Crossover

by Joel Shepherd

  Sandy felt cold in a way that had nothing to do with the wind. She never used backup. The team was a single, integrated unit. Backup only divided forces. Backup was what generals did, not special ops unit commanders. In a small team, it didn't make any tactical sense.

  Mahud took a deep breath. "We asked him about it. He said he's Captain now, and we'd never have questioned you about it. Tran says that's because you'd never have ordered us to do it. Pizano says, yeah, that's great Stark, but you ain't Sandy. Stark tells everyone to shut up and obey orders." He shrugged. "So we do. I mean, what are we going to do?" Looking at Sandy questioningly. Faintly desperate.

  Sandy nodded. "Stark was a good officer," she murmured. "You did right." It was only half true. Stark had been an excellent second. She would never have trusted him with command of a unit though, least of all hers. He knew the rulebook backwards, right down to the punctuation, and followed it religiously. She'd worn armour more flexible than Sergei. Every tactical sim she'd played him at, she'd ripped him apart.

  "So," Mahud continued, with difficulty, "me, Chu, Rogers and Pesivich get left behind ... we take the second boat, hold off in support as the first boat goes in ..." He paused, swallowed hard, clearly struggling. Not meeting her eyes.

  "They blew the whole rig, didn't they," Sandy said softly. "That's what the reports said." Mahud nodded.

  "Yeah." A deep breath. Sandy felt the pain in her throat once more, just watching him. His eyes were moist too. "Yeah, it blew real fast. Reactor rig, one small bang, then the fusion went ... thermonuclear. Big Shockwave." He coughed. "Lot of effort for one team."

  "They were worth it," Sandy said quietly. "They were worth a whole fucking station." Mahud nodded. A lone aircar passed, a middle-distant whine above the background hum of city noise. Cruising a high lane, but still some distance below their perch.

  "Shockwave messed us up a bit," he continued then. Gazing out at the city lights spread wide and far below. "The destroyer never came. We found out later they'd blown it. Never saw it ourselves ... our scanners whited out at the blast. This other ship picked us up."

  Sandy felt her jaw tense, a tight, involuntary reaction.

  "What other ship?"

  "League ship. Cruiser, Kali-class. Never found the name. Don't know if it had one. Didn't really care at the time." Sandy knew what that meant.

  "Spook?"

  "Yeah." Mahud nodded absently, face profiled against a gleam of light. Youthful and handsome, like any GI. So familiar. Sandy watched him, entranced. "Big spook. Had military people on board though. Treated us real nice. Gave us tape, said how sorry they were, how they wished they'd only gotten there a bit earlier and maybe saved the destroyer at least... said it was a big Fed trap, the rig was bait, the 'Kowloon' was hiding on the system blindside, timed on high V approach, closed after the rig blew and nailed the destroyer when they tried to run, never had a chance, they'd had it all worked out. But they hadn't managed to target the destroyer and the second boat simultaneously, so they missed us on the first pass and the spook scared them off before they could come about."

  Sandy bit her lip. Wondering how much of that terribly convenient story Mahud had believed. But not wanting to interrupt him now. Wanting the full story before she tried to spring anything onto him.

  "They blew the boat after they picked us up," Mahud continued, "left the wreckage floating. Made it look like a high V strike, used Federate ammo, the works. They said they wanted everyone to think we were all dead. They said they had a special mission for us. Something that'd give us a chance to get back at the Feds, get revenge for Tran and Raju and everyone. Everyone thought that sounded good. Really good.

  "We kept asking them about you, wanting them to get you to join us. They said you were needed where you were. Said we couldn't even send messages, that you had to think we were all dead too, just like everyone else. No one liked that. Chu especially. She called them stupid, said if we were going to do a good job on this we'd need you along with us. She said that if it was that damn important, they ought to put their best leader onto it."

  Sandy listened helplessly. Mahud didn't say anything more, just stared out into the cold, empty night.

  "What happened?" she prompted him softly. Mahud looked at her. She could see the pain in his eyes. The fear. A straight might have missed it, not knowing GIs, and not knowing how the likes of Mahud would hide it. But she could always tell.

