Because FedInt had been around a long time, came the obvious reply. All through the war. FedInt had even used GIs, granted them by Takewashi for one, experimentals he simply wanted to see granted life when his own authorities refused to allow it. FedInt had done deals and dirty tricks, including with people in the League. Former League President Balasingham had been involved in a lot of these old games, and certainly FedInt had dealings with him and his agents. Some said that over a thirty-year war, the stalemate had begun to drag on both sides, leading to a lot of backdoor conversations about who might concede what, if some theoretical deal could be reached. Many had agreed, for a long time, that a military solution was impossible. And then League had begun to lose, changing everyone’s minds. But not before a lot of secret exchanges, carried out by Intel organisations of both sides, that could conceivably have gotten various leaders executed for treason.
Secrets big enough to kill an entire moon to cover up? League had been keeping one damn big secret—that synthetic humanity, the signature achievement of League independence and free thought, had actually come from the Talee. It undermined all League pride and credibility on issues they’d gone to war over and lost millions of lives . . . enough that they’d tried to nuke Droze rather than let the secret get out. That, and the other secret, of how all League was now going nuts, thanks to the widespread use of that technology in uplinks that they didn’t truly understand.
It all seemed to fit. And now the League GI told them it was FedInt behind Cresta’s destruction. Or told Raylee, anyway. Who just happened to be Ari’s girlfriend, and Ari was a somewhat conspiracy-prone guy who hated FedInt with a passion . . .
She connected to Amirah as the flyer bumped through heavy turbulence, grasping a handle above the command chair. “Ami, what’s the weather forecast telling you?”
“Lots of activity,” said Amirah. “Doesn’t look good at all. I think Shin might try something.”
“Against us?”
“We’re making him look bad. We got Takewashi before he could, and if we have sole access to that intel, FedInt’s at a real disadvantage. FedInt has its own politics, Shin’s position won’t be secure if that happens. He has to be under pressure.”
Dammit, thought Sandy. The gnawing discomfort got worse. “Ami, does this seem odd to you? This FedInt killed Cresta theory?”
“Well, it doesn’t really matter if it seems odd, what matters is that it’s credible, and in the absence of more information we have to act on all credible intel.”
“But that’s just the problem, the absence of more information is because the only people who could give us that information are FedInt.”
A short pause from Amirah. “The old man seems pretty sure.”
“Ibrahim’s been burned by FedInt before, he has to defend himself. But that’s the problem, we’re locked into institutional opposition, and after a while we stop thinking. It’s just reflex. And I’ve done that before, Amirah. I did that when I was a soldier in the League. It was just the way things were—League were good, Federation were bad, that was my reality. I don’t want to do that again.”
A longer pause from Amirah. Sandy tightened the seat buckles harder as the turbulence got worse. From the back, one of her troops complained to the pilot.
“It is a bit strange,” Amirah admitted. “I didn’t want to say anything, but it’s a lot of faith to be putting in the word of a League GI, our enemy, who has every reason to lead us astray and make us fight each other.”
“Thanks, Ami,” said Sandy, and reconnected to Rhian on the shuttle. “Hi, Rhi. How’s things?”
“Rolling to berth now,” said Rhian. “Watching FedInt agents pretty close. Sandy, are we sure these are the bad guys?”
“Go on.” Her heart was thumping a little harder now. This had been a theory of hers for a while—GIs not thinking so much like straights. Could this be the moment when it proved not only true, but useful?
“Look, I don’t like FedInt either. But killing Cresta? It’s convenient that we can’t prove it, don’t you think? And we can’t just ask them if they did. We know someone helped PRIDE kill Cresta . . . but maybe PRIDE had inside sources of their own. They’re a League insurgency, insurgents have spies, right? What if they’ve tricked us into suspecting FedInt, and right now we’re falling for it?”
“Are Ari and Vanessa convinced?”
“I think so, yeah. That’s kinda why I didn’t say anything.”
“Yeah,” Sandy said grimly. “That’s becoming a recurring thing.”
