Sandy turned to confront Ramoja, as he emerged from the doorway behind, eyes sweeping the scene. "We've got camera feeds recording all of this," Sandy told him, above the howl of engines. "It'll go straight to the news networks if you fire or stop us. Rhian is now claiming asylum. Under the Federation security Act, any League military figure claiming asylum will immediately come under Federal forces protection. Even GIs." Since very recently, anyhow. Her case had achieved that much amendment to the regulations, at least.
"You're standing on League territory," Ramoja replied impassively, clutching tightly at his useless arm.
"Attempting to keep Rhian in custody against her will effectively makes her a political prisoner. We don't tolerate the holding of political prisoners in League embassies." The look on Ramoja's face told her the obvious-he knew it was bullshit. But the overriding security imperatives had to be justified somehow, even through acts of clear hypocrisy. So long as it got the job done where required, Sandy didn't care. "If you restrain us, we'll shut down the Embassy. If you shoot us, we'll flatten it. Callay's grown up, Major. Bureaucratic protocols don't stop us any more. We do what we need to. You get in our way, we'll crush you, protocols or no protocols. And you know I don't bluff."
Ramoja gazed at the hovering, deadly Trishuls beyond the perimeter fence. No doubt his vision was attuned enough to see the underslung cannon centred precisely upon his chest. Preprogrammed and accurate to GI-standards, it alone could take out half the GIs in the yard in a matter of seconds. His partner, no doubt, would take out the other half, coordinating via tac-net to avoid wasteful overlap. Each was too heavily armoured to worry much about small arms, and the Embassy's defensive personnel were not allowed anything heavier.
Sandy turned, and walked down the stairs. Rhian kept to her side. Together they walked across the driveway parking, beneath the Embassy's front pillars, and then along the central path across the front lawn, beneath the beautiful, shadowing branches of native trees.
"You think he'll shoot us?" Sandy asked Rhian, casually as they walked.
"The League needs this embassy," Rhian said thoughtfully, her bare feet soundless upon the wet gravel beside the soft crunch of Sandy's boots. Still the rain was falling. And she'd forgotten her raincoat. That was stunning ... or would have been, in any other mental state. Probably it was right to leave it behind, it would have gotten in the way-but still, she could not recall having actually outright for gotten anything before in her life. Ari, no doubt, would be intrigued. Takawashi too. "Would Callay really shut down the Embassy?"
Sandy nodded. "For a few years at least. No League access to the Federation capital."
"He won't shoot us then," Rhian said confidently. And sure enough, at the end of the path, the GI guarding the gate actually opened it for them manually. "Thank you, Cristophe," Rhian told the reg, pleasantly. "And good luck to you."
Cristophe's return gaze was uncomprehending.
"They're not that bad, you know," Rhian said to Sandy as one of the Trishuls manoeuvred above the road, and began to lower itself down, the rear bay door slowly opening. Traffic along the road fronting the Embassy had mysteriously ceased, but given the CDF's integration into central Tanushan networks, a simple traffic reroute was hardly difficult to perform. "The regs there. They're smarter than regs I've known. Cristophe actually laughed, once."
"I wish they'd made him so he could laugh all the time," Sandy replied.
"Me too." They walked along the centre of the wet road, becoming steadily damper in the falling rain. The growing howl of engines drowned regular conversation, but a basic tone-filter adjustment allowed them to hear each other, at least. Upon the sidewalk to the left, a couple of elderly women, with transparent raincoats over colourful saris, stood staring at the Trishul, hands over their ears. Despite all Tanusha's noise regulations, no one had yet figured out how to make a hovering Trishul quiet. Sandy waved to the two women, in the vain hope they wouldn't file a complaint. Tanusha being Tanusha, she doubted it would work.
"Did you mean what you said back there?" Rhian said as they walked up the ramp at the rear, wet hair blasted with the instant blowdry of the rear stabilising thrusters.
"Which bit?"
"About Callay crushing anyone who got in its way."
