Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield

by Joel Shepherd

  “Follow the money,” said Danya. “Get paid in cash or trade. No one in Tanusha would suspect a kid of working under the radar, ’cause no kids here have those skills, or not many. We could fill a niche for some shady person who needed jobs done, we'd survive off the grid indefinitely without any net contact, and in a city this size no one would have a clue. We'd disappear.”

  Ari considered him for a moment. Then grinned. “And if your survival depended on offing someone in power, how would you go about that?”

  “Well, you've gotta recon the situation first,” said Danya, all seriousness. Ari's grin faded. “With basement manufacturing here, I imagine weapons are easy to get, and if you saved money you could probably pay someone else to do the net recon so we wouldn't need to, no need to tell them what it's for. And being kids, you know, we can get in places with no suspicion.”

  “You know I was kidding, right?” Ari looked a little worried.

  Danya just looked at him. “There's no kidding where I'm from,” he said.

  The man on top of her could have been anyone, Sandy wasn't really in the mood for faces. Dark skin, for whatever subconscious reason she'd selected that, muscular and hard and lean, because bulk, as she'd told her grunts often enough, was not the same as fit…and he moved like he had a purpose, and some skill, and had some concept of what his actions felt like on the other end.

  That wasn't her problem. Her problem was that the sensation receptors went out of balance as soon as the data spike began, and with her the data spike was pretty big. The primary sensation was good enough, and very real, but then as she grabbed him, and he thrust into her, the sweaty skin sensation on her hands fuzzed up, like static reception on her palms. Making realtime corrections in this state wasn't easy, but she readjusted the receptor flows and saw where the feed balances weren't regulating properly and patched it. But then the sheets against her back felt too smooth, slippery without texture, so she adjusted that, but now it felt like sandpaper. And now she could feel her actual sex drive kicking back against the VR, and the VR struggling to compensate as the serious sensation built up, and she gasped and arched her back…but dammit, now his breathing in her ear sounded like some dumb animal, and she liked that bit, the feel of a man gasping in her ear, but now she felt no lips, no chin-stubble, no sweet scent of aftershave…

  She flipped him over and tried again. That minimised conflicting sensation receptors, her being on top, but now the mechanics of it meant she had to look him in the face…and he didn't really have one. Generic, maybe an athlete, maybe a rock star…she cycled through a range of possibilities, but while anonymous sex worked sometimes, she just liked it so much better with someone she knew and liked, only these days most of them were at work and ranked well below her, so she couldn't touch them. Unless they were GIs, where different fraternisation rules applied, but that now came with baggage all of its own…

  Frustrated she tried it on hands and knees, and that worked well for a bit, but the thing she loved doing it this way, apart from the obvious, was the feel of his hands, grasping her waist, running up her back, grabbing her breast…and here, the fingers didn't bite, it was like being held by a corpse, and no amount of adjusting the data flows was helping. Even so, she was still getting somewhere, and when she braced herself and pushed back in rhythm, she figured this was going to be the one that worked best for her…

  …and then her real visual pulled her out, the VR collapsing as suddenly she was back in her room, and Svetlana was running in.

  “Sandy! Are you doing VR?”

  She was sitting cross-legged on her bed and now unfolded herself with a sigh. “Yeah. What's up, Svet?” It was morning, pre-breakfast, and she was dressed and alone. VR never consumed enough of her brain space to let her forget that. Subconsciously, it was a killer.

  “Danya called! He says he's on his way back, he said he had a great time and Ari got them a hotel room, but Ari didn't use it much, Danya says he only slept a bit himself then Ari took him out again this morning to see some stuff.”

  Sandy stretched. “That sounds great.”

  “He'll be back in ten minutes, he's on his way now…Sandy, can you ask Ari if he'd let me come out with him soon too?”

  “Well, I might be Danya's guardian, Svet, but Danya's kind of yours and Kiri's. That's why I wanted him to go, think of it like a scouting mission.”

  “Sure, but I want to go too!”

