of polished wood, gleaming to a doubtless synthetic, mirror finish. Wood-carved and deep-cushioned furniture gathered about a large rug of intricate Indian design. There was even a real fireplace, with a real fire—doubtless the smoke was processed to harmless vapour somewhere up the 'chimney'. Tanushan zero-emission standards would not abide unrestricted log fires.
Intrigued, Sandy strolled about the room. Intrigued further that it was empty. She had expected a guard ... or a guide, at least. But it seemed she was free to wander, watched only from the usual closed-circuit TV.
Decorative ceiling, wall paintings (landscapes here). Christ, there was even a bar set into the right wall behind the furnishings. And, out of place amid this nostalgic pre-history, a broad, flat-screen TV in the far corner.
"... no clues as to the whereabouts of the assault unit's Command and Control element, or C-and-C, as the CSA investigating officers are calling it," the man on the TV was saying. "It now seems almost certain that the 'brains' behind the Dark Star suicide attack did not participate directly in the assault itself—indeed, when one considers all the covert, organisational activities required to position such a unit for an attack of this nature in the first place, it seems just... utterly incredible ... that they got as far as they did."
"Kim, many of the experts we've heard from tonight have expressed similar disbelief not so much at the nature of the attack itself, but that it could have got as far as it did undetected. Many of them have been questioning the CSA's effectiveness. What questions have you been hearing, and is there any truth to the rumours about an investigation into CSA and other regional and national security procedures in the wake of this unprecedented attack?"
"Su-Li, it's impossible to say at this time. Things are very confused down here ..." On the TV screen, red and blue lights were flashing behind the reporter's position. Engines whined and nearby voices added to the confusion. It made for very good television, Sandy supposed, ignoring the reporter's words as she had come to ignore much of Tanushan news reportage, what little experience she had had of it. But the TV package was much better than the direct net access that TV was always fighting with for viewers. TV packaged information for viewer convenience. Direct access required interactivity, and most viewers lacked the time, expertise or inclination to interact usefully, particularly when something like this was going on. The old medium was alive and well in Tanusha, and doing better by the minute, by all appearances.
Footsteps from the hallway ... she turned, and saw a small, dark-haired woman swagger in, stride adjusted for the weight of the heavy canvas gearbag she had slung over one shoulder.
"Hi-ya," said Lieutenant Rice with forced cheerfulness. Sandy wondered how the woman managed to operate outside of her armour—she was too small for heavy, unsupported armaments. Strength had never been a problem for GIs of any size. Rice dumped the gearbag onto the plush antique sofa. She wore operational gear, fatigue pants and jacket with unit patches. SWAT Four, a prominent shoulder patch read. Others denoting university and training school. A lieutenant's shoulder pips. And a few more assorted patches. Rice appeared to have collected quite a few. She folded her arms and gave Sandy a wry once-over. "So y've been busy, huh?"
"Could say," Sandy replied. "What are you doing here?"
"I've been dragged." With glum exasperation. "Ought to be sleeping with the rest of my guys ... they just pulled me out of the debrief and said they'd like me to give you a rundown ..." A baffled shrug. "So I say 'hey, I'm SWAT, not security', and they say 'tough luck lady', and they give me this bloody great bag of crap, don't even offer to lend me some strapping young hunk to carry the damn thing for me, and here I am."
Sandy's brain remained fixed on 'debriefing'. "You were at the Parliament?"
Rice let out a long, hard sigh.
"That's my job. And a great, wonderful fucking job it is too." Looked her hard in the eye. There was an energy about Rice, Sandy saw. Lively most times. Darkly unhappy right then, and forcing wry humour to cover it. "Lovely mess your friends made."
"They're not my friends."
Rice cocked an eyebrow and nodded acknowledgment.
"I know. Lovely mess you made of them, too."
"Is your team okay?" Sandy asked. If Rice was a good SWAT lieutenant, it would be the only question she truly cared about, at that moment.
"My guys are fine," Rice replied with a hard stare, "but a friend of mine lost three in three seconds, all dead. I knew them all."
"I'm sorry," Sandy said quietly.
"And it really fucking shits me," Rice continued, barely controlling the anger that suddenly writhed to the surface, "because I saw the space on the debrief, I went through about three just like it when we came down on the roof. There were only about fifteen damn GIs left by then ... it could have been me or anyone but now this friend of mine's banging his damn head against the wall thinking how he could have avoided it ..." She caught herself, and exhaled hard. Shrugged. "Anyway." Again fixed Sandy with a firm stare. "We would have lost a hell of a lot more if you hadn't been there. Including the President. They said you got twenty."
Sandy shrugged. "Roughly."
Rice snorted. "So Dr-fucking-Djohan was right, you are a dangerous wench."
"I never claimed otherwise."
"No. No, you didn't, did you. Well fuck it, you're not drugged now, you're not restrained, I'm standing five metres away and I'm still alive. It'll do me."
Her dark eyes were intent with the lingering fire of the day's events. Sandy knew that different people dealt with it in different ways. Rice, it appear
ed, went into energy overload and had trouble calming down. Only she did so now, just a little, as her brain appeared to catch up with what she'd just said. Her eyes narrowed further, looking Sandy up and down. As if only now realising the significance of standing in a room alone with an undrugged, unsecured GI. And realising that only yesterday she'd not have thought it at all prudent.
"So here you are," she stated, recovering some lightness with an effort. "Upright."
"Bother you?" Sandy asked her.
Rice met her gaze. And did not flinch when she held it, unblinking. Which was rare, among straights. And rarer still in these circumstances.
"Not after today," Rice replied.
"And that's why they sent you," Sandy guessed. Having just added that piece for herself. "Because they think I might need a chaperone."
"Oh no," said Rice, "it's far, far worse than that, I'm afraid." She turned and unzipped the canvas bag on the sofa. Pulled out a black, angular firearm—a Chesu PK-7, Sandy saw—and presented it to her, held crosswise in her hands. "You've been appropriated."
Sandy just looked at her. And at the Chesu. The PK-7 was a close quarters model—low on firepower compared to what she was used to, but concealable, compact and efficient. A non-military weapon. The grip was angled towards her invitingly. Circumstances as they were, she wanted to take it. It was logical that she should be armed, after all that had happened. But she did not move.
"What's the deal?" she asked quietly.
"Congress just passed emergency powers," Rice said, folding the weapon to a comfortable hold at her side. "CSA has overriding jurisdiction on just about every security issue going. Priority being on finding who did this and stopping it from happening again. So this is your lucky break, populist politics just went down the disposal and you just got yourself declared a security asset."
"And that means arming me?" She was not at all sure of the implications. The logic made sense. But it was freedom-through-desperation. It was the CSA cutting her restraints with a gun to their head. It was not by their own free will, and she distrusted that entirely. Evidently her suspicion was showing.
Crossover Page 17