Sandy signalled to the crew chief within the cramped hold, who said something into his helmet mike. Sandy and Rhian took overhead holds, braced for familiar movement. "Did I say that?" Sandy asked with a frown.
"Yes, you did."
Sandy made a glum half shrug. "Maybe I did."
"Did you mean it?"
"Why do you ask?"
Rhian thought for a moment. The flyer's engines thrummed with power, more of a roar than a howl, here within the relatively soundproofed interior. Clouds of blasting water vapour swirled past the open hold door. "I suppose it just sounds very military," Rhian replied. "I hadn't thought civilian societies worked like that."
"Some think they shouldn't," Sandy replied. "Some think people shouldn't. They say that we should turn the other cheek." The flyer lifted from the street, then banked gently to the left, picking up speed. For a long moment, they had a perfect view of the Embassy gardens, and the steps behind the front Corinthian pillars. Atop the steps, holding a limp right arm with the left hand, a dark figure stood in silhouette against the bright doorway behind, and watched them leave.
"One time, back in the League," said Rhian, eyes fixed upon that lonely, receding shape. "When I learned you'd left. I thought you might have agreed with them. About turning the other cheek."
"Maybe for a little while I did," said Sandy. The flyer nosed down, picking up speed and altitude, and the cargo door whined upward to close. "Ultimately, I think it's a balance. There are many paths. We have to choose which to take, and every choice is different."
"Choosing is hard," said Rhian. More quietly, and more sombrely, than Sandy could ever remember her speaking. "I'm so used to being sure. Now, sometimes ... I just don't know."
Sandy smiled, sadly. Reached with her cast-bound left hand, and tipped Rhian's gaze her way with a touch at her jaw. "And that's what makes us human," she said.
President Katia Neiland stood before the broad windows of her Parliament office, and surveyed the grounds. Ground lights illuminated paths across the vast, grassy surface, and lit trees into beautiful, ghostly outlines. A typical summer lightning storm danced and flickered across the horizon, brightening the sharp silhouette of towers. The drink in her glass was strong-an off-world whisky, sharp and angry upon her tongue. A present from one of the foreign ministers, although she forgot which. Upon the signing of a deal, to join his world to the pact that would overwhelm the old powers of Earth, and force the relocation of the Grand Council on the terms of the Federation majority, not just the homeworld minority.
She took another sip, watching a convoy of cruisers departing overhead, running lights blinking, some important VIP or other heading home for the night ... wherever home was. She thought of her son, Reese, now living in the Canas hacienda where the security was tighter. It was a serious inconvenience for an independent twenty-year-old. He'd always supported his mother's political ambitions. Had enjoyed having the President for a mother, in fact, having inherited from her a similarsized ego, as well as the dark red hair. Well, it wasn't so convenient now. It interrupted his social life, his studies, and his penchant for arriving home at four in the morning. And having twelve special security operatives hanging off one's elbows only impressed the chicks for so long.
He'd wanted her home, this evening. He'd been cooking. So that was one good thing to come of this present, dangerous mess. Two good things, in fact, as Kacey was helping him. Kacey the steady girlfriend. Both the cooking and the girlfriend had been features of the hacienda for the past few months. The food was surprisingly good, and the girlfriend surprisingly smart and agreeable. Reese had known her for some time, apparently, but merely as a friend. She'd been interested (of course) but he'd been too preoccupied with the chase
to bother about the possession. Now, chasing girls in crowded, popular nightclubs had become somewhat hazardous for the President's only child. Security forbade it, for the most part. And so, stuck at home, he'd sat still long enough to discover his buddy Kacey.
Katia shook her head, smiling faintly, and took another sip. She didn't even want to think about how closely that entire behavioural pattern fitted her own, at his age. It was uncanny. And more than a little worrying. Maybe Kacey would be a feature long enough to iron him out a little. Kacey had blonde hair, worn shortish, but with style. The inspiration, she freely admitted, was Commander Kresnov of the CDF. She positively gushed about Sandy. How brave, and how courageous, to have overcome the odds of her creation, and become something special. Somehow Katia doubted that Sandy would appreciate being regarded like a handicapped child who'd only recently learned to walk ... but then, as she'd said, appreciation of any kind beat the hell out of the alternative.