  "Cap'n, I didn't know what to do," he whispered. His voice barely carried above the gentle keening of wind through the tower struts. Beneath them, the metal gave a slight shiver, as if at the cold. "They said it was important. I mean, they weren't just officers... they were real, real heavy brass, you know? Suits too, not just soldiers."

  Sandy nodded faintly. The picture was forming very clearly in her head, and it was not a pleasant one. She gazed sadly at Mahud, imagining his confusion. His fear. And damning all her ex so-called superiors to the hottest, nastiest hell that any of the motherworld's ancient cultures had ever devised.

  "Chu got reassigned," Mahud continued, hoarsely. "She was real pissed. I should have said no ... should have protested or something but ... but they were officers! His gaze was almost desperate. "I mean, I could never ... not the way you did, all those times. And I wanted to hurt the Feds. I really missed the guys and they said I was going to be able to really get some payback, and that sounded real good.

  "So we went to some station somewhere, I didn't even know where that was. We trained a lot. There were a bunch of mid-twenties there, nothing worth talking to. We trained with them a lot—me, Rogers and Pesivich. They weren't that bright, but they got it done. Barely. We stayed there a long time. Then this thing came up and we get assigned this mission. This is the big one, they tell us. Payback. Kill the President of Callay. I got command over Rogers and Pesivich, they stayed behind. And the regs, they get stupid-tape. They come out of that and suddenly they're all determined to get themselves killed. That wasn't fun... I mean, they're only regs, but still..."

  He broke off. Sandy let the silence linger for a moment, absorbing that information.

  Then, "So this whole thing ... you're not top chief, right?"

  He shook his head. "No, that's an FIA guy." Looking back to her, unworried at what would have been treason just twenty-four hours earlier. "You know about it, right?"

  "Most, yeah. So you just came down planetside, stayed low, moved around under cover from all these shady types the FIA have in the corporations here, and plan a way to kill the President?"

  "Pretty much. Nearly worked too. Probably would have if I'd been there myself. Damn regs just got themselves smeared."

  "I'm damn glad you weren't there."

  Mahud shrugged. "Yeah, well ... I'm not a suicide type. The brass weren't stupid enough to ask me. And the stupid-tape won't work on me anyway, I'm a 43."

  "That's not what I meant," Sandy said. Mahud looked at her. Her gaze was very firm, very direct. His expression turned puzzled. "I meant that if you'd been on that op I might have ended up killing you too. Or you me."

  Mahud blinked. And stared, eyes suddenly widening. Questioning disbelief. Sandy nodded confirmation. Mahud's eyes grew even wider and his jaw dropped. For a long moment he just sat there, totally rigid.

  "Oh fuck!" he said then loudly. "What the fuck were you doing there?"

  "I was in the President's convoy. Fourth car." A further realisation dawned in Mahud's eyes, horrified.

  "Fourth? You mean after it crashed ...?"

  "I got out. I got free and I got armed. I ran a counter against their sensors. They had me on a lower drugs dose than they thought they had ..."

  "How many'd you get?" With expectant trepidation.

  "Twenty-one." Mahud looked far from surprised. She was almost flattered.

  "Jesus, no wonder it fell apart..." and stared back at her, almost accusatory. "What the hell were you doing in the President's convoy?"

  Sandy cocked her head to one side, calmly surveying him as she
leaned against the railing. Brought up a knee, and hooked her arm around it.

  "Mahud, what do you think I'm doing in Tanusha?" He blinked.

  "You're asking me?" With evident disbelief. Sandy frowned.

  "Who else would I ask?"

  "Why the hell do you think I'm sitting here with you now?" he retorted. "I want to know, Sandy. I want to know why you went AWOL."

  Sandy blinked. Trying to figure exactly what Mahud knew about it all. What he might have been told. What they might have tried to convince him of and what he might have believed. She suddenly wondered at her wisdom in sitting here so unafraid, thinking that nothing had changed between them. She wondered many other things too.

  "What did they tell you?" she asked then. Mahud looked perplexed. For a moment, as he gazed at her, he looked almost ... lost. Confused. Frightened, she guessed, of the possible answers to this most pressing of questions. It could turn his world upside down. It could tear down everything that he had ever believed in. Or perhaps ... perhaps, she thought, that had already happened. Perhaps that had happened when he'd first been told that she'd left the League.

