Crossover

by Joel Shepherd

  She gripped the throttle a little more tightly and tried not to think about it lest her worry for Mahud cloud her judgment. Worry was not something that usually afflicted her on a typical op. But this op was far from typical.

  "You think it's possible they might just leave him behind?" came Vanessa's voice suddenly in her ear. "If they're planning on leaving, that is?"

  "Christ almighty," Sandy muttered, "I hope not."

  "But wouldn't that..."

  "If they leave him here, Ricey, it won't be alive. I wasn't supposed to survive my procedure. The League might not mind if the Federation have live GIs running around, but the FIA certainly would. They hate our guts, remember? Meaning GIs generally." A brief silence.

  "Forget I said it," Vanessa said then.

  "Already have." She changed lanes leftwards, ignoring the indignant protests from her navscreen, indicating as she decelerated down a turnoff branch. "Any more ideas on what they're after this morning?"

  "A few," said Ibrahim. "I won't trouble you with them now. Our net is deploying quite nicely—you can access on TacCom QB1358 ...do you need a lead on that? The encryption's very serious" A brief moment's concentration as she slowed to a stop, feet down, waiting at a red light.

  "No, I'm in already." Clear grid-picture of deployed ground units of CSA personnel, in cars mostly. A few aircars, locked into repetitive transit patterns. And the flyers, Eagles One through Four, well above it all, widely dispersed. Even on grid-scan, the city looked as massive as ever. It took a lot of units to do a decent coverage. "That looks like a busy day for you. I'm glad I'm not coordinating that lot. My response trajectories tend to go through things instead of around them."

  "On this occasion," Ibrahim said mildly, "please refrain."

  Sandy nearly smiled.

  "I'll try." Green light and she squeezed the throttle, curved right and under the freeway bridge, quickly accelerating down the empty road ahead. Even then, buffers curbed the power-application somewhat. She shook her head in mild irritation ... the bike would be lots of fun without those damn buffers. After a lifetime of soldiering, she was sick to death of pointless rules and restrictions. But then again, she thought, maybe she'd never liked them in the first place. Maybe that was why she was here now in Tanusha and not back in the League, hunkered in some carrier's gut, cleaning her weapons.

  "The traffic's going to get heavy in a few hours," Ibrahim said. "Chances are that if a move's being made, it'll be before or after rush hour."

  "More traffic will cover their movements," Sandy disagreed. The road was now a tree-lined thoroughfare, shops and sidewalks along both sides. She kept the bike to the suddenly lowered 60 kph buffer limit. Everything looked peaceful beneath the pale streetlight. Here and there were joggers, early risers. Past an open park where some martial arts types were already practising.

  "True. We'll keep an open mind. Tell us when you make contact."

  "Will do. Ricey, you there?"

  "I'm here," came Vanessa's voice.

  "What's the latest on the Berndt people?" Berndt was the district in which the recently devastated mall was located. It was on the news.

  "Still no personnel records. It's pretty clear they're offworlders. Beyond that, there's nothing that I haven't already told you."

  "Were they good?" Decelerating again, indicating for a right turn.

  "I'm not sure, I'm not sure that they'd have done better if they were better soldiers ...it wasn't much of a situation for them, surprised like that and unarmoured against a SWAT team"

  "Yeah." She took the turn and cruised at a gentle fifty up the residential roadway. Quiet houses, close and comfortable, nestled among the many trees. Behind the many blank windows, ordinary Tanushans were sleeping. "Considering what hot shit you are as a commander, did you meet much resistance?"

  "Plenty. I can't tell you how goddamn lucky we were."

  "Then they were good. The bad ones just dissolve." A brief silence. It seemed to Sandy an incongruous conversation, cruising up this dark, leafy back street between darkened houses. Soon the families would be rising, children coming out to play on the first day of weekend, the street filling with comfortable civilian life. No inkling of the woman who had cruised this way only hours before on her motorbike, who she was or what she'd done.

  "Are you okay?" she asked then. As gently as she knew how. There was no simple way to speak of such things. No guaranteed approach. Nothing that would change the awful reality.

