Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  Long-suppressed memories came rushing to the surface. Late-shift meals in Teig's quarters, a glass of whisky for the Captain, tea for herself-whisky did nothing for her. "My condolences," Teig had said upon hearing that, and meant it. Ship smells, metal and synthetics, dull-smelling air from the purifiers. The comfortable, familiar rustle of jumpsuit fatigues. Sparse furnishings, a complete lack of clutter, all loose items locked away in case of sudden manoeuvrings. The clank and whine of cylinder rotation, the gravity that kept them seated.

  Discussions of politics. Economics. The bread and butter of what the fighting was all about. Teig was committed passionately to the League cause, whatever her distaste for some of the methods. Sandy herself, the Captain had told her, was reason enough to believe the League position on artificial humanity was sound-far from the old fears of artificial intelligences turning on their creators, Sandy's greater intelligence increased her degree of emotional attachment and commitment. The irony, Teig had said, was that in their search to create a more lethal killing machine, League bio-engineers had made her less dangerous, not more so. A machine could kill innocents and feel no remorse. A greater, more developed intellect would agonise about whether to pull the trigger-morality was nothing if not a higher intellectual function. Sandy herself hadn't been all too sure of the rationale behind the argument, having read a great deal about certain highly intelligent tyrants in past human history, but she was willing to concede the Captain's basic point, if only to make herself feel better.

  What had happened to Sandy's team must have hit Teig hard also, when she heard. She'd never had a chance to talk to her before leaving. Leaving had been a fast decision, a spur-of-the-moment thing. Just a fake ID with some fancy hack-work to get her a spot on an outgoing freighter from G-4 station in Argonis orbit. By the time the overstretched, under-manned staff at that chaotic base station realised she was missing, the freighter had already jumped, and there was no way of telling if she'd actually been on it, so many freighters had been coming and going in those last, desperate, chaotic months before the final election, and the peace treaty that had immediately followed the old administration's overthrow. The battered military infrastructure had been struggling under impossible resource demands, plummeting budgets, horrendous periphery casualties due to the newly aggressive Federation assault squadrons having perfected decimating system strikes that left League shipping and system infrastructural facilities smashed and defenceless. There was no hope in hell that anyone was going to be able to trace the whereabouts of one maybe-AWOL GI who was awfully good at forging electronic credentials for whatever purpose she required. And who had technical skills that made her an automatic selection for any merchant's crew in need of an extra specialist or two ... and in those times, that meant everyone, personnel were abandoning posts to see to their families in the crisis and there weren't enough hands to go around. She'd just vanished. And of those she'd left behind ... several might possibly have taken it hard. Teig had been one.

  But hard enough to suicide? No chance. Teig had a family she'd been greatly looking forward to seeing again. Teig had wanted to go to a rock concert again-live, loud and sweaty-she'd talked about it often. Teig would have been happy for her, getting out and off on her own while the whole marvellous, glorious League system imploded like a collapsing neutron star behind her. Teig knew damn well she'd head to the Federation. But she doubted greatly that that explained Teig's death. No. Far more likely it was Torres Station and a few other such incidents, and threats of review before newly appointed investigatory committees established under the new administration. Certain folks in the old administration would have felt mighty threatened by such a prospect. Dear God. Now ... now, of all times, she wanted to kill someone. She had a pretty fair idea she knew who.

  "If she was going to kill herself," Sandy said quietly, "she'd have blown her brains out. Pills were not her style." And turned a dampeyed, burning stare at Ramoja. "Neither was suicide. There's no fucking way, Ramoja. No fucking way. You know that, don't you?"

  "It was mentioned as a possibility," Ramoja replied sombrely. "Things in the last year have been crazy. Everything's changed, from the economy to the administration. It's been chaos, and many investigations have been launched. Intelligence and law enforcement resources have been severely stretched. Not all investigations begun have yet been completed."