  "I didn't believe them at first," he said. His voice sounded small. "I didn't think you'd ever have done it. But ... it was pretty clear eventually that they weren't kidding. They didn't try to make us hate you or anything, I reckon they knew it'd never happen ... they just said you'd cracked. They said ..." He took a deep breath. "They said that we'd all always known you'd been ... different ... that they'd been scared you were a bit mentally unstable for a while now, and that when you'd been told we were dead, you'd cracked.

  "Hell, they even apologised to us, admitted they were partly to blame ... but they said they hadn't given up on getting you back, once you'd gotten over it..." He stopped, seeing that Sandy was shaking her head.

  "No, Mahud." She looked at him sadly. "I left because they're a pack of lying, murdering bastards. I left because I knew that if I'd stayed, I'd have ended up killing them all, and getting killed in the process."

  Mahud blinked, looking ... blank. Utterly expressionless. Stunned. Sandy folded her other leg beneath her, leaning forward on her upraised knee.

  "Mahud, what's the purpose of this op?"

  "To kill the President," he said faintly.

  Sandy shook her head, eyes narrowed dangerously.

  "No, beyond that. What's the FIA doing here?" No response. "They're covering up the operation they've had here for ages now, the research agreement they've had with Tanushan biotech firms. Why did they leave it so late?"

  Mahud's eyes remained blank. To Sandy's night-adjusted vision, he looked almost pale. GIs rarely looked pale. He shook his head very faintly at her question.

  "Because they knew I was here. Somehow they found out I was coming to Tanusha. The Tanushan project had never had an opportunity to study a live GI before. Regs, maybe, but nothing like me. They left it so late because they wanted to grab me, and study me. And that's what they did." She leaned forward, staring him intently in the eyes. Her voice was hard.

  "That's how I got captured, Mahud. I was free before that, living as a civilian. Your strike on the President gave the Governor an excuse to use his override powers and block all ongoing CSA investigations subject to Federal review, that's all it did. The Governor's in the FIA's pocket, you understand? He's one of them, or as good as. Are you following this? Do you realise what this means?"

  Mahud's eyes reflected only desperation. He shook his head. Sandy leaned forward a little more, her body tense.

  "Mahud, the League doesn't give a stuff about me, about you, about any of us. Maybe they did once, but that all changed when the war started going badly. We became a liability. This whole ridiculous business in this city was about sending me to some Tanushan biotech firm for study, like a lab rat. That's all I meant to them. And as for Sergei's orders and that rig explosion, that was no Federation trap, that was a League trap ... they set us up, Mahud. They set up their own people and they killed us, they killed Tran, they killed Raju ..."

  "No!!" Mahud shouted, leaping to his feet, trembling all over ... Sandy leapt up to, facing him, every muscle tensed. Her eyes were blazing.

  "Why the fuck do you think I left, man?!" she hissed to his face. "Don't you remember me trying to warn you? Don't you remember how upset I was?"

  "Then why didn't you tell us then?"

  "Because you wouldn't have believed me, just like you don't want to believe me now!"

  Mahud spun away, clutching the safety railing. In the clear, cold night came the groaning sound of metal bending.

  "I'm not a traitor, Mahud. And I'm as sane as I ever was, probably more so. You know that I'm not disloyal, you know how much I can be trusted. You know more than anyone left alive. I left the League because the League murdered my friends. I thought they'd murdered all of you. I thought you'd have wanted me to live, that... that you'd have wanted me to be happy, and there were all these things I'd always wanted to see, and I just had to get away. Mahud, I had to leave."

  She broke off, pained and trembling, staring at Mahud's back. Scared of what he might do, or think. That she might have found him, only to lose him again so quickly.

  "Come on, Mahud," she said more quietly. Pleading. "You must have suspected something. That I just happened to be left out of the raid, that they wouldn't tell me anything ... they knew I was suspicious. They knew I wouldn't have bought it. And if I'd started dissenting with you guys around, they couldn't have got rid of me without going through all of you, and that would have been nearly impossible. They wanted to save a few of you for special purposes, Mahud, they wanted the most loyal and dedicated, and that was always you ... Pesivich and Rogers too. And Chu, but Chu couldn't tie her shoelaces without my instruction, so they screwed up there ... and they needed Stark to lead the raid, otherwise they would have kept him too ... but Tran asked too many questions, Raju was too irreverent, Keelo was too arrogant, Neddy was a troublemaker ... it all fits. Doesn't it."