  “Ari's very busy with serious stuff, but I'm sure Danya's learned a lot, he could take you around.” Plus, Danya could be shown this stuff and be relied upon to make sensible judgements on what to do with it. Sandy still worried that one day in this retail paradise, Svetlana would just see something she liked and take it, certainly she had the skills. But she'd spoken to Danya about it, and Danya wouldn't allow it, and Svetlana, happily, would never defy him. She held out a hand. “Come here, I want a cuddle.”

  Svetlana's cuddle, and then Danya's arrival home, cheered her up until she got out of the house, then the frustration came back. She was short and borderline irritable with people all morning at the CSA, where she checked out the expanded SWAT training facilities, which now included GIs, Poole among them. GIs mostly did combat training on their own, certainly there were no other trainees and precious few veteran SWATs who could match them. But non-combat was integrated, including SWAT's famous out-of-time techniques, which crammed a student with so many things to do within such a limited time, it was known to bring some to the point of nervous collapse. Particularly as there were no drill sergeants, no instructions, no one telling them what to do next—everything was self-motivated, and if you didn't check to see the ever-changing class times, or the next piece of schedule, or when the tests were due, you'd miss them and fail.

  SWAT had no time for people who only functioned when others told them what to do. SWAT wanted people who could think independently and who never just assumed the predictability of routines. And lately, word had it, out-of-time had gotten even harder, because the inclusion of GIs with regular students was making it too easy.

  She still found some minutes to borrow a trainer's office to have a brief word with Poole and see how he was doing. He seemed happy. “It's not so hard,” he said. “You just have to pay attention. How about you, you look like crap. No sex?”

  Sometimes she loved being a GI with other GIs. They just knew and didn't dance around it for fear of embarrassment. Vanessa was the only non-GI who did the same. “I'll be okay,” she sighed. “It's not your problem.”

  “Well, you set the standard for all us synths, so it kind of is. Here, let me help.” Just like that, reaching for her pants button.

  “Help?” Incredulously, stopping him. This was Poole, so distracted from other people's mental states he'd barely notice if they were crying. “Help how?”

  “I'll show you, look, don't waste time, I've only got a few minutes.” Which bewildered her, but she had to see this if only to see Poole's definition of “help.” And in a few seconds with the door locked, he had her pants off and with a very effective use of fingers and tongue…oh, God, where the Hell had he learned to do This?

  It only took a few minutes, but she had orgasms so big he had to drag her into the middle of the room so she wouldn't smash the furniture as she thrashed. She convulsed and strained in a way that turned all her muscles to the literal density of steel and was probably quite unattractive, and certainly would have severely injured any non-GI partner, but Poole just wrestled her like a man wrestling a crocodile and kept going. It was all she could do to clamp a hand over her mouth to stop from screaming and bringing unwanted attention running.

  And then, after number six or so, he stopped and grinned at her. “Sorry, that's it, I'm late.” And dragged her to her feet, while she sank shakily against the desk, muscles slowly dissolving, and helped her back into her pants. “Look, Sandy, your brain isn't wired like any other GI alive, so you being abstinent for your kids and all, that's real sweet of you, but it's seriously not healthy…�
� he pointed to what they'd been doing on the floor. “That's not normal, even for you, and if you keep carrying that much tension around, with the structural damage you have in your past, I can tell you as a part-time medic you will do yourself an injury, core tension in GIs is nothing to mess with. So from now on, if you need a fuck, ask me, ask anyone, they won't mind, honest.”

  Sandy recovered enough to start laughing.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You. You're such a samaritan.”

  “What's a samaritan?”

  “Look it up.” She gave him a big hug. “Thank you, you're a true friend. Now go and try out that technique on your squad buddies, great way to make friends with fifty percent.”

  “Where do you think I learned it?” Poole told her, and departed with a wink. Sandy laughed all the way back to her cruiser, feeling completely awesome, and not just because of the orgasms.