  "If you need anything. Anything. You come ask me. I'll give you anything you need to get the fuckers who killed her. Or any other similar matter you have on file. You say the ISO's improved ... you do this, you damn well prove it to me, nail these scum to the wall. Hard."

  "Madam," Ramoja said with all seriousness, "it would be my great pleasure." Their stares locked. He seemed sincere, Sandy reckoned. Greatly so. "Cassandra, the war has ended. It allowed much to develop within the bureaucracies that was not desirable, most of it kept from public view by wartime security restrictions. But there is a new administration in power now. Things are not perfect, it will be a long time until they are, if ever. But the steps are being taken, and the ISO is stepping alongside. On the civilian, democratic side. You must believe me on that."

  "Surely you didn't come all this way just for me. What did you expect to find when you arrived here? What was your mission?"

  "To help put things right." Sandy just looked at him, unimpressed by such cryptic utterances. He took a breath. "I certainly hoped not to find that unauthorised parties had been allowed access to classified League attack codes. We are in the process of tracing the parties involved. The leak will be plugged, I assure you."

  That was the raid. Sal Va's accomplices. Tracking him, and tracking who'd given him those codes. She brushed loose hair from her brow as a light gust caught at it, her gaze unwavering.

  "Lu Fayao was a Tanushan citizen," she said. "A criminal, perhaps, but not a convicted one. His death qualifies as murder. Surely you realise that."

  "Prove that I was there," Ramoja replied-a certain, quiet challenge. "Prove that it wasn't self defence. Prove that the perpetrator wasn't under orders. Prove that in the grand scheme of events currently under way in this city, one minor criminal's death really matters. Shutting down such dangerous leaks will save lives. The choice is obvious. And diplomatic immunity still applies, as it does for all the other hundreds of official representatives from various other Federation worlds and administrations who are currently engaged in bilateral or multilateral negotiations that could easily result in far more deaths than one single disruptive underworld influence."

  It was as good as an admission. Probably he knew that any recordings she made would be of little legal use in a court, given her presently dubious legal status with the CSA. And diplomatic immunity meant it wouldn't get to court even if she was right.

  And the message was clear and straightforward enough-League resources had been used in an attempt to kill people on that boat. The League resented being implicated for something it had never condoned. The League meant to demonstrate to various wayward Tanushan groups how dangerous it was to make them angry. If only, Sandy thought sourly, they hadn't established so many dubious connections with so many of these dubious groups in the first place as an article of League foreign policy.

  Former foreign policy, Ramoja insisted. Did that mean that the entire events of last month were not approved by the current League administration? The temporary removal of the Callayan President from office following the attempt upon her life? She wasn't willing to bet on it. Biotech infiltration into the Federation private sector was one of those peripheral activities that no League government liked to associate itself with directly. But that did not mean they didn't know it was going on ... just that they'd failed to take steps to stop it, or moderate the implementation. Individual League field agency commanders, usually ideological extremists, had the final say. And the glimpses of potential profits involved in the new technologies now drove Tanushan BT corporations to press for independence from the Federation, and freedom from those restrictive, profit-squeezi
ng antiBT regulations. Potential profit determined political ideology. Ideological determinism. League foreign policy at work.

  That it had necessitated cutting her open on an operating table while she'd been awake and screaming ... a small price to pay for the future progress and ideological stability of the human species. The needs of the many, the line went, outweighed the needs of the few.

  It had taken many years for Sandy to learn to distrust such logic. The many were the few, after all, only multiplied. And if a civilisation could not even guarantee the rights of the few, the rights of the many were surely beyond their grasp.

  A familiar sound interrupted her next question. A sharp, distant echo. Again, and once more ... the same sound, deflected off multiple highrises. Thump. And another ... Explosion. Perhaps fifteen kilometres off, maybe more. She and Ramoja stared at each other for a moment, with knowing recognition ... Sandy uplinked at rapid speed, and found ... Junshi. She hadn't realised it'd been that close. The hostage drama. Vanessa. Shit.