She called Poole, on SO5. “Sandy, I don’t like this,” he told her as soon as she raised it. “We’re doing this on the say-so of an ISO agent? You remember what happened the last time you trusted an ISO agent?”
Sandy ran her eye over the listed assets grounded at the spaceport . . . five flyers, all unarmed transport. Three previous shuttles, currently at various stages of refuelling. She was in charge of this part of the operation, but she wasn’t in control—the setup was largely out of her hands, and that made her uneasy.
“Ari,” she tried again, “update please.” No reply. Her link was good. She just wasn’t getting a response. Spaceport control was showing a flyer’s engines running at a nearby hangar. Taxiing, the visual showed. More ground vehicles moving near the shuttle. What the . . . “Tacnet propagation,” she announced as the network went tactical, shutting out all external sources. “We have a situation, I’m not getting a response from inside the shuttle, all units . . .”
“Nothing,” came Arvid Singh from SO2. “I get no response either, something’s going on.”
“SO1 is on fast approach,” said Sandy, sending that uplink signal to her pilot. A sudden crush of Gs as the flyer powered up and turned hard, directly toward the runways. Full weapons came up, an active scan across the entire spaceport . . . Sandy kept a close eye on spaceport defences, remembering an incident seven years ago at Tanusha’s main public spaceport, but FSA had full control of spaceport defences and the networks that controlled access, network superiority being the one thing they were guaranteed of against FedInt. “Amirah, get me Chief Shin, right now.”
They were several kilometres away, and on this angle the shuttle, nosing up to berthing gantries, was blocking their angle on the taxiing flyer. But if she took personal fire control of a missile, she had enough visual sources to loop it in by eye.
“Sandy,” came Arvid, “if they’re making a getaway, they’re using that flyer to do it.”
“I know,” said Sandy, as turbulence tossed them again, harder this time, at speed. “I’m not shooting unless we’re under fire.”
“They incapacitated our agents inside . . .”
“We don’t know that.” Her combat reflex was up but calm. Shin knew he couldn’t win a shooting match here. It was a hostage play, take Takewashi on the flyer, and FSA wouldn’t dare shoot it down. Maybe they’d even take someone else along for safety.
“Cassandra,” Ibrahim cut in, “you are authorised to take all measures to prevent Takewashi falling into sole FedInt custody.”
“Understood.” It was the first time in her life she’d found Ibrahim’s advice unhelpful. The runways were rushing past now, the flyer’s weapons tracking on multiple possibilities. An alternative-access vehicle was pressing its walkway to the shuttle’s opposing side door. They’d take Takewashi off that way, down stairs to the flyer on the tarmac, then back to FedInt HQ in Tanusha. “Amirah, how’s it coming on Chief Shin?”
“No response, Cassandra, I’m trying everything.”
“I could take out that access vehicle?” the pilot suggested.
“Okay, I want everyone to stop making suggestions and do what they’re told,” said Sandy. “Orbit at five hundred, please.”
The flyer went into a low orbit around the shuttle, five hundred meters out. Sandy diverted enough of her attention to the network to get a full picture of FedInt HQ construct, a huge multilayered thing, as all security net constructs were. All barriers were up, gleaming t
rails of data now dead and blocked. Parts of that system had to respond to external signals, that was why hackers existed, and there were few more effective hackers of A-grade code than herself, when she had to. But unlike more subtle hackers, if she broke in, she’d truly break it. Plus it would take her long minutes that she didn’t have.
“This is SO1,” she said, blinking her vision back on the scene before her. “We are deactivating weapons. Pilot, increase orbital diameter to a thousand, thank you.” The pilot was slow responding. She overrode and deactivated the flyer’s weapons for herself, just to make the point.
Baffled silence on the coms. The pilot levelled out to find his new circling perimeter. Ibrahim came back. “Cassandra, please explain your . . .”
A signal from FedInt HQ, via some very fancy relays. “Just shut up for a second,” Sandy told her boss, and connected. “Chief Shin.”
