She peered over Vanessa's shoulder. Open atrium, a hole that descended through all floors from the skylight high above. An aircar passed over, running lights out, a dark shadow against the invisible stars. A static crackle on her inner ear, not the headset ... she accessed, private frequency, away from prying ears.
"What's the plan, hotshot?" Her and Vanessa's secret encryption, her own League issue. In all her memory, she couldn't recall having shared it with anyone outside Dark Star before. "Something cunning and subtle, no doubt?"
"No," she sighed. Leaned her back against the wall and squatted. Rested there for a moment, gazing sightlessly at the opposite wall. "Not even particularly clever. Definitely not subtle. "
"Then why haven't I thought of it?"
"If you possessed my capabilities, you would have. Good commanders only think within their capabilities. "
Silence from Vanessa. To Sandy's side, the armoured firing posture never altered. The faceless armoured visor glared emotionlessly down the extended muzzle of the rifle.
"What's the problem then?" Vanessa missed little. Even on active ops.
"I don't want to do this. " Helplessly. The Sanda braced effortlessly across her knees. Rested the helmet against the wall. It felt strange. She had more hair now, and it sat differently than she remembered.
"Why not? You seriously thought you could serve here with the CSA and SWAT without having to take lives again at some point?"
It was a less comforting response than she'd hoped for. But then, it was stupid to have wanted comforting. She never had before. What was wrong with her? She snorted distastefully and moved to regather herself. Vanessa grabbed her arm, a hard, cool, armoured grip. Dan gerous with any unarmoured person but her.
"Sorry. Didn't mean that. I just saw the guy they shot up there, I'm not feeling real remorseful right now. "
"Me neither. Not like that. It just feels like ... murder."
"You'll feel worse if they kill the kid while we delay. You're that sure it's going to work?" Sandy sighed, and pulled herself painfully to her feet.
"It's me, Ricey. They're already dead."
The three targets were in the level two corridor opposite the atrium. The corridor ran tangentially away from the curved atrium wall-typical geometrically inspired design by a bunch of architects who worked in terror of straight lines and right angles. It was a silly place to get trapped, considering the ballistic possibilities it offered ... one thin, curving wall between half the corridor's length and Vanessa's cannon. With just three people, they lacked the numbers to cover more than the one corridor, or break out with any covering fire. They were stuck, taking periodic potshots blind around the corners from either end.
Sandy stood directly above the corridor, on level three. She could see Vanessa opposite, across the cylindrical hole that pierced all floors from the ceiling down. The railing was a simple metal and glass circle around the perimeter. Several other SWAT troops covered from other floors, and other corridor corners.
Sandy uplinked, and locked into the building's receptor network. League-issue attack software got her fast into the main controls ... augmented troops were stupid to conduct cps in a network-wired environment with civilian-issue uplinks, the naivety amazed her. If you could talk to the network, the network could talk to you. And they'd been talking ... CSA procedure till now had been simply to block them, lacking further applications, but analysis of those outgoing calls had been enough to tell her the type, model and general capabilities of the terrorists' hardware.
She selected a specific program, made a few mental adjustments on internal visual, and applied it to the correct central controls ... several moments of activation, then the building's receptor hardware sent out a basic contact code, with modulations. Searching for connections, as with any incoming call to a building occupant, but this time with more specific focus, according to the parameters she'd fed it. It found the three occupants of the corridor below her, and activated a response sub-freq. Standard call-and-reply. Civilian units did that. Within milliseconds, her software package in central control had read and triangulated the response, and transmitted those locations into her tac-grid picture. She passed it on to Vanessa. The three transmitter locations, precise to the millimetre, in the corridor below. As good as jump up and yell "I'm here!" If you don't shield your com or interface, someone will hack it and use the response for target practice. Amateurs.
"The middle guy will be holding the hostage," Vanessa said. All in a line. It was murder.
