Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  "I can feel a League diatribe coming on," she volunteered dryly, cycling through spectrums to see the patterned distortion caused by a local laser-grid detection system hidden nearby, laid flat barely millimetres above the grass between trees. Easy to spot, if you knew what to look for ... with super-enhanced vision, of course.

  "It is a League advantage," Ramoja said, unperturbed. His methodical approach was all GI, and all military. His voice was melodious, and often thoughtful. His manner was always calm. A more bookish, studious version of herself, she guessed. That was unsettling too. "Less of the old, mythological baggage means a fresher, more realistic view of the universe, and of humans generally. The Federation is always being bound up in cultural mores that are increasingly meaningless in a modern society, whether it's engagement with the Talee or other nearby alien civilisations, or the pursuit of synthetic replication biotech, or the labyrinth of mostly conflicting legislation surrounding the protection of genetic coding data ... the whole Birthfile accreditation system is a bureaucratic nightmare and a security sieve. The Federation will never catch up with the League as long as these kinds of basic progress continue to be held back."

  "Who won the war?" Sandy reminded him.

  "Size is no indication of moral righteousness."

  "Yes it is. It indicates that the vast majority of humanity are not yet ready for the kinds of advances that the League espouses. That's democracy."

  "The League is no part of Federation democracy, what right does the Federation have to impose its will on the League?"

  "Every right, since the League always claims to be acting in the best interests of the species. With a hand on their heart and the anthem playing in the background, a tear of patriotic humanism spilling down each rosy cheek."

  "I can't believe," Ramoja said, fixing her with a hard sideways look, "that you could possibly find yourself identifying with a set of philosophies that actively deny your right to even exist."

  Sandy snorted, running a hand through loose, more-than-regulation-length hair. Beside Ramoja and his African shave-cut, she felt smugly unregulation. She liked it. She felt herself.

  "What do I have to do with it? If a policy's wrong, it's wrong. Where I happen to fit into the equation is irrelevant."

  "You really went Federation?" Eyes narrowed, some of his bookish, distant intellectualism lost for the moment. A military GI once again, blunt and dangerous. "You really switched? Or are you just angry, looking for vengeance?"

  "You think you'd be alive if I were?" Not bothering to look at him and dignify that remark. The flowerbeds beneath the spreading trees to their left held concealed scanners, ankle-level tripwires that deactivated with measured stagger as they approached.

  "I do." With typical military confidence. "You're no better than me. Today proved that."

  "If you're so sure, Major, you've got a problem. Yes, I went Federation. I'd been leaning that way for a long time. It took drastic circumstances to make me realise it."

  For a moment, Ramoja didn't say anything. The murmur of night traffic was louder, from ground traffic on the front road to the repetitive, drifting whine of aircars overhead, small spots of light moving across the darkened sky, the occasional brighter, faster flash of a lower altitude lane.

  "I know what happened to your team. It was inexcusable, those responsible have been punished." Yeah, right. She was surprised at her own level of cool on the matter. She was not, she knew, over it. She was just in no mood to blow her stack about it. Ramoja would believe what he believed, she knew better than to think a fit of temper could change that where logic had failed. "You have my sympathies."

  "I don't understand," she replied coolly, "how someone who knows what his own side is responsible for, and how little respect they truly have for the artificial lives they've created, could continue to serve so unswervingly."

  "No bureaucratic system is perfect, Captain," Ramoja replied, with cool, effortless efficiency. "As a temporarily assigned recruit of the CSA, you can obviously understand that."

  "The CSA makes honest mistakes, Major. They're caused by too many checks and balances, too much bureaucratic supervision, the usual civilian red tape. It prevents excess. It irritated me at first. But then I realised what it prevents. Far better to have a morally centred gridlock than seamlessly efficient fucking fascist murder."

  Temper again. Where had that come from? Ramoja looked at her, eyes narrowed in direct consideration. She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets, and surveyed the still-distant rear garden wall.