  “He's right, you know,” said Vanessa, as they took a brief lunch break at FSA HQ's training facilities. This part was an office building simulation, five floors of it, realistic down to the potplants beside the office partitions. They sat in a particularly troublesome stairwell, in full armour, eating sandwiches amidst the plastic remains of simulated booby-trap covers. All urban troops hated stairwells, bottleneck deathtraps that they were, and the two of them were reinforcing that hatred in those under their command. The enclosed space smelled like explosive and burned rubber. “I'm technically an athlete, so I get a pretty decent sex drive, but I've only got half what you do. And GI muscles are so powerful, tension will be much worse too, you gotta let it out, and I know doing it yourself doesn't really do it for you, nor VR, so…”

  “Fucking high maintenance,” said Sandy around a mouthful, exasperated. “I can't have GI boys marching in and out of my bedroom all day, what would the kids think?”

  “I don't know, they've seen some pretty far-out stuff, why would they care?”

  “Vanessa, they need normal. Single parent, fine; single parent who runs FSA spec ops, fine; single parent who's a GI…bit weird, but okay. Single parent and cock addict? Seriously.”

  Vanessa laughed. “Get yourself a steady guy.”

  “None of the GIs do steady. And after four years with Ari I'm pretty sure I don't want a straight.”

  “I know, we don't fuck like GIs do…”

  “Not just that,” Sandy reprimanded, “I just…I don't know. I'm up to my neck in complicated. Relationships between GIs and straights are complicated. GIs and GIs are simple, I need that right now.”

  “Rhian and Rakesh aren't complicated.”

  “That's because Rhi's so gorgeously simple, and she picked a guy to match. They're not me.”

  “Jeez,” said Vanessa, laughing around a mouthful of sandwich. “Aren't you such a problem.”

  “I know, right?”

  “So what'd Poole do?” Vanessa pressed, all amusement, armoured boot up against the stairwell wall. She wasn't actually participating, the doctors hadn't given clearance for that. But she was supervising, and if you supervised in the assault run-throughs, you had to wear armour, even firing blanks. “Special moves?”

  “Fingers and tongue,” said Sandy, demonstrating quite crudely.

  “Oh, I love that.” With a nostalgic smile. “Used to be quite good at it myself.”

  “And you know how fast GI fingers can move.”

  “Good for Poole, nice to see him learning new skills. Though it's nothing I haven't wanted to do to you myself.”

  Sandy put her sandwich down from her mouth with emphasised displeasure and gave her friend a very long, hard look. Vanessa didn't quite meet her gaze, chuckling to herself. Then looked increasingly embarrassed.

  “Good,” said Sandy accusingly. “Well may you blush. Your poor husband, what would he think.”

  “Oh, he knows,” said Vanessa dismissively. “He thinks it's hot.”

  “It's always hot in theory. I've learned among you straights that it doesn't always stay hot once put into practise.”

  “Oh, don't be such a moralising wench,” Vanessa complained. “You know I'm kidding around, it's just fun.”

  But it wasn't…or not just fun, anyway. It had always been there, or for quite a while. Vanessa had gotten over it once, and had fallen in love again, this time with someone capable of reciprocating the same way. But the old feeling had never entirely gone away, just…displaced. Or translated, into new form. Sandy would have preferred it if Vanessa wouldn't keep prodding, but she knew her too well, and like a kitten at a passing butterfly, she just had to take a swat. Ignoring it wouldn't work, because Vanessa never ignored anything, and it drove some less patient people up the wall. Better to wear her down, strike first and control the conversation.

  “If I were even five percent lesbian,” Sandy told her, “I'd have done you so well you'd be walking funny for a week.”

  “Oh, come on, every woman's at least five percent.”

  “I recall your theory was twenty percent.”

  “Depends how much I've had to drink.”

  “You should be pleased I'm not,” Sandy joked. “I might have killed you.”

  “You wouldn't have,” Vanessa retorted. “And I'm not.”

  Sandy gave her a properly reproachful look now. Vanessa grinned at her, an apology of sorts, and took another bite of her sandwich.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Just a near brush with death. Gets you thinking.”

  Right, thought Sandy. She was asking for it. “Vanessa,” she said, very hard, very blunt. Vanessa blinked at her, paused in mid-chew. “If you desperately want to fuck with me before you die, I'll do it, I'll fucking close my eyes and make Poole's effort on me look like light petting, I'm sure I could. But it'll damage us forever, because you'll feel guilty, and I'll be resentful because I won't enjoy it, because believe it or not, when you're not bisexual, it's actually not that much fun to have someone twisting your arm to do gay sex because gay sex is actually pretty disgusting.”