  "Offensive," said Ramoja, his eyes distant. Concentrating. "Penetration explosive. Probably they took out a wall."

  Several walls, ceilings, and probably floors too, with Vanessa in charge. She didn't do things by halves.

  "I've gotta go." Quietly. "I'll speak with you later."

  "Captain ..." Ramoja frowned in surprise. "... we have much to

  talk about yet, I was hoping to ask you about ..."

  "Plenty of time later," Sandy replied, turning and striding back toward the brightly lit rear verandah, and the guards on ready-standby about the railings and parked cars at the rear. Ramoja accompanied her, matching her pace. She felt suddenly tight, tense and claustrophobic. Scared. She had to get over there. "Please don't venture outside of these premises more than necessary, for everyone's benefit."

  "It rarely proves necessary." Still frowning, with evident puzzlement. "You are leaving because of the hostage drama? They were always going to attack, Cassandra, and most likely at night. The hijackers are a most disagreeable sect, something religious, I forget the name. Probably your CSA has put their best SWAT commander onto the job. From what I've heard of local SWAT, he should be perfectly adequate. I don't understand why you must leave now."

  "No," Sandy muttered, striding faster toward the verandah. The tightness in her stomach pulled on recent wounds, a painful cramping. "No, I don't imagine you would." And realised something in a sudden shock, and turned on him forcefully ...

  "Chu! Is Chu still alive? Do you know where she is?"

  Ramoja looked totally blank for a moment. Then recalling ...

  "Rhian Chu, your old Dark Star comrade?"

  "Yes!" With agonised impatience, heart beating hard against her ribcage ...

  "I'm sorry, Cassandra ... I don't know." Helplessly, alarmed at her evident distress. "Honestly, I don't ... those elements that took in the survivors of your unit were among the first to technically "disappear" when everything started collapsing in those final days ... I just don't know. She might be alive, but I've no way of telling."

  A new sound reached her maximised hearing, a faint, drifting reverberation on the cool breeze ... weapons fire, light and percussive. Lots of it. She turned and ran.

  fie eastern border road along Junshi Park was a mass of cluttered emergency vehicles, tracer-lights and clustered, sheltered personnel. Sandy halted her Prabati before the roadblock and flashed her ID at the policewoman ... got a somewhat dubious look from the cop, then a signal to pull the barrier aside. Simple metal barriers, Sandy noted, as used in road construction-the police were unused to this sort of thing, and had no more specialised equipment. She repocketed her ID and nudged the throttle, the Prabati accelerating smoothly away and up the main, six-lane road toward the chaos ahead.

  Firetrucks, police cars, equipment vans and control vehicles blocked the road several hundred metres further on, the odd civilian cruiser dispersed among the ground vehicles. Toward the perimeter of those sat several aircars, sleek lines with bulbous nose and rear field-gens, and a single hulking, broad-shouldered flyer, thrusters angled down at the road surface. She sped down the empty stretch of open lanes with the forethought of someone who knew the precise meaning of "field of fire" first-hand. Applied brakes as she hit two hundred kph, coming to a sharp, nose-standing halt by the flyer's broad, armoured side. Stood the bike, deactivated the engine and racked the helmet, sparing a skyward glance at the humming, whining reverberations that hovered about the site overhead ... several aircars that her Ops-site active uplink tagged as CSA surveillance, and a circling flyer in orbit several kilometres out-SWAT backup, Team Six-running lights off and barely visible on normal light. Traffic Central had rerouted all civilian air traffic out to a kilometre. There were now many grounded vehicles within the exclusion perimeter that had been stuck there for half the day ... doubtless their drivers weren't happy about it.

  She stretched briefly, arms overhead, trying to loosen her shoulders and back, irritated at how fast she was stiffening up. Her stomach hurt when she tensed.

  Beyond the wrought-iron fence around Junshi Park on the right, IR vision caught emergency personnel moving in the dark through the greenery, sweeping to keep it clear. CSA uplink showed the whole park was off limits ... big place to cordon off, she'd walked through Junshi Park, it was broad and beautiful, only a half hour's run from home.

