Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  "Did Ramoja know anything about Chu?" Ibrahim asked quietly. Catching her off guard yet once more. She took a deep breath.

  "I nearly forgot, there was so much else. I had to leave abruptly when Park Street went off, I only got in a quick question. He said he didn't know." A silent pause. Somewhere beyond the drawn blinds at the window, blinking lights from an approaching flyer flashed in colour. "He said the group that picked up the survivors of my team had vanished when the collapse set in after the election. No way of knowing where they are."

  "It's better than knowing she's dead, Cassandra. Now you have hope."

  Sandy gazed at the faint impression of lights through the blinds,

  watching them descend.

  "A little hope," she said softly, "can be a painful thing."

  Sleep meant mattresses upon an empty office floor, desks and integrated workspaces pushed to one side to make room for rows of SWAT grunts who couldn't find anywhere else in the chaotic, never-ending buzz of activity where they could lie down in peace. About half of them were already asleep by the time Vanessa made it up from final debrief, bureaucracy, armour maintenance and scheduling reviews. Hiraki followed in tow, equally exhausted, having arguably more responsibilities as second-in-command than even his CO.

  "Great," Sandy heard Vanessa say quietly from across the darkened room, surveying the floor strewn with bedrolls full of sleeping bodies among the rearranged desks, "all my babies are sleeping while we're slaving away. Makes me so happy."

  "Quit bitching, LT," came Singh's whisper from somewhere amid the dark mass of bedrolls. "You wanted the promotion, you get more pay, you take the chores."

  Hiraki kicked one of the bedrolls as he stepped among them.

  "Ow!" said Singh.

  "Respect your superior," said Hiraki, continuing over to the clear space that had been left for him, Vanessa and Sandy. As always with Hiraki, it was difficult to know how seriously to take it.

  "That's a good strategy," Vanessa approved, stepping her own light way over toward Sandy's seat against the far wall. "I might try that."

  "Aiming for the head is more effective," Hiraki added, sitting to stretch, legs in a wide V before him, "but ultimately counterproductive."

  "No chance of damage with Arvid," someone added helpfully.

  "Oh right, so it's pick on Arvid time," Singh muttered, rolling over and rubbing at his backside.

  There wasn't much chance of the conversation waking anyone those asleep were dead to the world, and the talking took place at what would have been inaudible volumes were it not for security-level hearing enhancements. They tended to fade while unconscious, and keep from waking people up. Vanessa stopped behind Sandy's chair, where she sat with her feet up on the workdesk, reading off the broad, activated screen that lit the darkened gloom with a faint, artificial light.

  "What's this?" Vanessa knelt behind her, putting a chin on her shoulder to read. Her cheek was warm against Sandy's ear, her short hair tickling. Sandy smiled. She'd never had such an intimate connection with any non-GI before. The relationships with her Dark Star team had been paternal, a brooding mother caring for her flock, protecting them from a world she understood far better than they. Here, with Vanessa, she was uncertain if that paternalism had not in fact been reversed. It was a very warm, very pleasant feeling, and totally new to her. She rested her own head against Vanessa's, and sighed.

  "Just work. Network security, other stuff I've been working on."

  Vanessa's dark, tired eyes scanned the mass of data-technicalities across the screen, visual three-dimensional representations, adjoining text/data adjuncts, multiple visual layers to be blinked up at need. Simple format.

  "You can read this crap?" Vanessa sounded amazed. Sandy shrugged gently beneath the weight of Vanessa's chin.

  "Just data. Data's ..."

  "... Easy, yeah, I remember, you told me." Put an arm around her for balance, sagged tiredly against the back of the chair. "Studying for the Parliament appearance?"

  "Yeah. Wouldn't mind making a good impression."

  "This won't do it." With a nod at the screen.

  Sandy frowned. "How d'you mean?"

  "Sandy, no one doubts your abilities. They expect you to have amazing skills. And comprehensive knowledge from all your military experience. They need to be convinced that you'll use it to their advantage, and to Callay's advantage ... and that politicians like them won't get the blame for you screwing them over."