  "No." Mahud turned about. Looked her in the eye. His jaw was tight and he kept his composure with an effort. "I can't believe that. You'll always be Captain to me, Sandy, but... but I can't believe that. I just can't."

  It was more forthright than she'd ever have expected from Mahud. He had grown up a lot since she'd last seen him. Six years old, she remembered him. A year would make a lot of difference. He no longer accepted everything she said as automatic truth. Not without evidence.

  She took off her jacket. Unclipped the shoulder holster and dropped it to the metal floor, pistol heavy. Untucked her shirt and pulled it up over her head. And stood topless before him, cold night wind against her bare skin. Mahud stared at the sharp, red lines about her shoulder joints. At the sharper, thick red mark that encircled her waist, just below her navel.

  She turned about in a slow circle, arms held out from her sides. Showing him the long, red scar up the centre of her spine, where skin had been flayed from bone and muscle, peeled away, leaving all bare beneath. Completed her circle, and stood silently facing him, shirt in hand.

  Mahud wore much the same expression as she had previously seen on civilians confronted suddenly by the death of a loved one. Utterly stricken.

  "This is what your FIA man did to me," she told him quietly. Her voice was trembling. "I'm betting it's the same guy you mentioned. I remember him clearly. They cut me up on a table, Mahud. I was screaming. Even the buffers broke down, I never knew pain until that... that..." She met his eyes, her own vision blurring.

  "Sandy." Mahud reached out a hand to her face, stepping forward. Tears rolled freely down his cheeks. There was terror in his eyes. "Oh God, Sandy. I'm ... I'm so sorry." He was crying, quite openly. Sandy had never seen that before, from a GI other than herself. Chu had shed tears. Mahud was sobbing. "I didn't know, Sandy, I didn't know..."

  He buried his face against her hair, shoulders heaving. Hands reluctant to touch her, as if scared of her offence, or anger ... Sandy put her arms around him and held him tightly.
He hugged her back, sobbing into her hair as the wind blew cold upon her bare skin, and the incision scars throbbed a dull, prickling pain at the temperature change. About them, and from far below, the city murmured.

  Chapter 14

  Sunlight through the window of Mahud's apartment. Sandy lay in bed, gazing out at a bright gleam of light reflecting off a glass tower face. The gentle murmur of morning traffic, muted through the glass.

  She wondered. Wondered what Vanessa was doing. What Neiland would no doubt be scheming. What Judge Guderjaal would do, faced by legal challenge to Dali's actions. And what Dali was up to, pretending to run a government for which he—if she read him correctly—possessed little expertise. Not to mention the totally unexpected and growing political activism from the general Callayan public, which in itself had certain politicians hopping frantically either to define or to obscure their favoured positions ...

  Probably, she thought, she ought to check the news or tune in to some local network connection to see how far the protests had spread during the night, and what the various politicians generally suspected of supporting the Governor were now saying, faced with mounting outrage from the public and thus the populist media. But the bed was comfortable, her eyelids heavy and her mind wandered unavoidably to other, less grave matters.

  She rolled gently onto her other side. Mahud's young, soft features nestled against the pillow. A firm, proportioned build that was very pleasing to her eye. Light brown skin. He looked peaceful. She watched him for a while, head upon the pillow alongside. Thinking everything ... and nothing, a strange, calm confusion of emotion and possibility. His eyes blinked open, gazing directly into hers. Immediately aware and alert, as if he had never been asleep.

  "You're staring at me," he said. Sandy shook her head against the pillow.

  "I'm not staring."

  His lips widened into a slight smile. "What would you call it then?"

  "I wouldn't call it anything. I just like looking at you. You're nice to look at." Mahud's smile grew wider. He put a hand to her side beneath the sheets, feeling down to her hip. Sandy grabbed his arm and rolled over, pulling him up close behind her, the arm coming around her as she desired. Mahud got the idea and pulled her close, a smooth, warm weight pressed up against her bare back. His breath stirred at her hair. Sandy smiled, and gave a long, satisfied sigh.