"Two rounds in the first interval on my hack," she said, holding up two fingers to Vanessa. Across the open atrium space, Vanessa held up two fingers in reply, then braced the cannon more firmly. It looked about as tall as herself. Without the suit, she'd have barely been able to hold it steady. "Three, two, one, hack. "
Vanessa fired, twice. Explosions ripped the air beneath, and Sandy leapt the balcony, hand gripped on the railing as she fell, swinging her back in. Released and landed amid erupting smoke from Vanessa's concussion rounds, which had ripped through the side of the corridor and detonated in all kinds of smoke and fury. Zero visibility, but her rifle's therma-sensor penetrated easily enough ... she fired three times in quick succession, walked into the blinding smoke, grabbed the limp bundle sprawled upon the floor, grasped him firmly under one arm and walked out backward, just in case. Feeling foolish, because they were dead, but procedures were procedures ... or in her case, perhaps, habits.
Smoke cleared at the atrium opening, and a pair of Vanessa's guys were there to take the kid off her and rush him to the exit. Several others rushed into the corridor from both ends to make certain, and suddenly there was confusion on the network, green lights given and people rushing for all the entrances ... shit, she suddenly felt an urge to be elsewhere, before the whole place became a seething mass of notetaking officialdom, and stunned further because she'd just killed three people and she was totally, utterly horrified at how fucking easy it was, and how calmly she could do such things and immediately start worrying about the bureaucratic aftermath ...
"Sandy." Muffled voice to her side. "You okay?" Stared into the fearsome artificial visage of Hitoru Hiraki, eyes peering past the shielded lenses with evident concern. She realised she was standing dead still amid the drifting smoke from the corridor entrance, rifle limp in one hand ... she checked the safety, and found she'd already applied it, although she couldn't remember doing so. Habits again.
"I'm fine," she said. Her own voice sounded strange to her ears. Tired. Hiraki unhooked his visor with a hiss of disconnecting seals. Sandy undid her helmet strap and stowed the whole thing from the rear collar connection. Then Vanessa was approaching ... it could only be her-the smallest size of suit armour available-lugging the massive weapon over her shoulder which stuck up and threatened to catch on low doorways. That and the "Have a nice day" emblazoned above a smiley face upon her helmet's forehead.
She undid her visor as she walked closer, then unhooked the connections and did the whole helmet, pulled loose and dangling in one hand. Stopped before her. Eyeing her with a reluctant half-twist to her lips, as if in apology. And raised an eyebrow, questioningly. Amazing, Sandy couldn't help thinking, in that dazed, helpless instant, to have someone who knew exactly how she felt. She'd never had that before. Vanessa just knew.
"Too easy," she murmured tiredly. Took a deep breath, and ran a gloved hand through her tousled hair. In the corridors beyond, back toward the main entrance, she could hear people running, the first of the outside commotion headed inward. "Just ... too easy." Her voice nearly broke, although whether from tiredness or something else, she couldn't tell.
"I know," Vanessa said. "But no one else could have done it."
She knew that. Three targets at different ranges-tracked only through the weapons armscomp-and zero visibility ... a standard human nervous system, even severely augmented, did not possess the degree of interface required to have acquired absolute target certainty in the split-second available, with a ho
stage in the middle. They'd been such simple targets. She couldn't possibly have missed. But a straight human would have seen only confused shadows, and would have been unable to translate what armscomp was telling them into reliable targeting information ... she just saw. She was designed for it. It was no effort at all.
"How's the kid?" she asked, abruptly realising. "I didn't have time to look ..."
"Bruised," said Hiraki. "Sharma thinks they might have drugged him, he should be okay." Put a firm, armoured hand on the back of Sandy's neck, and gave her an affirmative shake. "Good job, Sandy. Good job. You saved a life today." And strode off with thudding, armoured steps to see to the clean up.
"For once, he means," Sandy muttered.
"He meant what he said," Vanessa said firmly. Behind her, armed police were running in, taking up positions. Investigators followed, and paramedics rushing stretchers, just in case. If they'd known it was her doing the shooting, they might not have bothered.
"Should have shot to wound," Sandy muttered, watching the circus come swarming in, lugging forensics and sim-scans. "Didn't need to kill them."
