Tac-net gave her no reading on the shuttle's readiness, those systems were totally closed off, except to register on basic flight control that engines were powered up and preparing to leave. It should be leaving right about now, especially when they'd hurried up the sequence. It wasn't.
"Everyone just hold," she said on tac-net, "we might be okay here." Recalled Ramoja's access codings, which she'd managed to glean from their brief contact ... penetrated the local net infrastructure as far as the main-level grid for the north wing. Berth 15 was impenetrable, severed totally from the surrounding network. Berth 14 ...
She sent a basic connection frequency, nothing threatening. A knock on the door. It uplinked immediately, an unfolding of multilayered, very familiar League security protocols.
"Cassandra Kresnov?" asked a cool, unhurried voice in her inner ear ... and she switched it to broadcast on tac-net so the others could hear.
"That's me," she sent back. "Can you advise me as to the present status of the vessel currently docked in Berth 15?"
"Berth 15 has been secured by League operatives," came the voice. Just like that. The FIA had evidently been in too much hurry to notice the new shuttle that had docked alongside, and had left themselves wide open. And she felt a surge of temper ... it could have saved a lot of trouble if they'd told her earlier instead of persisting with this clandestine nonsense. But then, she supposed, it appeared to have worked.
"Our thanks on behalf of the Callayan Government for your assistance," she said. "We now request that you hand over Governor Dali and any surviving FIA personnel to our lawful custody."
"Of course. Please stand by." The connection broke. There was still some sporadic shooting on tac-net, Zago and Sharma were keeping the several survivors across on the west wing pinned down with well placed gunfire from the roof, and then there were those shooters holed up in Berth 13 ...
"Squad Two," Sandy said, "get back down to Berth 13, they're not headed north with League GIs in Berth 14. Make sure they don't get into the wing, and someone try to tell them the game's up, might be nice to interview some live ones."
A clatter as six of the surrounding, covering troopers got up and ran back down the wing. And Sandy found time to wonder if she hadn't gotten just a little too callous about the lives of Federal Intelligence Agency personnel of late ... just yesterday she'd been agonising over the lives of terrorists, now she just felt ... nothing.
It was hatred, cold and simple. Hatred at what they'd done to her personally, at what they stood for, the innocent lives they'd cost in pursuit of a cause founded primarily on xenophobia and intolerance. Not a violent, boiling hatred ... rather a cold indifference as to whether they lived or died. If they got in her way, they'd die. The onus, as she saw it, was on them to stay out of her way. She'd come a long way in her new life as a civilian. But she knew she was a long, long way from becoming a pacifist.
Movement up the passenger access from Berth 15, a shift of light on her most sensitised vision.
"They're coming out. Everyone hold position, we don't know if this place is rigged." Another fast vision-scan across the broad, circular waiting room, multi-spectrum, scanning for possible tampering and finding nothing. But FIA agents were well trained in this sort of thing, and a booby rig might just have been stuffed under a chair to blow the place apart. It would give a trigger signal, which might give advance warning of a second or two, but no more than that ...
Figures moving up the passenger access behind the glass security door. It slid open on a signal-they were system-locked, then, patched in to that part of the network. She revised her possible scenarios, and levered herself smoothly into a compact crouch for a better firing angle over the chairs, sighting calmly along the rifle. If something went down, she knew damn well she'd be the first target. At this range, with limited possibilities for her to cover, she didn't think it would make any difference, GIs or not ... she was that good, and she knew it. She hoped they knew it too.
A man walked from the open access of Berth 15, casually dressed, sports jacket and cargo pants ... she filed a mental note about the cargo pants, it seemed every GI subjected to civvies chose them for casual wear. It was becoming a dead giveaway. Something to remember on future covert ops. He was armed, a light STZ assault weapon, common League Intel issue. A woman followed, similarly dressed and armed. Both took up alert, ready positions on either side of the open door.
