Except this time.
"We'll be okay, Cap'n," Tran had told her later that alter-day, after the main-day shift had ended. Seated on the neighbouring bunk, looking puzzled at Sandy's concern. "It's just another damn orbital insertion ... we were in Tyuz system last month. There's nothing there, even the pinheads say so."
"That's no recommendation," said Mahud from alongside. Shifted an arm more firmly about Sandy's bare shoulders, a casual, affectionate companionship.
"You just be careful," Sandy had told them. Looked across at Raju, sitting at the end of her bunk. Nudged at him with her foot, bare beneath the covering sheet. "Don't trust the pinheads, don't trust command, don't trust anybody except yourselves. I don't like this mission. I don't like it at all."
"Why not?" Raju had asked, as puzzled as Tran. "It looks like a cakewalk." Sandy had stared at the overhead, her jaw tight. How could she tell them? They wouldn't understand. They'd think she was being paranoid. They trusted her in just about everything, but this ... this was asking too much. And it would distract them from what they needed to do.
"Just be careful," she'd said at last. "Trust me, I have my reasons."
"Sure," Tran had said, casting surreptitious, frowning looks first at Mahud, then at Raju. "Sure Cap'n." Another look at Mahud, when she thought Sandy wasn't looking. Mahud had taken the hint and rolled over, pressing against her body, trailing a curious hand across her flat, bare stomach beneath the sheets. Sandy had sighed, staring up at the overhead again.
"Cap," Mahud had chuckled in her ear, a hand caressing her breast. "You're all tense, Cap. Just relax a bit, huh?"
In time she'd surrendered, that being all she could do. Tran and Raju had moved over several bunks, speaking in mild tones about operational preparations and readiness drills, all the while casting glances over at their sacred Captain, and hoping worriedly that Mahud was doing at least a passable job of taking her mind off things for a while. Everyone knew the Captain had been acting a little strange for some time now. Everyone speculated on what it might be—out of her hearing, of course. Or so they thought. It worried them that she was worried, but for some reason she was incapable or unwilling to share with them her concerns.
Probably, they'd thought, it was yet another strange Kresnov-ism. The Captain had so many strange tastes. Like her books, and her music. And sometimes ... sometimes she'd spoken to one or another of things, issues and politics and strange, foreign concepts that none of them pretended to understand. They spoke to each, other of the Captain's periodic attempts at otherworldly conversation. They agreed that if the Captain thought it was important, then it probably was. But none of them were the Captain, and none of them possessed anything like her designation, so they left it largely alone. Tran alone had expressed a hope that the Captain might find some people among the straights with whom she could speak of such things. And the others had agreed that that would be good but could hardly be considered a priority ... there was a war on, after all. There always had been.
The Captain's one compulsion that they readily understood was sex—her libidinous reputation was nearly the equal of her martial one, and everyone knew that Captain Cassandra Kresnov was the best fighting soldier in the history of the human race. In bed, that translated into one very big rap, and as such, she could have had her pick of the ship, and chosen at will. But strangely, she preferred to roam mainly within her own small circle of comrades, acquaintances and the occasional passer-by—GIs or straights, she had little observable preference. But, make no mistake about it, not only was the Captain talented, but she was prolific, too. Which, to her companions, had made a certain amount of sense—everything else in her brain appeared to work in overdrive mode, so it was little wonder that her libido should follow the same path. The Captain liked sex when she was happy, and sex when she was sad and, most particularly, sex when she was uptight or frustrated.
This particular alter-day, she had worn Mahud out. Tran, ever conscientious where the Captain was concerned, had insisted Raju do his duty, scowling at him when he looked like he might protest. And so Mahud had departed Sandy's bunk, sparing a brief, friendly ruffle of her hair as she rolled onto the newly arrived Raju, and went to work.
"Three in one day, Cap," he'd told her, "you're not working on your record, are you?"