“Cassandra.” Nothing more. No explanation. It was possible she was wrong, it occurred to her. But she didn’t think Shin was suicidal, and if he’d hurt Ari or Vanessa . . .
“Our weapons are off, and you appear to have won this round. Congratulations. I’d like to discuss round two.”
“I’m not sure there will be a round two, Cassandra. FSA’s recent actions suggest them incapable of acting in the Federation’s best interests. I’m sorry to have to do this, but under the circumstances I’ve had little choice. Your agents on the shuttle are fine, they have not been harmed. Please do not pursue Mr Takewashi further. Mr Ranaprasana is expecting your full cooperation on this matter.”
Great. Ranaprasana was backing FedInt. Shin would not use that as a bluff. If Ranaprasana got angry at Shin, Shin was history—FedInt answered to Earth factions above all others.
“Fine,” said Sandy. “We’ll have a little talk with Ranaprasana, about how we’d all be better off if he took his sides before we get to drawing weapons, instead of after.”
“Cassandra, please tell your boss that threatening Ranaprasana would be the worst and last mistake of his career.”
“We’re all well aware of that,” Sandy said calmly. “You have your assets, Chief, and we won’t mess with them. Neither should you forget ours.”
Already the flyer was backing away, engines powering. It climbed rapidly, then tilted and began its flight. SO1 turned and moved into formation alongside, three hundred meters off the flank. Fast, Sandy thought with suitable respect. FedInt had quality people who executed well. She wondered how they’d pulled it off.
“We shall not forget, Cassandra. And FSA are welcome to speak to Mr Takewashi once we have finished questioning him ourselves.”
“Oh, he won’t tell you anything,” said Sandy dismissively. “You forget that I’m his baby. He’ll only talk to me.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Federal Intelligence Tanushan Headquarters (FITH-Q in security par-lance) was located in one of Tanusha’s stranger buildings. In the style of a French eighteenth-century chateau, it was originally built with private money as a place of entertainment by business interests and as a six-star hotel for VIPs. But most VIPs, it turned out, liked to stay in Tanusha’s multitude of thriving commercial hubs, not here amidst the leafy, quiet suburbia beside a lovely walking park. The chateau had been used variously since as an art gallery, a museum, and a performing arts school until someone in the Callayan government had offered it to FedInt as a new base following the relocation of Federation government to Callay. They’d been joking, the story went, but FedInt had snapped it up, and occupied it thoroughly the past five years.
Walking from the cruiser, boots crunching on driveway gravel, Sandy had to admit that FedInt had done a very nice job of maintaining the place. The stonework looked old and heavy, though modern laser cutters and robotic construction would have taken a fraction of the time of its predecessors in France. Lights gleamed from old wrought iron lanterns, about which darted a flicker of moths. She trotted up the stone steps, and someone inside opened the heavy wooden door.
The entrance hall sported a black-and-white checkered floor, old furnishings, and chandeliers. Sandy handed over her pistols to the FedInt agents on duty, then followed one’s lead from the anteroom to the main ballroom. Here was a double-arched staircase to die for and some distractingly high-tech desk displays across an open floor, processing a lot of interesting data. Nothing sensitive, Sandy was sure, as she walked down the center aisle. Not with her visiting.
FedInt agents watched her pass. Most here were data processors, like Intel operatives anywhere. Analysts, selected for their attention to detail, ability to work in groups, and tendency to keep their mouths shut when required. At least half, Sandy knew from FSA reports, were from Earth.
Her guide led her up one of the staircases, then down another hall, where open doors showed smaller offices for higher-ranking operatives. Interesting that the doors were all open, Sandy thought—considering FedInt was in the business of secrecy. But then, truly secret meetings could be done uplinked or on VR. Face-to-face time was best for conversation and sharing ideas. The FSA under Ibrahim worked in a similar way.