"GIs," Sandy said, in case they hadn't figured it out ... if the thirty-five degree body temperature wasn't giveaway enough, the coiled, effortlessly controlled poise in their stance made it doubly obvious. She looked like that herself when she moved. Each weapon was held in comfortable cross-brace, unthreatening yet ready.
The next man emerged. Ramoja. His eyes found her immediately ... no confusion despite the line of armoured SWAT troopers levelling weapons at him from the thoroughfare entrance ... her head was bare unlike the others, and her blonde hair under the partial headset was obvious. But she suspected he would have known anyway, as she could have picked him just as easily from a group of straights.
"Agent Kresnov," he called cheerfully across the broad space. "We meet again, and this time our weapons find common cause. I have a present for you."
And he stepped aside, giving full view of the next man to emerge from the passenger access ... a tall, dark-skinned man with deep, sallow eyes and a nervous, trembling gait. Governor Dali. He looked very, very scared, hair dishevelled, his expensive dark suit rumpled, flanked behind by another two GIs. They hadn't even bothered to restrain him-a GI's typical disregard of any straight's ability to resist, particularly an untrained civilian.
"Where are the other FIA?" she called. "Is the fire-grid down?"
"Oh yes, there was merely one woman with a hand-comp, only able to select targets, no more subtle control than that. We have her and the second-in-command restrained, the leader and two aides unfortunately resisted with lethal force, leaving us with little choice."
Sandy nodded reluctantly ... in close quarters even GIs couldn't always shoot to wound against trained, augmented, heavily armed opponents. No GI was immortal against modern weapons, and most were not suicidal, unless tape-trained to be otherwise. She was not, however, about to call HQ just yet and give them the all-clear. She hadn't survived this many firefights by taking things for granted.
"This space is clear," Ramoja added, "we swept it thoroughly, and FIA field combat tactics frown upon the emplacement of defensive explosives so close to operational HQ."
"I've discovered many commanders neither read nor practise field manuals," Sandy said blandly. And she got up, lowering her weapon. "Guys, check it out, full sweep. No slacking." She meant more than just booby traps. By the careful, ready way they moved out, she knew they heard her. She grasped the rifle at comfortable cross-hold, and swaggered coolly across the floor ... the seal on the carpeted centre of the circular space, she noted, was a Federation Sunburst and Stars-the vertical outline of a Tanushan skyline emblazoned behind, "Welcome to Callay" in curving English above, and again in Sanskrit below. The ceiling above had been overlaid with an orange blaze of sunset upon a broken, cloudy sky, a striking image to confront passengers just arrived from weeks or months of travel in the cold, black void of space. She'd only just now noticed how startling the colour was that burned across the circular ceiling-in the heat-motion sensitive mode of combat vision, there were a lot of ordinary things she could no longer see. Beautiful things. Underground techies no doubt thought it wonderful to possess the sensory abilities she did. Personally, she preferred normal light. Life without sunsets held little appeal for her.
She rounded a section of waiting seats, constantly aware of the spread of her SWAT troops around her, and strolled up to Ramoja ... Dali had collapsed wordlessly into a seat, his two guards standing over him, and was staring blankly at the wall. That surprised her, she'd expected outrage, complaints, demands for the protection or administrations of his beloved bureaucracy in one form or another. But there wa
s none of that, just the bleak, frightened silence of a man who was perhaps only just coming to realise what he'd gotten himself into by agreeing to work hand-in-glove with the FIA in their little biotech laboratory project in Tanusha ... and what it ultimately might end up costing him.
It had nearly cost him his life ... Ramoja and his GIs must have been good, Sandy had no doubt the FIA would have killed him if they'd realised they were about to be overrun. A better option than leaving him on Callay, perhaps to be subject to full, independent investigation by independent bodies once Callay, and not Earth, became the legal, bureaucratic and administrative centre of the Federation. No hiding what he knew. No more friendly faces from old, Earthappointed bureaucracies to sweep things under the carpet, to keep the old power structures safe and intact from unwanted questions and unwelcome questioners. They'd find the connections implicating the FIA in the appointment of federal governors to member worlds, and in the workings of secret FIA operations on those worlds ... operations that had cost the lives, and trampled the rights, of innocent Federation citizens in the name of advancing the FIA's outdated, paranoid, xenophobic goals. They'd trace it all back to senior power figures in the Federation Grand Council, manipulated behind the scenes by powerful people on Earth, to serve Earth's own narrow, conservative interests rather than those of the broader Federation.