"Not unless you've got all the men in D platoon lined up outside the hatch," she had replied, humour returned and breathing hard. Raju had found that funny, and laughed. Sandy rested her forehead against his broad shoulder, and chuckled with him, the length of him pressed warm and strong against her naked body, his arms about her in a comfortable embrace.
A nice moment, as she recalled it. She'd always liked that feeling, as much as the actual sex itself. Warmth and affection. A close embrace, body to body, sharing a laugh with a man she might have called her friend. Or comrade, at the very least. And then, she recalled further, Raju had nailed her so hard and so well from behind that her grasping, straining hands had nearly bent the bed frame. A nice moment indeed.
... And looked up to find Vanessa still watching her, with the disconcerted recognition of a moment passed, left forgotten. Her time-sense told her that it had only been a few seconds. But she was alarmed to find herself wandering like this, revisiting a time, and a space, and a life that was for her long dead.
And now she was here, dreams of a peaceful civilian existence shattered. Perhaps she'd been stupid to think she could ever leave it all behind so easily. For what would she be without war and conflict? It was the first, last and only reason that she existed. To think that she could abandon it all for so distant a dream as peaceful domesticity now seemed, in the glare of hindsight, slightly absurd.
But she had always had dreams. Had lain on her bunk, with or without company, and stared at the overhead, wondering at the existence of other people and other lives. It had seemed so magical, by contrast to her own bland, grey world. And the stories she had read, and the music she had listened to, had only stirred her passion for more. Ideology, culture, debate, artistry, ethnicity ... she had grown fascinated by it all, and the more she had discovered, the more she had wanted to learn.
Sex may have been her favourite recreation, but learning was her passion. It filled her head with wonderful things, and gave rise to thoughts and ideas of which she had not previously thought herself capable. After a time she would wander the cramped corridors in the carrier's gut, squeezing past the constant traffic, barely even aware of her surroundings. In her mind, she was far, far away. And it was wonderful.
"Why were they killed?" Vanessa asked. Eyes wide with lingering horror. "How do you know?"
"I saw it coming." Softly. Gazing at the dancing life in the fireplace. "They weren't the first to go mysteriously missing. No documentation ... I broke in a few times, nearly got caught. I think they suspected. But it was politics."
"What politics?"
"Vanessa ..." She exhaled wearily. "It's too long. I can't. Not now." Her head was swimming with politics. She needed ... something else. Humanity. Conversation. The less harmful kind. Vanessa shrugged.
"Hey, sure ... that's good thinking, I won't ask." And blinked rapidly, still gazing at her. "Were your team anything like you?" Sandy smiled faintly. Repressed a short laugh.
"No. Not at all like me. But they weren't bad people. Mostly. Some were nice—you'd have liked them." To her surprise, Vanessa did not even look doubtful.
"Did you love them?" she asked instead.
The question surprised Sandy. She took several moments before answering.
"I suppose I did," she said then. With faintly pained, distant memory. "Not all of them. We had a turnover ratio ... they came and went. But I had my closer friends. They were only GIs, but... yeah," she nodded, sadness in her eyes, "you could say I loved them."
Vanessa, she saw, was intrigued, wanting to know more, for reasons other than strategic. For what reasons, Sandy could only guess ... but it felt nice, to be the attention of such innocent interest. She had not
spoken to anyone of her past life, not since they'd left her. She felt a sudden, tired, emotional urge to talk to someone. She had not really talked to someone, meaningfully, in ... she could not remember how long. That told her something in itself.
"They're basically good people, Vanessa," she said. "Different designations from mine, lower numbers ... you can't tell a GI by the designation, not really, it's just a rough guide. But my guys were smarter than your average GI. More flexible. Their personalities varied more, they had nuances, traits ... character, I suppose. They were real people, only limited. And they tried, they really did. Like in Goan. You heard about Goan?"
"Course. The first time the League tried to turn it into a proper ground war." A frown. "You were there?"
"I was." She gazed back into the fire, conjuring memories she had not tried to recall for a year at least. Had not wanted to recall. "You remember the fuss about Federation civvie casualties?"