  Vanessa looked offended.

  “I'm your best friend forever,” Sandy said shortly. “That should be enough.”

  “You don't think it's disgusting,” Vanessa accused her, mischief unquenched. And poked her with a boot. “You're making that up as you pretend to be angry.” And held up her hands in defence, laughing, as Sandy threatened to hit her. “I'm sorry.” Somewhat sincerely this time. “I know you're right. I've just felt like poking at things lately.”

  “I've noticed.” Another bite. “Entirely too much talk about poking, I think.”

  Vanessa gave her another friendly push with an armoured boot, this time at her head. Dangerous in armour against anyone not a GI. Sandy head-pushed her off with a glare. Vanessa sighed, just smiling.

  A com link opened. “Cassandra, there's a meeting in the Director's office in ten minutes, all senior officers will be present.” That was Angelis, Ibrahim's secretary.

  “I can't be there in ten minutes, but I'll be there,” she replied aloud.

  “The Director requires you to be there in ten minutes.”

  “Son, I'm on the combat course, and unless the Director wants me to blow holes in walls, it's not possible to get there in ten minutes.”

  “Cassandra, it's very important that you be here on time.”

  Sandy disconnected and finished her sandwich, still seated.

  “Something important?” Vanessa wondered, not privy to that secure message.

  “Some fucking secretary with no sense of time or geospatial relationships,” said Sandy. “You were saying?”

  She got there seventeen minutes later, in full armour. Angelis gave her a reproachful look behind his desk outside Ibrahim's door on the way in. Inside, as she'd suspected, everyone was gathered on the broad carpet before Ibrahim's desk, watching the wall display—ten minutes’ notice usually meant some political announcement, and while those could be important, they did not require her to rush like a lunatic from the combat course to the Director's office. If it had been more important,
someone would have said, but some overzealous secretaries whose only concern was ensuring punctuality didn't see things that way.

  Ibrahim was half-sitting against his desk rather than seated, so it was moderately serious, whatever it was. Hando was here, head of FSA operations, technically second-in-command. All three Branch Chiefs, Cassillas, Shin, and Boyle. Admiral Vernier too, Fleet Liaison.

  On the screen were politicians, standing in the Grand Council foyer before the main chamber, a suitably grand setting for professional show-offs, with high ceiling, patterned tiles, and busts of important dead people. That in itself was somewhat alarming—all the people standing before the journalists’ cameras were Grand Council representatives, ambassadors from their various worlds and systems. A majority of those were selected indirectly by parliaments and leaders, not directly by their populations. That usually made them less prone to populist theatrics, being technocrats rather than baby-kissing politicians, and a long way from their support base anyhow. So what were they all doing standing together before the cameras, making this announcement?

  “They're forming a party,” said Chief Shin of FedInt.

  “A party,” Sandy repeated distastefully. And toned down her armour reception so the actuators wouldn't hum while everyone was trying to listen. “In the Grand Council?”

  There were no parties in the Grand Council. Ambassadors were beholden to their worlds, and those worlds had typically divided politics. Ambassadors displaying a preference for one or another line of politics in the Grand Council would usually find themselves replaced when the other side won power back home. Most long-serving ambassadors, and most had aspirations to be long serving, studied a bland neutrality on most things, only daring to venture a strident pronouncement when they were absolutely certain that a majority back home would agree.

  “They're called the Party of 2389,” said Hando. “We've seen them coming for a while. Which you'd know if you'd read the political reports.”

  “Some of us work for a living,” said Sandy. She had read some reports, but this seemed premature. The Federation was founded in the year 2389. The original language of the Federation constitution excluded the possible use of force by the center against its member systems, language since considerably altered by an entire war's worth of constitutional amendments. Many factions were agitating loudly for systems’ rights against the center in light of the recent Federal attack on Pyeongwha, demanding a return to the original language of 2389. Thus, this party. “Do they have the numbers to block the amendments?”