Dali stared now at the wall with the stricken look of a man whose entire world had just fallen in upon his head. Well, it had. And Sandy wasn't certain whether the fear in his eyes was from the fright of a recent brush with death, or from the greater fright that he was still, inconveniently, alive. She stopped before Ramoja. He stood calmly expectant, smiling the faint, measured smile of a man very, very pleased with himself.
"Nice job," Sandy said, with a glance to Dali. "Why do it?"
Ramoja's smile spread a little wider across his handsome black face. "I told you, Cassandra, I'm here to fix things. The days of League complicity with secret FIA plans are over. The new League Government wishes to re-establish friendly relations with the Federation. You can take this as a gesture of our good intentions, and our desire to see lawful conduct reign within the broader Federation."
"That would be nice," Sandy agreed. "Maybe we could then export some of that lawful conduct back to the League."
"I should definitely hope so."
"How are you here? Your shuttle only just arrived, this area was cleared when we realised Dali was missing."
"It was I who called the shuttle down early," Ramoja replied. Very pleased with himself indeed, Sandy thought sourly. "I came out here just as early to meet them-dodging the security-evacuation was not difficult. I could not be sure the FIA would move as it did, but there were oh-so-many of its agents scattered throughout the various Earth delegations ... the major trans-national, planetary delegations are particularly vulnerable, Cassandra, the United Nations, Earth Gov, the Grand Council itself. In the mishmash of overlapping security procedures of such enormous organisations there is much room for infiltration and dark ops, individual national delegations like the Indian or Chinese delegations are far tighter by contrast."
"We know. Intel had already figured this might happen, but hardly anyone knew what Neiland was planning. Someone who didn't know overrode Intel's orders to put Dali under special protection ... typical bureaucratic stuff up. There's so many of them here-this place was made for business not security ops, public sector infrastructure here stinks."
"I've always said an emaciated public sector was death for any civilisation," Ramoja agreed mildly. "Though, as soldiers both, it is perhaps predictable we should reach such a conclusion."
"No shit. Vanessa ..." as the smaller, armoured figure arrived alongside, "... this is Major Mustafa Ramoja, League ISO. Major, Lieutenant Vanessa Rice, Callay's leading SWAT officer."
"One does observe," Ramoja acknowledged, with a meaningful glance back down the north wing thoroughfare, rapidly obscured by more smoke than the air scrubbers were designed to readily cope with. Extended his hand, and Vanessa shook it with reflex yet unnecessary concern of her armoured grip, her faceplate visor lifted for politeness, despite the gathering smog in the air. Somewhere back down the long thoroughfare, alarms and speakers echoed above the crackling of flames and the hiss of localised fire retardant. "Federal Intelligence, my sources tell me, is no fan of yours, Lieutenant. Their casualty levels in Tanushan operations have become quite alarming. It is assuredly causing a reassessment of their operations here. Gratifying, is it not, that just one or two talented, well placed people can change the direction of such policies, and thus the course of history?"
Vanessa nearly smiled. Sweaty and tired within the helmet, Sandy could see her eyes flash with familiar, gleaming energy. You slick bastard, she thought at Ramoja. He'd met her for all of ten seconds, and immediately pressed precisely the buttons to which Vanessa was most responsive. She'd never had such instinctive people skills, herself. She'd assumed all GIs would be lacking in them. It seemed she was wrong.
"Since customs went running madly in the other direction," Vanessa said, "as ranking officer here I'm going to have to ask you what's in the shuttle, and request that you show me a full manifest." Her voice gave no indication that flattery would impact upon her professionalism.