  Sandy let out a long breath. "Well I'm not sure if there's going to be a personality exam prepared. I'd like to just convince them I'm useful."

  "Oh, they know you're useful. They just need to be convinced you're not dangerous."

  "I am dangerous."

  "Not to them."

  "Yes I am. If I turn out useful and trustworthy, that's a master stroke to the President. Makes her look like a genius, helps all her allies, makes her opponents and all the people who opposed me look like misguided bigots ...

  "That'd make half the Callayan population misguided bigots with them ..."

  "Sure, but who's going to remember that afterward? The public's always right, Vanessa, even when they're being total morons-that's the main thing I've learned about democracies. People are fickle, they change their minds and leave politicians who've committed fully one way or the other stranded. If politicians perform backflips, or look twofaced, it's because the public forces them to be."

  "Wow." With weary amazement against her shoulder. "You've been here less than two months and you're already turning into a total political cynic."

  "No I'm not. I like that the public can change their mind. It means politicians have to be flexible, and take all public mood-swings into account. Nothing's more dangerous than a narrow-focused leadership with a closed mind. Look at the League."

  "True," Vanessa conceded. "They'll love you for that bit of rationale, it clears them of any blame for being slippery worms."

  "Maybe I'll try it on them. Anyway, I'm expecting to be attacked by people who desperately want me to be the bad guy, because it serves their purposes. There's your cynicism."

  "Sure, the media do that all the time. They get great ratings mileage by demonising you. Then as soon as the public mood swings, they'll go after great ratings by lauding you as a hero instead." Wrapped both arms more firmly about Sandy and the chair with a sigh, weariness gathering. "So, you've had a busy day, huh? Two firefights, catching up with your old buddies at the Embassy, flirting with Ari ..."

  "No, I don't flirt with Ari, Ari flirts with me."

  "Ah, that's right, you don't think it qualifies as flirting unless there's penetration ..."

  "You're not accusing me of being unsubtle, are you?"

  Vanessa grinned. "Never. You ready to desert back to the League yet?"

  Vanessa's flippancy still surprised her. But only a little this time.

  "Has that worried you?" Sandy retorted.

  "Just a little, yeah." Sandy frowned. Vanessa didn't sound anywhere near as flippant there. "I mean you've hardly been warmly received. Pea-brained morons in admin, conservative politicians, religious leaders, alarmist media ..

  "I don't spend my time with them," Sandy cut her off. "I spend my time with you and your guys and Intel, mostly."

  "It doesn't hurt? Being tiraded against in public? Burned in effigy?"

  "Maybe. But I'm used to it. I think I'm coming to understand the politics of it, how ordinary people think, how they receive and construct their information, their view on the universe. I see hope. Truthfully, I'm far more of a political hot potato back in the League. Recruitment there has never admitted to creating a GI like me. I don't know if the public's found out by now but there'll be hell to pay when they do, I'd have to live in isolation from all the furore that would start. I'm far freer here than I would be there."

  "That's true."

  Sandy felt the weight increasing against the back of her chair, as if Vanessa was slowly falling asleep. She reached and put a hand to the
back of Vanessa's head, a gentle, improvised embrace.

  "I wouldn't leave you," she murmured. "I've never had a friend like you."

  "I've never had a friend like me either." Dazedly tired.

  Sandy ruffled her hair, and planted a long kiss on her cheek. "Go to bed."

  "Bed. That's a good idea." Rested her forehead against Sandy's for a long moment first. A simple gesture. It made Sandy feel warm all over. This was what love felt like. She'd felt it before, with GIs of her old team. But somehow it'd never been quite like this. They'd loved her as a reflex, their squad leader being the central figure in their universe, holding them all in awe with her capabilities. It'd been impossible for them to feel otherwise. She'd loved them back, affection for affection.