Vanessa rolled her eyes. "Jesus, Sandy, cut out the bullshit ... if you'd shot to wound, I'd have to kick you out of the force."
And she was right. Sandy knew that, everyone knew that. It was illegal to shoot to wound in a hostage situation. The lives of hostages were paramount, any actions lessening the hostages' chances of survival were impermissible, including leaving the hostage-takers alive. The other letters Vanessa had emblazoned across an armoured shoulder spelt out the word KISS-Keep It Simple, Stupid. Unnecessary complications increased the chances of failure. That meant killing. But Sandy was feeling sorry for herself.
Dropped her head with a sigh, slumped back against the side wall as the first suits and paras came rushing past, loaded with equipment. Still exasperated, Vanessa took her head with both hands, and planted a firm kiss on her forehead.
"Quit moping, if you hadn't done it I'd have had to." Dropped her hands onto both armoured shoulders, staring her hard in the face. "I already got two myself upstairs. D'you see me crying about it? No. And d'you know why?"
"You're an obsessive, hyperactive morality freak," Sandy murmured, but her heart wasn't in it. Vanessa ignored her.
"Because I'm not such a naive little girl that I've managed to convince myself that these things won't be necessary any longer. I know you got out of the League expecting that everything would be better elsewhere ... I've got news for you, Sandy, it's not. There's bad shit that happens in all corners of the universe, and if you happen to have skills particularly suited to dealing with bad shit, and are employed to use those skills, you can expect to continue seeing your share."
"I'm not a naive little girl." Quietly, as a group trundled a pair of stretchers between them and the atrium railing. "I'm a highly decorated special ops combat veteran."
"You're an ignorant, idealistic, wide-eyed army-bumpkin, Sandy." With ferocious affection, dark eyes intense and narrow. "It's what makes you so irresistibly gorgeous. Now, as your effective CO, I'm ordering you to get your cute little blonde head together and snap to some kind of orderly, soldierly attitude of common sense and efficiency or I'll kick your butt so hard you'll hit the ceiling. You hearing me?"
Sandy raised her gaze to meet her eyes directly. It hurt, being knocked down several pegs by the best friend she'd ever had. But Vanessa, she knew from experience, was usually right about these things. It wasn't a skill she'd seen very much of, in the League military. Personal skills. But Vanessa had them in as ample a quantity as she had martial skills, and SWAT Four was all the more effective for it. So why had Vanessa's marriage ended up in such a mess?
Civilians. God ... she stretched hard, and ran both hands through her hair. Her stomach hurt, as did a dozen other places, jolted for the worse by her rapid descent and landing. It was all too confusing. But that, she supposed reluctantly, was Vanessa's point. Sandy the bumpkin. Always confused, always staring about at the civilian world with wide-eyed fascination or bewilderment. Of course Vanessa was right. She felt lost.
"Help," she said in a small voice. Vanessa reached a hand, brushed it through Sandy's hair and rested it there, just gazing, with a wry, affectionate, exasperated smile ...
"Lieutenant Rice." A recently familiar voice, coming closer. They glanced and saw Commander Azim striding toward them, eyeing the smoke-strewn corridor behind with sharp consideration. Glanced at Sandy, then at Vanessa, stopping before them, his lieutenant in tow. Vanessa reluctantly dropped her hand from Sandy's hair.
"Commander. Can you handle it from here? We're getting out, we've got a flyer down on the roof in five minutes."
"I'll want an ... um ..." Another glance at the paramedics moving amid the dissipating smoke. "... the full report for admin, if you'll arrange the protocol ... how long d'you think that will take?"
"Fucked if I know," Vanessa told him flatly. He repressed a grimace, evidently reckoning the obvious truth in that, amidst this chaos. Glanced again at Sandy.
"Your idea, Agent Cassidy?" With another glance at the apparent carnage within the corridor.
"My orders," Vanessa replied. The Commander nodded, regarding them warily. And, realising he wasn't going to get any further response, nodded his respect and edged past, headed to inspect the damage. The broad lieutenant paused, as did the two men with him.