"Of course." And spared a brief glance over his shoulder as several more people came down the Berth 15 access behind him. "All of our personnel shall remain in the vicinity until customs returns and reestablishes proper procedure. Mostly, Lieutenant, we brought down personnel. GIs, for precisely this operation, when we suspected that something of this nature might occur. And I decided to play a particular ace up my sleeve that I had been saving for just such a moment. An ace I believe Cassandra will find greatly interesting."
And indicated aside to the three people exiting the Berth 15 access ... GIs all, lean and armed, looking no less dangerous for the lack of armour. The last of the three carried a small hand recorder, militarymodel, onto which Sandy guessed the FIA's shuttle flight systems and comp-data had been downloaded. The woman headed for Ramoja, and stopped dead, staring at Sandy.
She stood at middling height, a lean, Chinese-featured woman with short black hair and an STZ snub rifle in her free hand, comfortably grasped with the effortless familiarity with which an orchestra conductor might wield a conductor's wand. Beautiful, in the dark, lean, dangerous way of most GIs, a lithe swagger to her poise, even standing dead still before them. Sandy stared, forgetting to breathe. The rifle slipped from her cross-hold to dangle limply in her hand, muzzle to the floor.
"Chu?" she breathed.
Chu grinned. "Hi, Cap. I thought I might find you here. The Major said you would be. Can't ever keep you out of a fight, he reckoned."
Sandy back-racked her rifle with one fast move, strode forward and grabbed her in a tight embrace that would have crushed a straight to mangled flesh and broken bones. Chu hugged her back, with similar force, and she felt her armour creak. She hung on for a long time.
"Um, Cap?" A happy yet quizzical voice in her ear. "Cap, that's actually starting to hurt. Come on, I'm not as big as you." Sandy lessened her grip somewhat.
"Are you the last? What about Pessivich and Rogers?" Sandy's voice struggled to work and her vision was blurred with moisture.
"No, they're gone. Bastards who took us blew 'em away when the government changed and ISO tried to take over the operation ... see, Cap, you're not the only one who's been having adventures, I got a whole stack of stuff to tell you. I've been busy the last year."
"You're gonna tell me. I want to hear all of it." The ground felt unstable beneath her. In the suspicious, rational corner of her mind, she'd half expected this from the moment she'd heard of the League delegation on Callay. But it hit home like a forty thousand volt shock to the system. And she remembered something abruptly, released Chu and spun about to Vanessa ... found her just on the verge of sneaking away, presumably to offer them some privacy ... "Hey, Ricey, come here. I want you to meet an old friend.
"
Vanessa came over, helmet off, eyes intensely curious beneath the bedraggled, sweaty fringe. Extended a hand to the other woman. "Sandy's told me all about you. And about your friends. I'm really sorry."
"Can't be helped," Chu said with a shrug, clasping her hand. Her expression was equally curious.
"Chu, Vanessa's the best straight friend I've ever had. And one of the best straight soldiers I've ever seen." Adding the latter because she thought it probably carried more weight with Chu than the former. But...
"A friend of Sandy's?" Chu said quizzically. "You must be nuts too, huh?"
"Certifiable," Vanessa replied with a smile. "And you came to Callay-that makes three of us."
"Oh, man," Chu said with an amazed gleam in her eyes. "I've been following the stuff that's been going on here on the Fed-sat newscasts the ISO picks up, it's been crazy, huh? They're changing the whole Federation upside down, just like the League's gone all spaced out since the government changed. All of us here together, now everything's changing ... League and Callay working together to kick the FIA and Old Earth's butt ... We're gonna have some fun now, I reckon. This is gonna get interesting."
Vanessa gave Sandy a flat, quizzical smile, an eyebrow lifting slightly. Sandy sighed.
"Same old Chu. Welcome to the Federation."
oel Shepherd was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1974, but lived in Perth, Western Australia, for many years. He now lives in Adelaide. He studied film and television at Curtin University but realised that what he really wanted to do was write stories. His first manuscript was shortlisted for the George Turner Prize in 1998, and Crossover was shortlisted in 1999.
Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) Page 43