  "You've changed, Captain." With grim, contemplative certainty. Smug prick, Sandy thought. "You are not as your duty reports illustrated. You have less control, certainly for a GI brought up on development tape and instinctive discipline. You are emotional. It clouds your judgment."

  Sandy repressed a smirk. "You're just a walking "android cliche," aren't you?" Shot him a sideways look, and got only blank incompre hension in return. Shook her head in faint disbelief. "It's amazing. You'd scare the shit out of people here. That's the problem with all the bullshit they believe about GIs, all the cliches their bad TV shows and VR games have taught them, they're all frighteningly close to reality. But a lot of cliches are. How d'you know so much about me, anyway? You read up before you came here?"

  "I read my share. Your case is not unknown among League hierarchy, Captain."

  No, she bet it wasn't. Ramoja had a knack for understatement, it seemed.

  "You're ISO, aren't you?" It suddenly fit. She stopped as they reached the decorative little stream that cut through the springily even lawn, bubbling over strategically placed rocks and miniature rapids. No frogs, though. Built across a broad river delta, Tanusha was full of frogs. But she couldn't hear them croaking. Maybe all the electronic security scared them away. "This whole thing's ISO. That's why I never knew you existed. That's why you're qualified to do data-raids on civilian targets."

  Ramoja smiled, an ironic twisting of handsome, full lips. "I'm surprised you didn't realise that earlier."

  "Yeah, well, ISO aren't known to trust GIs in ops all too much. Fancy them having their own pet GI, and high-des too. They commission you?"

  Ramoja turned to face her fully, arms folded, frowning at her like he was trying to figure her out.

  "They requested me. Really, Captain, I find your evident distaste for the processes of your own creation quite surprising."

  "League Internal Security Organisation requests a high-designation GI for their own specific purposes, and you don't find that just a little alarming?"

  "Based on your model, Captain, and the remarkable success that you attained."

  Sandy stared at him. Shit. She really wished he hadn't said that.

  "You suggest we're related or something, I'll kick your arse."

  Ramoja smiled. Abruptly charming, in a most handsome, broadfeatured manner.

  "After a sense, Captain, we're all related. I know the ISO quite intimately. I was brought up there, if you like. It is an honourable organisation, with the best interests of the League at heart. They've treated me as nothing less than an equal for all my waking memory."

  Bet they did, Sandy thought, watching his face with expressionless intensity. Taller than her, a clipped, lean shadow in the dark. Dark Star had left her to fend for herself, mostly. She had her team to socialise with, and various straight humans about, whether ship or stationboard, or planetside between tours.

  But the ISO didn't work in combat teams. Individual-oriented organisation, like all Intel. With their own advanced GI. No other GIs to socialise with, just straights. One of the gang. Of course they treated him well ... operationally, if they wanted him to be any use, they didn't have a choice. In Dark Star, she'd tolerated the inevitable few non-GI officers and assorted supervisors who hadn't welcomed her company-she could ignore them if she wished, and go elsewhere. Ramoja hadn't had that option. She could just imagine the instructions before his first days on the job ... "Be nice to the GI, or else." Or else he'll get mad and
kill you. Or become increasingly disillusioned with the entire League ideology, and defect to the Federation.

  Only she'd managed that without excessive ill-treatment, for the most part. So where'd it come from? Why was she here, on this side, and Ramoja, the opposite? What was wrong with him? Or, come to that, with her?

  "The Zaiko Warren," she said, firmly stepping on the turmoil in her brain. "What were you doing there?"

  "You are mistaken, Captain, I was not there."

  "A GI killed a man by the name of Lu Fayao in the Zaiko Warren," Sandy continued impassively. "Lu Fayao was a member of a shadowy Tanushan underground group who indulge in all kinds of illicit information-crime related activities. This group is connected to a hacker named Sai Va, who just happens to be a dedicated anarchist-a common affliction among the underground. Sai Va used League-issue attack codes to infiltrate Lexi Incorporated. Sai Va then passed on the scheduling information from this infiltration to a bunch of radical ideologues called the Human Reclamation Project. They used it to plan and execute an attack upon top Lexi executives. You do understand, Mr. Ramoja, that whichever League agency or operative who allowed Sai Va access to those League-issue attack codes is therefore directly responsible for whatever purposes that information was put to after it was stolen?"