"Bloody good job," he told Sandy, and passed with a whack at her shoulder armour. The other two voiced similar praise.
"I'm becoming an underground success in this city," Sandy muttered as they departed in the other direction. "Funny, considering this is exactly the kind of thing that terrifies so many people about me."
"Bah." Vanessa made a disgusted face, ushering Sandy along with a hand to her armoured back. "They're all hypocrites, they don't mind you being dangerous, Sandy, just so long as you kill the right people."
They were halfway through armour lockdown back at the Doghouse when her right hip totally seized, taking the thigh and most of her lower back with it. Half-armoured only from the waist down, Sandy hit the ground between stowage lockers with a hard thud and rolled for space, contorted with pain and desperately fighting the cramp that wrenched up her back and snapped her leg out as straight as a metal beam amid alarmed shouts from those around.
"Back!" she shouted, half seated and straining past gritted teeth to grab her elusive toes as her calf began to go, pulling the heel back and pointing her foot away from her. Vanessa burst around a couple of startled SWAT troops and gave a startled yelp, moved to dash forward ...
"Get the fuck back!" Sandy yelled at her, and Vanessa stumbled to an uncertain halt before her. "I'll put a fucking hole in you, keep back!" Someone grabbed Vanessa's shoulders and roughly jerked her back several metres.
The tension gripped Sandy's right shoulder blade with ferocious power, pulling hard along her spine. She thumped back against the floor, grabbing her right wrist and pulling the arm up hard above her, trying to counter the pressure.
"Sandy!" Vanessa's voice, with incredulous alarm. "What's wrong, Sandy?"
"Looks like cramp," Devakul observed more calmly.
"Bloody hell," someone exclaimed, incredulously.
"Yeah, no shit," Sandy snarled past the tension, stretched tight and rigid on the floor between armour lockers. "Bloody stupid, I should have known this would happen." It hurt ... God, she'd forgotten how much it hurt. It had only happened a few times before to her memory, all after injuries, all when her schedule had prevented her from using as much caution as she'd ought to.
"What can we do?"
"Wait."
Eventually the tightness began to fade, first from the hip and lower back, then from the extremities. Her right knee began to bend, and she pulled it up. It came reluctantly, like a stuck door hinge. Grabbed her shin with both hands and pulled, drawing the knee up against her chest, armoured thigh-guard heavy against her bare singlet, bare arms straining to keep the knee from springing back out
again. The resistance slowly faded, as did the worst of the pain.
"Okay now?" Vanessa asked. Sandy looked up at her. A crowd had gathered, half of SWAT Four, some half-armoured, others like Vanessa sweaty and crumpled in their undershirts and tangled bio-sensors.
"Yeah." Released her leg and got her elbows under her as Vanessa came scampering around to her side. "Jesus, if you see that happen again, don't come rushing in. I could get a convulsion or a sudden unlock, it'd take your head off."
"Can you move?" Zago was at her other side, the two of them working on her armour buckles, clacking open the connections.
"What brought that on?" Vanessa, she thought, looked quite shocked. She didn't like that. She sometimes suspected that Vanessa hadn't necessarily accepted what she really was, but had rather chosen to overlook it ...
"I'm okay," she said with some irritation, choosing not to assist them with her armour for now. "I'm just overworked, I haven't been stretching properly ..."
"Shit, you mean this is going to happen a lot?" Vanessa retorted with alarm.
"No, just after I get shot and keep working like nothing's happened ..."
"You got shot!" Incredulously. "When! Where?"
"LT," Zago said calmly, working to get Sandy's boot ties unhooked, it couldn't have been in our furball, none of them fired a shot."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Accusingly. "Jesus, you can't just keep running around after you get shot, Sandy, what the fuck were you thinking! I'd never have let you take point if I'd known ..."
"Exactly why I didn't tell you," Sandy retorted, "you're not qualified to know what difference it makes, Ricey, I am."
"Qualified? I'm your damn CO, that's all the qualification I need
Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) Page 31