  "Yeah," came the quiet, reluctant response. "I'm okay at the moment, the adrenalin's still up thanks to your buddy. It's not like I'm feeling sorry for those pricks or anything."

  "That's good. A bit of vicious, homicidal rage can be a healthy thing, sometimes. Civilians never understand that."

  "A bit of your flippant irony doesn't go astray either, I'm sure." Sandy smiled within her helmet. Vanessa's character observations seemed part curiosity, part affection and part defence mechanism. She had an interesting habit of turning words back against the speaker.

  It needed, Sandy realised, a degree of emotional perceptiveness that she herself lacked. Perhaps it was because Vanessa was a civilian. Perhaps because she was a straight. And perhaps her bisexuality gave further insights, created certain multi-levelled interactions that others would not have ... it was a puzzle. It was the kind of puzzle she found so stimulating, here among civilians.

  "It sure beats staying entirely serious," she agreed, slowing for a stop sign. Navcomp blinked green, the central grid reading no cross-traffic and the buffers allowed her to accelerate once more.

  "Hey, that's my general philosophy of life," Vanessa told her. "See, I told you we had things in common."

  "Stop hitting on me, Vanessa. It's very distracting."

  Vanessa laughed.

  "The com guy's giving me the windup, Sandy ...I forget his name, he's some dweeby little redhead with a bad complexion. I never liked him." Sandy grinned, almost able to hear the indignation at the other end. Evidently she knew him well. "I'll get back to you"

  "Do that, Ricey. Ciao." The link went dead and there was only the muffled hum of the Prabati's engine, a smooth vibration beneath her. The road ahead was dark and silent. But she no longer felt alone.

  * * * *

  Vanessa Rice spared Agent Andy McAllister a sly sideways grin as the connection went dead, grasping the handhold by Chow's navcomp terminal as the flyer gave a slight shudder and sway. McAllister scowled, pretending to be angry. Her gaze shifted across to Gabriella Razo, on the neighbouring terminal. Razo had been looking more and more incredulous as the conversation had progressed. Not, Vanessa thought, a big GI fan. Or she hadn't thought she was.

  "Stop thinking 'cold heartless machine' Gabby, and start thinking 'cool, sexy chick'." Smiling as Razo's expression remained blank. "She's a nice girl, you'd like her."

  Razo gave her an intensely dubious look and concentrated once more upon her monitor.

  Chapter 16

  The underground car park lights shed an artificial glare from the broad, featureless ceiling. Mahud walked soundlessly, eyes scanning. Level 14 was a long way down. On this Saturday evening it was deserted. Nearly.

  There was a van in a park beside the exit ramp. Navy blue. The size made sense. He walked toward it, hands in the pockets of his sports jacket, fingers wrapped about the handle of his pistol. The van's suspension was compressed a little. There were heat readings from inside. Multiple sources, he guessed, striding quickly the last several steps, and recognising the man in the driver's seat, past the darkened tinting. Pham, a tall Vietnamese, watching his approach. He slid the side door open and climbed m.

  Six of the usual ten were there, plus Pham in the front. They paused in their serious conversation, looking. Mahud dropped himself into an available seat behind the driver, settled sideways with his legs extended, watching the meeting. The four men and two women went back to their discussion. Different from before, Mahud knew. They did not look at him, but they were aware. They always had been
. So many weeks with these people and still they looked at him like ... what was Sandy's expression? Something the cat dragged in? Mahud had never seen a cat, but he got the idea.

  "Where's Shimakov?" he thought to ask Pham in the front seat, as the discussion continued behind. Tactical details. Frequencies, barrier protections. It always changed. The corporate encryption protected them from government detection mostly, but things were serious now, and they were taking no chances.

  "Coming," replied Pham. It was about as much as Pham ever said to him. His companions weren't much better. Mahud watched them through half-lidded eyes. Sandy, he knew, had some success at reading stress levels on infrared, watching the bloodflow. He himself was not so accomplished. But he could hear the seriousness of their conversation, and see the hardness of their expressions.