She was pleased Sandy was okay. Truly relieved, when she admitted to the plaintive demands of her conscience, during weaker, quieter moments like this. Of course, Sandy being Sandy, it was always unwise to bet against her. But then, as Ibrahim had reminded her on several occasions, even Sandy was not immortal.
Well, it had worked. Ben Grey and the other rats in the State Department had been flushed out. That was sad, too, for she'd long considered Grey to be a friend, whatever his various inadequacies. But then, her sources had also told her that he'd long been dabbling in corners with people he shouldn't have been dabbling with, and so it was really no surprise when Ibrahim had come to her, one fine morning six months ago, with evidence of an FIA mole somewhere in the State Department.
To try anything big, in undermining Callay's security and helping the Fifth Fleet's designs, they would need to penetrate Callayan defences, Ibrahim had told her. Once, that would not have been difficult. Now, there was the CDF ... which although showing signs of promise, was not yet an effective institution from top to bottom, and relied heavily upon the input of its senior officers, Commander Kresnov in particular. Remove her, and you opened a gaping hole.
Katia took another, longer sip, waiting for the pleasant, warming numbness to take effect. It had been taking longer and longer, of late. Too many drinks, Reese warned her. Alcoholic presidents were common enough, but damned, he'd said, if he was going to tolerate an alcoholic mother. Well damn him too. It was all going to be over soon, one way or the other ... or this little, dramatic phase would be, anyhow. Then she'd revert to green tea. But not yet.
They should have warned Sandy. Even now, her conscience demanded so. Ibrahim had agreed ... in principle. But where information to Sandy was concerned, there was now the matter of Ari Ruben ... who had a knack for finding out everything, eventually. And without whose steady input of additional clues, Ibrahim would never have been able to suspect the State Department mole in the first place. Ruben had too many friends in the wrong places-precisely what made him so valuable to the CSA. But also precisely why they couldn't warn Sandy. The trap would have a better chance of success, Ibrahim had stated, if she and Ruben were ignorant. He hadn't liked it either. But where Shan Ibrahim was entirely, consistently reliable, it was in doing what he thought was in the best interests of Callayan security.
No one had known about the killswitch. That had been Ruben's discovery alone. Had she known ... Katia shook her head, and took another, longer sip. Lightning sped across the horizon, forking and spreading like a blanket of blue fire, then gone. Had she known just how much danger the bait would then be in ... maybe she wouldn't have let it all go ahead. It was only politics, after all. She could have closed down the State Department anytime, technically. But the political ramifications within the left of her own party, to lose one of its shining lights so ignominiously and without proof, to say nothing of the upset to ongoing State Department negotiations with various other Federation worlds ...
It could have destabilised everything she'd been working for, these last two hectic, frightening years. So she'd lied to Sandy, and to Major Rice, in that last meeting at the State Department. Put on a good performance, pretending to be angry, pretending she hadn't known anything about the State Department mole, nor her own culpability in using its desperation to remove Sandy, to give her the excuse she needed to shut the whole thing down. Flush the entire State Department, if necessary, and all connected to it. And if she'd tried that, without party room backing ... God. Her own wonderful, loyal, praiseworthy colleagues would have torn her to pieces. She'd needed proof. And Sudasarno, bless his honest, naive heart, had been innocently played right along with the rest of them.
Probably Sandy would discover the truth eventually. Indeed, with Ari Ruben sharing her bed, she'd bet on it. She'd answer those questions when the time came. Right now, she needed her world's sharpest, most lethal weapon entirely focused upon the job at hand. Take the stations. Truthfully, she hadn't been as concerned at the plan as she'd let on at the last meeting either. Sandy was right-there was very little choice, if Callay, and more broadly, the Federation were to become what they had all toiled in the hope of making it become. But she'd wanted to confront her senior military leader with all her darkest fears and doubts, and see that look in her eyes. That look of unerring, certain confidence. Sandy was no "yes man." She never had been, and she never would be. That look in her eyes would help the President sleep tonight, her belly full of her son's experimental cooking, and hopefully no nasty side effects from either, the following morning.