  A calm, expectant look from Ramoja, waiting for her to come to her final point.

  "The League retains many operational activities in Tanusha that the CSA finds greatly concerning," Sandy continued. "Your ties to Tanushan mafia groups and their blackmarket trade in illegal biotech and other information foremost among them. On behalf of the CSA, I'm here to formally request you sever all such ties and contacts, and ask all such groups acting on your behalf or upon the understanding of your future support to cease, and cease immediately-before we have any more explosions or mafia-funded goons running around public areas firing military-grade weapons at anyone who comes into sight."

  "And the League is to blame for the existence of Tanushan mafia?" Ramoja asked mildly. "For the presence of self-styled assassins, who dress and operate in the manner of drug-crazed civilians who play too much combat-VR and watch too much television?"

  "Not for their presence, Mr. Ramoja." Coldly. "For their employment."

  "I assure you, Captain, League operatives would never seek to employ such erratic and unreliable individuals on any matter."

  "Friends of yours did."

  "No friends of mine, Captain. I am a recent arrival here. I did not initiate any activities. I am here to put things right. League operating policy has been less than perfect in the past, I'll warrant. Thus my presence."

  "You're their fix?" Vision locked onto him with deadly intensity. "You're their idea of a problem solver? Jesus ... you transmitted League encryption on an open street near active and operational netmonitoring software. How do you think the GGs found you so fast? How do you think I was tracking you? You don't even understand the basics of a civilian infotech network infrastructure, this is an entirely alien operating environment for you ..."

  "Oh, I knew you would track me." Smiling calmly. "Your patterns were very obvious on the network. I wanted you to catch up." Sandy's gaze remained unwavering and unresponsive. "The mafia-the GGs, as you call them-were a possible nuisance, but I thought it worth the risk. To meet you, Cassandra. Well worth the risk indeed."

  She could feel her stomach tightening. Memory of the bullet strikes of that meeting ... but also the cold, hollow feeling that not everything was as it had previously seemed. Ambassador Yao, so delighted to meet her. His daughter Ying, telling of her father's hopes for the possible return of their runaway GI ... Obviously it had been on the Ambassador's mind a lot, if he had even confided in his daughter about it. The new GI contingent arrived with the new League delegation, sent by a new League administration in power after the new elections that had crushed the old hardliners in a massive landslide. So much new. So much changed since she'd been a soldier of the League armed forces. New hopes and new priorities for a new administration. Loose ends to tie up. Lost sheep to gather back into the flock.

  "I'm never going back," she said softly. "Never."

  "ISO would welcome you, Cassandra," said Ramoja. A soft, comforting note to his voice. "You appear to have shown a real flair for intelligence of late. You need not return to your old post at Dark Star ... special ops alone does appear something of a waste for a creative intellect of your credentials."

  "You put me back in Intel," she said, just as softly, "I'll go through Recruitment back offices with an assault rifle, I guarantee it. Clean out all the human waste your shiny new government didn't have the guts to axe."

  "They are no longer a factor, Cassandra." Eyes narrowing somewhat, despite the conciliatory tone. "Every administration has its factions. Just look at the Callayan Parliament."

  "The Callayan Parliament never murdered my friends."

  "Many of them would like to murder you, given the chance."

  "And my friends here would try and stop them. I have people here who value me for who I am rather than what I am. In the League everyone associated with me has some kind of vested interest or position to protect. No one in the Federation shares responsibility for my existence. In some ways I'm less politicised here than back there. I'm certainly much safer. I don't think you can realise just how many powerful people would want to silence me if I returned unless you've actually served in the frontlines during the war, and know just how much there is to cover up ..."

  "So I've heard speculated before." Ramoja cut her off, his brow furrowed. "I think you'd be surprised at the extent of ISO resources within all branches of the military ..."