"They said the League basically targeted populated areas for no reason." Sombrely. "League said Federation troops were using populated areas for cover."
"Neither's true," Sandy said. "Federation don't want to admit their evac was all screwed up, that they had enough advanced warning to get nearly all the civvies out in time, but they screwed it. League never targeted civvies on purpose, but they didn't make an effort to avoid it. I wasn't real happy with the scope of what I saw. We were hunting out the last Fed units in the city ... not real easy. There was plenty of cover, and they were smart. But there were loose pockets of civvies around, hiding in buildings, abandoned rooms, underground shelters ..."
She sighed. Took a breath. "Anyway, League command told me that couldn't be helped. I ignored them, told my guys we weren't going to call in heavy strikes where civvies were present, we were going to use restraint where possible. They didn't see the point, of course ... but I said so, so they tried. It mostly worked, I was never sure how much they understood or agreed. They never argued with me. I think they knew when I was set on something.
"But one time ... we hit a Fed unit. They'd been hiding, I think using some civilians for eyes. We didn't know the civvies were there ... just saw the Fed outpost, guns and communications, watching the street, set to ambush the next League patrol that went through. So we hit them. A short firefight ... but someone on their side panicked, started cutting loose with a rapid autocannon, only got off a few shots, but one of them hit a ground floor wall where their civvies had been hiding. Blew the floor out."
Vanessa was staring, meal forgotten. Sandy was unsure where she was going with this. It wasn't necessary to remember it. But it seemed important for some reason she could not, at that moment, entirely fathom. And very relevant to Vanessa's question.
"So we went in there ..." Memories struck, typically powerful past the faded suppression of tape, and she pressed on with concentrated focus. "There were several rooms they'd been using, had supplies, cooking equipment, a small generator, a whole living space there ... mostly ripped up where the shell had hit. Ten civvies, mostly family, I think. Two were already dead. Another three injured ... they'd been in the side room by the outer wall. The other five had been sleeping further away—they were protected. I think these five had been making a meal, there was kitchen stuff and food blasted about the place.
"One of the injured ones was a little girl, about five, I think. She didn't scream or anything. One of my GIs—Chu—was the medical specialist ... I got her to work on the girl. There was lots of blood. Her mother was screaming. Her little brother was already dead, one of those two. Lots of crying. People thought we'd execute the rest of them, being GIs and all. It was bad."
There was a lump growing painfully in her throat. Vanessa's eyes were wide, fixed in a mute, unblinking stare in the orange flicker of firelight.
"The girl lived for a while, then lost consciousness. Then nothing. And we were still busy. We had to keep a perimeter in case other Feds came along, there was other activity in the sector ... I'd thought Chu would just go back to work when the girl died. But she just walked over to me, through all this household wreckage and sobbing relatives, and she just ... she just kept saying, over and over. 'She smiled at me. Cap, she smiled at me', white faced and staring, like she'd seen a ghost. And I couldn't get her to focus on anything for another half hour ... I mean Chu had seen dead people before—civilians, children, everything. I hadn't even known she'd had any idea what was special about children, why civvies placed such value on them. I still don't know. But basic psychology says a 39—that was Chu's designation—generally isn't going to have that kind of emotional response, in those circumstances. But I'd hardly seen a GI so affected.
"I still wasn't sure, after it was over. So I took Chu with me up to the ship Captain's quarters the next time I went—I got invited sometimes. And I showed her the pictures of the Captain's children, and some of the vid-messages they'd sent, and the things they'd got up to at school ... and Chu just broke down crying. Ever since, I always noticed, the only time she took interest in straights was with people who had families ... every time, she'd ask them about their children. Just little questions. I don't think she understood half the answers. I just think she felt better to know that there were other children out there somewhere who weren't in war zones, and were happy and uninjured."
She paused. Wiped at her eyes, which were threatening to spill over with moisture, and swallowed hard.