It was a long way to come, for a small world upon the periphery of Federation politics. And for a technocrat president previously more interested in communications law reform than transforming her world into the epicentre of human power in all the universe. One way or another, Callay and its president were about to come of age. She just hoped that the cost, for either, would not prove too great a price to bear.
CHAPTER
ooks like they're really leaving," said the scan tech, igazing at his screen. Captain Verjee observed over the scan tech's shoulder, lips pursed. A distrustful frown creased one eyebrow as his experienced eyes followed the two dots on the nav screen, automatically translating the two-dimensional graphics into three-dimensional time and space. Callay, its five small moons, a remarkably civilised G-4 sun, twelve outerlying worlds and countless system settlements and intersystem traffic. A busy system, but nothing compared to Earth. The traffic within the Jovian system alone was heavier than the Callayan system in entirety. Although once Callay became the Federation's capital world, God forbid, that might change.
"Pearl River and Kutch are both Chandaram-class," Verjee replied. "That's some of the most mobile firepower in the Fleet, and I don't trust two-hour-old V-signatures for a second. Keep an eye on them, let me know the moment they finally jump."
"Yessir," said the scan tech.
And where could they be going, Verjee wondered as he straightened and surveyed the Nehru Station bridge. He knew Captain Marakova too well to easily believe she'd abandon her old friend Reichardt ... not without at least chewing his ear off in an attempt to change his orders. There had been any number of opportunities to send for help with departing freighters. Probably he should contact Captain Rusdihardjo about it-Admiral Rusdihardjo, he corrected himselfexcept that she doubtless knew already, and had been watching developments on board the Euphrates. God only knew what she'd been doing in there the last Callayan week since Duong had been killed. Hardly anyone had seen her, save the constant stream of staff from Secretary General Benale's new station office-which had been established directly opposite the Euphrates Berth Four, unsurprisingly enough.
Verjee wished she'd let someone else in on the party. He hated station bridge duty, but ever since they'd been forced to lock up the uncooperative stationmaster and his bridge crew, Fifth Fleet crew had been forced to substitute with their own staff. And from the bridge of his own ship, he would be that much better positioned to keep an eye on that traitorous fool Reichardt, whose warship and crew were
far too impressive to be left unwatched for any period of time, and whose actions were notoriously unpredictable.
Verjee's eyes flicked to a dock monitor screen, across which Reichardt and his small marine contingent had walked a minute ago, on their way to a captains' meeting in the rooms upon the other side of bridge-section. The meeting, ostensibly, was to begin discussions on the partial transfer of station command back to the Callayan authorities. And it was about time that the Third Fleet had finally started to realise the operational reality. The Fifth needed to resume Nehru and the other three main trade stations to at least fifty percent of their previous efficiency, both in order to free up their own personnel, and to make some kind of reduction in the size of the growing queue of freighter traffic that clustered now in high polar orbit, awaiting an increasingly rare station-slot. With the troublesome dockworker unions smashed, their ringleaders either imprisoned or otherwise disposed of, there wasn't an awful lot of traffic moving through any of the stations right now. With Reichardt signalling that the Third Fleet representatives were finally ceasing their ideological obstinacy, the chances looked good that the Callayan administration would recognise the hopelessness of their situation, and begin discussions on separating Fleet Command from the new Callayan Grand Council.
With their fledgling military hopelessly outgunned and without any space capability to speak of, their influence with the Grand Council limited, Fleet HQ unwilling to oppose the Fifth's actions, and their economy losing billions each day from lost trade, it didn't appear that the Callayans had any choice in the matter. Ultimately, one day, these soft, pampered civilians would realise that it was those with the most firepower who decided the course of history. The Fleet remained unrivalled. And Earth, thank God, controlled the Fleet. God willing, it always would.
Killswitch: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) Page 38