  Gave arms and legs a final shake to get the remaining kinks out, and ran quickly to the first firetruck, then on through the vehicles beyond, up onto the road verge to give waiting vehicles a wide berthalong with the various uniformed and plain-clothed officers, agents and public services officials crouched and waiting behind their cars. All lights off, she was pleased to see ... there'd been a worrying habit of leaving emergency lights flashing at such occurrences, for reasons she knew not, all it did was interfere with surveillance gear and draw fire. But there were far too many people here, she reckoned, dodging along the verge for some room-too many spectators, too many officials come to survey the action, too many pointless suits taking notes and sipping tea.

  Then the building came into view past the nearside obstruction, and she ducked left and halted behind a police car bonnet, crouched more to remain inconspicuous than for protection. They were not sure about the nearer building, she'd gathered, and the regular cops had volunteered to sweep it floor by floor ... not strictly their job, but there simply was not the personnel to do it full kit. Thus the blockade stretching far down Park Street, beyond the bend, although the affected address, number 214, was out of view. There had been numerous shots fired at police in the opening stages, writing off several vehicles, and no one was taking chances. No one had been hit, though. It told her something about the calibre of terrorist they were dealing with, and their weapons.

  Number 214 was billowing smoke along the front half of its top storey, where the Roads and Safety Branch of the Department of Central Services was located. Why the Human Salvation Jihad had targeted Roads and Safety was anyone's guess. Probably because they were so inoffensive no one would ever have suspected them a target, and security was lax. She scanned full-spectrum through the smoke and darkness ... plenty of broken windows on the top two levels, lots of smoke but no fire. Evidently the fire systems were still working. OSA uplink showed the SWAT team inserted, from floor and ceiling simultaneously, large chunks of which were now missing ... yeah, she thought, reckoning over the graphical construct she saw in her mind, that was a Vanessa pattern, wreckage everywhere. Extreme violence, efficiently applied. Ricey would have made an excellent spec ops, on either side of the war. Though she was glad she wasn't.

  The problem now was the bedamned Tanushan architecture. It was one of the first axioms she'd learned upon being assigned to SWAT- Tanushan architects are a pain in the arse for active insertions. Not content with designing a building with square back and sides, manic aestheticism had driven some Tanushan design genius to make 214 Park Street into a "curvaceous rectangular prism," like a box but tapered upward, curved
at the corners and rounded here toward the front where it looked out onto the road, and Junshi Park beyond. Lovely view, nice architecture, it had doubtless made the planners happy. The problem was the natural skylights, multiple-storey central atriums and the adjoining rear connection to 221-the building behind, which was office space blending to a retail/food hall square blending to shopping stretch ... everything blended. Again, pretty and aesthetic. For an armoured assault against well secured, trigger happy defenders, a bloody nightmare. Her present access to the tac-net showed her enough for a very educated guess at the cause of the present hold-up. But not confirmation. She needed to talk to someone.

  And that would be ... she glanced quickly across and noted the biggest truck with the biggest aerial antennae, several importances in uniforms and suits gathered at the rear. Too damn easy to spot. Lucky the terrorists had nothing heavier than rifles ... Damn, it'd be easier if she could just talk to Vanessa direct, but Vanessa was locked into the command circuit and that was tight security, she didn't want to break that and cause alarms, that would be just plain reckless.

  Vanessa had command, SWAT Six supervised from the circling flyer, and from there the relay went back to CSA HQ, and down to this ground station. CSA HQ was always monitored by associated services, they doled out information to whoever they felt needed to know-Parliament, SIB, even news services on rare occasions, though not on this occasion, thank God. If she called HQ, the SIB would monitor it, and that wouldn't be good. She doubted they'd ever suspect she'd be calling from the on-site ground station. And, of course, there were no SIBs actually here. On a field op crawling with sweaty cops and SWAT grunts, heaven forbid.