"All of which," she continued, "is a very round-about way of saying that yes, I did love Chu. And some of the others. I loved Chu when she cried. It made me feel less alone."
"Did you feel alone very often?" Vanessa asked quietly.
"Sometimes." She took a deep breath. "Yeah, sometimes I did. But never so alone as when they died. I couldn't stay then. I just ... couldn't stay in the League. I had to get out."
It had been that, or kill everyone associated with her team's deaths ... difficult, even for her. Technically and emotionally. She knew those people. She'd hated them for what they'd done, but had been unsure of the degree of complicity. It was all a part of the system. Everything was. And whatever she did, the system would remain intact, making any violence meaningless.
Besides which, she'd wanted to live.
"So now you know something about me," she said, looking across at Vanessa. Feeling suddenly tired as the events of the day came crashing down on her. She wanted to rest. She wanted to sit here by the fire, and talk of interesting, pleasant, harmless things. Like Vanessa's university course and lifestyle decisions. Like music. Like Vanessa's husband, and what married life was like. Like children. It was possible, she realised with interest, that Vanessa had some of her own. "What happens now?"
"Well ..." Vanessa stretched slightly, as if suffering her own stiffness, post armour. "I think the Director wanted to have a word with you, once the initial chaos had settled down. Tonight."
Sandy raised an eyebrow. "Naidu's been bumped?"
"Ibrahim's a hands-on kind of guy. I'm surprised you haven't met him earlier. And Naidu's kind of busy right now."
"Suppose he would be." She remembered her meal and wearily set about finishing it before it got cold. The thought of food that good going to waste seemed yet another small tragedy on a night of too many tragedies. She was sick of tragedies. "I'm surprised the city's still functioning."
"Yeah." Vanessa managed a small, wry smile. "Me too."
Chapter 9
The night air was cool up on the rooftop. Wooden railings ringed the patio, and city light dimmed the stars to a few scattered, bright points. Trees rose up from the courtyard below. Shifted gently in a cold gust of wind, a soft rustling of leaves.
She could see the street from here as she leaned against the railing, absently shifting spectrums from one to another as the night took colour and form. The street was unusual ... paved with stone, reminiscent of ancient techniques. The houses beyond were large, spacious and open to the air. Balconies and trees. Wooden shutters, brightly painted, stone walls and coloured plaster. Beyond
, the rising spire of a church tower, stone with a Christian cross, and a genuine brass bell. It looked, felt and smelled like a Spanish-Colonial township. Authentic did not begin to describe it.
Beyond, and all about, at varied distances, the grand towers rose soaring into the night sky, alive with light and colour. The faint hum and whine of air traffic, ever present, but distant. It was a different world, this neighbourhood, nestled in comfortable seclusion amid the towers, shielded by its lovely stone walls and throwback architecture and the profusion of spreading branches from the thoroughly modern world beyond. Sealed by electronic barriers, a centralised network of scanners and security software that monitored every millimetre under its jurisdiction.
Along a nearby street a car was humming. She could hear its engine and the thrumming of tires on flagstones. The faint glow of lights reflecting off surrounding stonework, a glimmer on the greenery. Turned and faded, Sandy shifting to network connections to track it, absently monitoring its progress along the winding streets.
Tanusha had many such neighbourhoods, she knew. They were exclusive, to say the least. Tower views were commonplace among the citizenry. Ground level, customised private houses were much rarer, and reserved for the truly privileged, or the simply lucky. And the neighbourhoods varied in style and character. This one was Spanish, others reflected other Earth cultures, direct copies, representations from historical records and artistic recreations. There were Japanese sectors, Chinese, Indian, Italian, German, Thai ... she remembered meaning to visit the Thai section sometime after her first arrival. Lovely wooden houses on stilts, stylised carvings, step-over doorways to keep the evil spirits out, statues and ornamentation, open balconies overlooking the network of canals that spread from the Shoban River tributaries, overhung with leafy branches, a spiderwork of clear reflections on a bright and cloudless day...
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