  Vanessa, though, had a choice. Vanessa was her own person, and was under no obligations over where to place her affections. And Vanessa was amazing. She'd studied business, but ended up hating the corporate world for its moral sterility. She was smart enough to be very rich if she'd wanted. Pretty enough to have spent a life accumulating adoring menfolk (and the occasional woman) in a salivating pile at her feet. Personable enough to have hobnobbed and brown-nosed her way up the corporate and social ladders to the very top.

  And instead, she'd gone against all the social norms for pretty, intelligent, sophisticated young women who preferred books to VR-sims and knew the French Revolution for an historical event beyond the famous Parisian nightclub on Ramprakash Road. She'd joined the CSA, become a SWAT grunt and gone on to become SWAT's most celebrated team leader, for which she received a moderate government salary, public anonymity and, lately, a reasonable chance at violent death or injury. She saw the universe in big-picture, and wanted what she did in life to matter. Lately, it had mattered-a great, great deal, in fact. It was the kind of imaginative, morally centred, dedicated passion Sandy had always suspected of existing in the civilian world, and particularly in the Federation, free from dogma, military discipline and a narrow-focused view of the universe. Not everyone had it. But Vanessa did. Vanessa, to Sandy's eyes, was amazingly, incredibly special.

  And of all the people Vanessa had chosen to love as a close friend, she'd chosen her. It blew her away.

  Vanessa got up on weary legs and swaggered slowly over occupied bedrolls in the dark to her empty bedroll beside where Hiraki was still stretching, bent low and grasping one extended ankle, forehead to shin.

  "You sure you'll be able to sleep without your bed of nails?" someone nearby teased him in a low voice. Hiraki fancied himself as something of a modern day samurai, and led a very disciplined, frugal lifestyle by any standards, let alone Tanushan standards.

  "Sleep, vile scum," was Hiraki's reply. Everyone liked Hiraki. But they were glad Vanessa was squad CO.

  Vanessa pulled off her tracksuit and stretched, a sinuous rippling of slim, wiry, muscular limbs. Someone wolf-whistled while she was bent to touch her toes, clad only in underpants and small, cut-off undershirt that left her flat stomach bare.

  "Children," came Zago's deep, murmured reprimand from across the room. "I'm surrounded by immature children, one sleep-out and everyone thinks they're back in school camp." Zago was in his fifties, married with five children, and enjoyed his role as squad "senior." Someone farted. All those still awake collapsed with laughter. An enhanced vision-shift through the dark showed Sandy that even Hiraki was smiling. Vanessa just sat on the floor, head in hand, shaking uncontrollably. It was a release of tension. Sandy had seen it even among supposedly tension-resistant GIs. Straights required far more, she'd discovered.

  "Do GIs fart?" someone thought to ask.

  "I refuse to answer," Sandy replied, "on the grounds that any statement may be self-incriminating."

  "Children," repeated Zago. Vanessa resumed stretching upon her bedroll.

  "Do that bending-over stretch again, LT," came Singh's voice. "I was enjoying that."

  "You won't enjoy me breaking your kneecaps," retorted Rupa Sharma, SWAT Four's only other woman besides Sandy and their beloved CO.

  "You could do it instead, Rupa, I don't mind either way." Some laughter and poking went on across where Sharma was lying. A smacking sound of Sharma swatting someone away.

  "I knew it had to be a mistake trying to sleep in a room full of this many men," she muttered.

  "Where's your sense of adventure, Rupa? This is your chance to be a sexual legend! A shot at the record books!"

  "I'd rather sleep in a farm yard."

  "Whatever gets you going, I guess."

  "Well," said Vanessa, finishing her stretching and climbing tiredly into her sleeping bag, "you guys can do what you want over there, but I warn you, any attempt to penetrate the CO will be met with stern disapproval and extra duty."

  "Arvid," Sandy added over the muffled giggles from around the room, "I'll have you know I own those record books."

  "I'll believe that," Singh said agreeably. "Good night everybody, sleep well, and try not to think of the LT's tight little arse and shapely thighs ..."

  "There's nothing further from my mind, I assure you," said Kuntoro, who was gay.

  "Seriously," Sharma complained, "someone take him out in the cor-

  ridor and shoot him."