  "What's the com specs on the van?" he asked Pham, unperturbed by the lack of enthusiasm. He knew that Sandy worried about that too, wondering how he'd managed for so long serving with these FIA types who so obviously disliked him and all that he was. The thought nearly made him smile. Sandy worried about so many things. Truth was, he didn't care. Sandy had always needed a degree of emotional contact. Mahud only cared that those he liked thought well of him. These people ... well, at another time, in another place, they would be his enemies. He had killed FIA before. The last thing he wanted was their friendship. He just did the job, as he'd always done, and so long as the FIA did their bit, all was well.

  Pham reeled off a technical answer and Mahud accessed the van's CPU. Read sensory equipment, displays, reception, frequency coding ... it was standard civilian, hired as always under an encrypted alias, briefly modified with their mobile add-ons. It was not particularly sensitive to reception. If he was sensible, he could interface and not be detected. He did so, and received an answering click ... familiar frequency, familiar connection ...

  "Mahud, what's going on? I'm getting bored." Mahud kept any trace of a smile off his face with an effort.

  "I'm in a van, Cap. In an underground car park beneath that big main tower in middle-Tarutao." He leaned his head back against the side window, legs crossed and extended, pretending to rest as he waited. The conversation continued, unaware. "It's a Hindustan Caprice, twelve-seater in the back, navy blue with adjustable window tint. Eight of the regular eleven are here, including me. We're waiting on Shimakov"

  "Thank you very much," Sandy pronounced. "You'll make an undercover man yet. Any idea of a target?"

  "They don't give me the time of day, Cap. I reckon I'll find out when I get there. There's at least one more van, maybe two ... twenty-five including me, remember? They'll be out there somewhere."

  "Thank you for jogging my horribly defective memory Mr General Sir." The sarcasm was dripping, even in silent-acoustic. Mahud kept the twitch from his lips with difficulty. "Any hint you might get as to a location would be lovely. You wouldn't believe just how big this city looks until you have to pinpoint a single person or vehicle—it's like finding a grain of sand on a beach. But don't do too much. If you give yourself away it's all worth nothing, you got that?"

  "Yes, Almighty One." Chortling laughter from the other end. No other GI made a sound like that. God she was weird. "How many of you guys are out there?"

  "You mean CSA?"

  "Yeah."

  "Heaps. Not so many that they stand out among 57 million people, but enough."

  "And what about that political stuff? Guderjaal and Dali, you heard anything about that yet?"

  A brief, almost imperceptible pause.

  "No, I wouldn't be worrying about that. I haven't heard anything, and there's nothing we can do about it anyway."

  They'd spoken about it before, briefly. Sandy, Mahud gathered, had made friends with one of the CSA's best SWAT commanders. She had told Sandy that things were happening at the top level, where command decisions were being made. The President had been removed, but now it looked like the rules that governed that removal might have been broken. And it was up to Supreme Court Justice Guderjaal, to decide.

  Exactly why Guderjaal had this power, Mahud didn't know. Who was in charge in this stupid city, anyway? What was wrong with having just one commander? Why did they have to spread it out between President, Supreme Court and Governor? He supposed he ought to have figured this one out by now—it had been the raid he had planned, after all, that had given the Governor the excuse to kick out the President. There were rules for it, apparently. But hadn't Guderjaal approved of it? Guderjaal seemed to be the referee here. So how was he going to change his mind now without feeling stupid? And what the hell was it with a system where the right thing became the wrong thing depending upon the circumstances?

  God, it was a nightmare. But it worried him all the same ... if he and Sandy were relying on CSA people, who were the CSA taking orders from if their leadership was all over the place like this? It was the number one priority in combat operations—the chain of command had to be absolutely transparent and clear-cut. Mahud knew he could always put his life in Sandy's hands. But the CSA? Sandy had said Ibrahim was on their side, but wasn't he supposed to be taking orders from Dali? What if someone removed Ibrahim? Put a friend of Dali's in his place? Would Sandy and her SWAT commander friend be forced to choose whether to obey the new CSA Director or not? And how many CSA people would go with them?