At the end of the hall was a closed door. The agent knocked and entered. Within was a beautiful room, high-ceilinged with extravagant wall panels, all in eighteenth-century style. Wooden floors, old furnishings, only some framed paintings gave lie to the ancient feel—watercolours of sunrise on a moon mining base, and another of some alien reptilian bird in flight. Sandy thought it must have been quite nice to be noble, and French, in the eighteenth century. Right up until the people who unwillingly gave the nobility all this wealth started chopping their heads off, anyway . . .
Renaldo Takewashi rose from his grand embroidered armchair with difficulty and the help of a cane. He looked no more gaunt and skeletal than when she’d last seen him six years ago, but much weaker all the same. Though maybe that was just the recent travel.
“Cassandra!” he exclaimed in that thin, reedy voice. Narrow-eyed, his scalp close-shaven and pepper-grey, looking every one of his hundred-plus years. “Dear girl, you came. How good of you.”
The other chair was occupied by Chief Shin, immaculate in his dark suit, sipping a drink. Another man in a tuxedo appeared from the adjoining door, through which Sandy could see a bed and possibly a kitchen. VIP accommodation, then. The butler (Sandy thought, never having seen an actual butler before) stood by the door, as Shin also stood.
Sandy went to Takewashi and took his frail hand, wrist draped in purple kimono sleeves. Takewashi smiled at her—at this range like the grin of a corpse. But that was unfair, she told herself. She must try to be fair. Much depended on her being so. Even now, the smile flickered, then abruptly vanished, like the dropping of a mask.
“Cassandra,” he rasped. “You must help. They’re trying to kill me!”
Sandy glanced at Shin. The FedInt Chief was impassive as ever. “I’m sure Chief Shin will do his best to protect you from the League, Mr Takewashi,” she said. “Though his resources are limited, against League GIs.” Drily. “That you helped to build,” she could have added. Doubtless the irony was not appreciated. “I’m quite sure you would be safer with the FSA.”
“Not the League!” the old man hissed. “Well . . . yes, the League, but you can guard me well enough against them.”
“Who then?”
“The Talee!” Sandy blinked. And looked at Shin. Again, there was no response. “The Talee are coming! They may even be here, now! You must have me moved to a more secure location, somewhere without net access, somewhere so hidden not even your top operatives know where it is! Net access is death against them! Death!”
He gasped and regained his balance with a weight on his cane. Sandy grasped his arm to steady him. And regretted it, as Takewashi managed a shaky smile and patted her hand. Sandy felt the slow spread of pins and needles, a flush of cold, creeping dread. She did not like Takewashi. But he was no fool and would not get this worked up over ghosts and demons.
“I will say no more,” he said, and sank back into
his chair. “I cannot talk here. It is too dangerous. Everything net connected, far too dangerous.”
“He told you this?” Sandy asked Shin, her heart thumping in slow acceleration. Combat reflex red-tinged her outer vision, uncertain of just how far to spread. Combat reflex was for immediate threats. What Takewashi was suggesting was . . . existential.
Shin nodded. “And no more. I asked for you.”
Smart move. Sandy nodded, more respect than appreciation. A shift to IR showed Shin’s pulse, hot and thumping somewhat faster than normal. Her vision detected a faint tremble of the hands. Fear.
She took a knee beside Takewashi. It put her eyes on a lower plane, but she did not care. “Renaldo. Why are the Talee trying to kill you?”
He shook his head. “I cannot. This is not the place.”
“Renaldo, I was on Pantala. I saw. I know where we come from.”
Takewashi smiled sadly and reached a gnarled, brown hand to her cheek. “Yes. Sweet child. That is the origin.”
A thousand accusations boiled up. A thousand hatreds. All were irrelevant now.
“So why are the Talee trying to kill you?” she persisted. “Did you steal something? Do something to them? You used their technology to make us, to make GIs. Are they angry?” But how could they be angry, they’d known about it for as long as humans had made GIs, and done nothing, indicating no displeasure.
“Mr Takewashi,” said Shin. Again, Sandy’s hearing registered the faint tremor in his voice. “We have a suitable location for you. Will you discuss it when we get there?”
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