  "Can't," said the usually laconic Tsing, "Requisition Order 32b, non-operations-related ammunition requested for the purposes of disposing of irritating squadmates must first be signed for against the authorisation of ..."

  And was cut off by exhausted, uncontrolled laughter-even Sandy found herself grinning. And reflected that most of her old Dark Star team would probably have been asleep by now ... except maybe Tran and Mahud, who alone of her team might have stayed awake talking while the others followed procedure and went to sleep. Again, civilians did things differently. Perhaps, she thought, whatever the situation's difficulties, a few minutes' extra sleep were not as important as the emotional comfort of knowing one was not alone. In Dark Star, they had fought because fighting was the act that defined their existence. In SWAT Four, they fought for their homeworld against those who wished to harm it. It was a cause they all shared, even the macho types like Johnson, whose primary reason for joining was "tough-guy" self image. Even through their casual banter, they reminded each other of the togetherness, and sense of community, that drove them in their task. The togetherness was what they were fighting for. A place, a people and a cause.

  Sandy smiled to herself in the dark, feet up on the table and reading from her screen as the conversation continued in hushed, laughing tones ... feeling that something very significant had slipped profoundly into place. This was what it felt like to belong to something. To be willing to fight, and even to die for it. And for the first time in her life, she knew what she was fighting for-it was messy, it was complicated, it was often exasperating and downright infuriating. But it was something worth protecting, and something that was in evident need of her protection. And after so many years of uncertainty, regret and doubt, this sudden, delightful onset of clarity felt like ... liberation.

  he Grand Congressional Hearings Chamber was as impressive to sit in as the name suggested it ought. Located on the fifth floor of the massive nine-storey Parliament complex, the ceiling extended all the way up to the roof in a grand, arching dome, patterned with tiles and inlays of Islamic inspiration. The lighting setup reminded Sandy of mosques she had ventured into, a circular arrangement of long, suspended lamps that formed a clear circle above the middle of the huge room between ceiling and floor. The lamps themselves were more in the style of European chandeliers, though, as were the wall panelling, and the enormous, wooden altar-like benches at the front of the room.

  Sandy sat at the centre of the long table before the elevated, arching semi-circle of benches with their carved panelling and plush chairs, her laptop set before her as she waited for the huge, noisy crowd in the chamber seats behind to arrange itself into some kind of orderliness. She estimated seating for perhaps six hundred. Some, she'd been informed by Rani Bannerjee, the President's
new senior advisor, were being filled by congressors or senators not presently occupied with other matters. Most were taken by yet more lemmings, members of one or another off-world delegation, along with the many interested Callayan onlookers. Visitors' passes to the Parliament were rare these days, and most journalists had been banned from the room for this occasion, but still, milling behind her this jostling, unsettled crowd ... she caught snatches of conversation, some of it technical, but much of it, as she'd feared, specifically about her.

  "... wish she'd turn around ..." was the gist of many conversations, as eager, curious, wary civilians strained for a look at this most significant of curiosities to descend upon their world of late. She had no intention of turning around. She'd gotten here early, straight from the small VIP flyer pad at the side of the complex, and sat in her required seat specifically in order to get here ahead of the gallery crowd and sit like this with her back to them as they entered. Not that she cared if they saw her face or not-the closed-circuit TV would, and would transmit these proceedings all through the corridors of power. Closed-circuit transmissions ran on fancy embedded encryption that erased themselves at any attempt to copy and disseminate, and did so in ways that could also melt the utilised equipment. She'd studied the software herself, briefly, and had been satisfied. This broadcast would only be seen once, and that only in select offices of power.

  "Nervous?" asked Mahudmita Rafasan from alongside. The President's senior legal advisor was dressed rather conservatively today, in a dark outfit that looked almost as much dress as sari, with silvery trimmings and only a patterned orange shoulder-sash for the obligatory flash of colour. Earrings, bangles and other jewellery were untypically sparse and modest, and her gleaming black hair was bound conveniently short at the back.