  He suspected that Sandy did not think him capable of such analysis. That she thought he did not realise what any of it meant. And perhaps she was right ... he knew that Sandy's knowledge was much more extensive than his own. But he knew enough for it to worry him. Enough to see the potential flaws and problems in the operation. His commanders hadn't assigned him to this mission for nothing—of the remaining members of their team, he was comfortably their best tactical operator. He did not volunteer as much to Sandy, though. It had been she, after all, who had taught him the first rule of operational engagement—if it's not helpful, don't do it.

  "Got that," he told her. "You just be a bit careful, Cap. I don't reckon my positions that much more dangerous than yours."

  "I bloody well do, genius. You waste time worrying about me. I'll kick your ass."

  "Got that too," Mahud replied, repressing another smile. "I'll tell you when we start moving. Out."

  * * * *

  Tarutao. Sandy uplinked to a regional directory, scanning the street grid as the freeway lights flashed past on either side. Dark again now. An entire day, cruising and waiting, with pauses for meals at roadside vendors. There had been no news of a decision from Guderjaal. And little more from Mahud, who had been concerned that his apartment was bugged. The entire thing was getting on her nerves.

  Tarutao was near enough. There was no great rush. She cruised comfortably in the left lane, settled in her slot behind a clustered string of traffic, nose to bumper, nine cars in a line with barely a metre between them. Cars moved in such coordinated groups here on the freeways. Slipstreaming saved power, so the traffic grid stacked cars in nose-to-tail lines, coasting on autopilot. Crouched comfortably low over her Prabati, she barely needed two-thirds of the usual throttle to keep pace, and the slipstream pressure felt noticeably reduced. A turnoff approached and a car in the middle of the group slid sideways toward the exit. The group closed up, reforming a single, smooth line at 140 kph.

  She wished, as she scanned the directory display through the moving graphics on her visor, that they could just send in the cavalry now and grab that van in the parking lot. But as Mahud had said, there were twenty-four of them besides himself, and there would be other vans or cars. And Shimakov was not there. He was the one they wanted, more than anything. He, more than anyone, would know the extent of League/FIA biotech infiltration in Tanusha. He would know how far the cancer had spread.

  It was possible they would just make a run for it. There would be a pickup zone somewhere outside of Tanusha. Anywhere on the entire planet would do. The Plexus grid coverage, she'd gathered from further discussion with Ibrahim, was less than perfect to begin with, bei
ng a civilian system designed to track commercial freight. It was also designed with established space lanes in mind. Coverage of the planetary surface itself was limited, thanks partly to Tanusha's limited number of population centres from which shuttles would normally launch, and partly to the fact that the system faced mainly outward, away from the planet.

  Besides all of which, a planet was a very, very big place. Citysiders, used to universal sensory coverage of their entire environment, sometimes forgot just how big. The less-than-perfect grid had been compromised once. It would be folly to assume they had eliminated all means of further infiltration. A ship, a fast, silent ship, could very conceivably get close enough to launch a shuttle pickup, and get away again, mostly undetected. In all likelihood, such a ship would be in-system now, invisible to all scanners. Sandy knew it was possible. She'd done it herself more times than she could remember. Provided the sensor grid was compromised ... nothing to it.

  Once the FIA got outside of Tanusha and into the vast Callayan wilderness, they would vanish. Another fact sometimes very easy for Tanushans to forget—most of Callay was utterly uninhabited. To sweep an entire planet, and guard against a covert pickup when the security grid was ineffective ... both were difficult tasks, to say the least. Particularly against this level of expertise. And no one knew what aces Dali and friends still held. The only way to make certain of a capture was to grab them here, inside the city.

  Sandy's navscreen flashed, an icon glowing on her visor. There was a vehicle moving into position behind her, joining the slipstream. Sandy indicated, received a clearance, and slid out into the middle lane as the car moved up behind. Wind roared at her arms and shoulders, and she let it slow her down, then eased into place behind the new arrival, rejoining the convoy. More hassle with motorcycles—they broke up the slipstreaming effect created by cars, and not being connected to Central Control there was a risk of collision. Cycles were compelled by law to stay at the rear, and the fines for doing otherwise were harsh.