  "And what d'you reckon happened to Torres Station? What do your reports tell you?"

  "An unfortunate accident." His frown deepening. "Federation warships blew their own station rather than let us have it, they weren't aware of the civilians still on board."

  "I took that damn station, me and another team under my command. I bet you didn't know that either." No, the look on his face said as much. "I took it with minimal loss on either side. We got the com mand centre and shut down the guard stations which let the ships in. It was a damn pirate raid for the Fourth Fleet, we stole their supplies, then loaded their civvies onto transports for deposit elsewhere while they blew the station. Feddie cruisers were using it for home base from which to raid our shipping through the Batik Corridor. They said they'd get all the civvies off before they blew it, but I thought the cargo manifests didn't add up with the extra supplies they were taking on board-I checked it and they were a full seven thousand people short of what I already knew were on that station. Seven thousand. Just like the Feddie newscasts said, seven thousand civilian deaths. They had the choice between cargo or saving those seven thousand ... they chose the cargo, sealed the exits with all those people still aboard, backed off and blew it just as the Feddie reinforcements came in from jump ... Jump approach is autofire, the Fed captains themselves could never be certain in the reassessment that some of their rounds hadn't mistracked in the confusion immediately after jump. They could never rule out the possibility that they had blown their own station by mistake-that was the Fourth's intention. And, of course, the civvies they had taken on board were no wiser. They couldn't see what was happening, all they knew was they'd come under attack after the undock, the last transport hadn't been able to dock and the station had been hit by Federation fire."

  "Then how do you know?" His dark stare was intense. "You hadn't access to bridge data either, you wouldn't have seen what was going on."

  "I asked the Captain." Meeting his gaze with expressionless certainty. "Carlotta Teig, Captain of Firebird, common ride of mine in the Fourth-fast assault carrier, perfect for Dark Star ops, I'm sure you know it. Ask her when you get back. Tell her I sent you. She won't be surprised. She's a tough, cynical old thing, always told me I was wasted in the military-one more thing she was right on. Sure as hell she wasn't surprised when I went AWOL. You ask her, privately and off
the record. She'll tell you what happened at Torres Station. She nearly resigned herself after that one. She bitched so hard they would have removed her but they didn't want a mutiny on Firebird, she was that popular."

  Ramoja's frown remained. Intent. Troubled. A light breeze shifted the branches about the broad, grassy yard, gentle whispers in the dark. Water bubbled in the landscaped stream, splashing over carefully laid pebbles beneath the ornate, arching footbridge. Something in Ramoja's gaze unsettled her. As if he himself was unsettled. She hadn't expected that at all.

  "What?" she asked him.

  A pause from Ramoja before replying. Then ...

  "Captain Carlotta Teig is dead. Suicide. A few months ago. She overdosed on neuro-enhancement prescription pills, left a suicide note telling of the lack of purpose in her life after the new Expenditures Review Committee announced the decommissioning of Firebird. "

  Sandy stared at the pretty little footbridge for a long moment, nestled among the drooping native willows that swayed in the night-time breeze. Took a deep, slow breath.

  "I'm very sorry," Ramoja said with quiet sincerity. "I know from your review files that the two of you got along. She invited you for dinner and backgammon on occasion." He had done his homework on her if he knew that much. "She wrote in her diary that she thought you yourself were one of the most hopeful, positive things to come from the entire war. She said that you were a clear demonstration of the "ultimate futility of violence." It seemed to me a curious sentiment from one of the League's most accomplished naval captains. I wondered what she meant."

  "She believed in her politics," Sandy said quietly, gazing at the little bridge, peaceful and calm. It helped against the growing pain in her throat. "Not in violence. She always hated the necessity." Another deep breath. She wiped at her eyes. Ramoja watched in sombre curiosity. "She meant that the best weapon is intelligence. Intelligence with which to kill the enemy. But my intelligence made me wonder if I should be befriending them instead. She thought that was wonderful. Said it gave her hope for the universe."