by Rick Partlow
"Yes, ma'am." The XO relented reluctantly, lowering his weapon with a sigh. "Platoon leaders!" He ordered, turning back toward the troops. "Back in the vehicles now! We're going back to the armory. On the double!"
Slowly and carefully, Jason pulled the muzzle of his pistol back from Deng's face, but still kept it trained on her from hip level.
"Don't think this is over." She shook her head, rage burning behind her dark eyes. "No Intelligence spook is going to come in here and push my command around and get away clean. Your superiors will hear about this."
"I expect so," Jason agreed. "Make sure you get their names right, though. There's only two of them, so it should be easy to remember: Kenneth Mellanby and Gregory Jameson." He smiled wryly, hoping it hid the way his gut was twisting. "Say hi to 'em for me."
The Captain opened her mouth, but bit back her reply, choosing instead to turn on her heel and stride purposefully back to one of the armored vehicles. McKay felt a bit light-headed and fought to keep from swaying as the APC's started up and pulled away from the warehouse, heading out across the rocky plain back toward Kennedy. Behind him, he could hear the crowd, which he'd shut out for the last few minutes, cheering and yelling insults at the retreating CeeGees.
"Holy shit," he heard himself sigh, almost unconsciously, as he reholstered his handgun.
"Colonel Mellanby was right," Shannon Stark mused, running a hand through her hair. "This assignment won't be boring."
Vinnie stepped over to Jock and the pair shared a subdued high five. McKay looked back at Valerie O'Keefe, who was staring at him, wide-eyed.
"Ms. O'Keefe," Jason told her, surprising himself with the coldness of his tone, "I remember asking you to stay inside the building. If you'd like to stay alive long enough to finish this little tour, maybe you'd better think about dropping the antimilitary hostility and listening to me. As for you, Mr. Mulrooney"---he turned on the man, who looked as if he were about to say something in Val's defense---"you feel free to do whatever the hell you want, because I really don't give a good Goddamn whether you eat a bullet or not." Before the man could respond, Jason turned to Vinnie. "Sergeant, get these people in the flitter right now. I want to be out of here in five minutes."
Without another word, Jason stalked away from the group and found a shadowy corner of the warehouse to lean against. Closing his eyes, he fought to control his breath---he felt as if he were on the verge of hyperventilating and his legs were very, very weak. He forced himself to put the situation into a coherent thought: he had put a gun in the face of a Colonial Guard Captain and threatened to kill her, in the process taking the risk of having two full platoons of armored CeeGees blow him and his whole command into little bits. Yeah, that's what he had done all right.
"Jason." He heard a voice and looked up to see Shannon approaching.
"Yeah?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly.
"I've never heard of that regulation about the senior intelligence officer having authority over CeeGee personnel," she told him, green eyes glinting softly in the lights of the flitter.
Jason found himself chuckling as he straightened and headed for the open door of the aircraft.
"That's because," he said, not looking back, "I made it up."
Chapter Five
"People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them"---Eric Hoffer.
"Damned macho-bullshit, testosterone-junkie military punk," Val could hear Glen grumbling as he unpacked his clothes from the suitcase on the bed into the room's closet. They'd been back at the governor's mansion for over an hour, and he hadn't ceased to bitch about the actions of Colonel Deng and Lieutenant McKay the whole time.
Val sighed softly, leaning out of the third-floor room's open window and looking up at the stars. She remembered how breathtaking it had been the first time she'd seen the stars from an alien star system, how it had carried such incredible possibilities with it. Perhaps, she had thought, the new perspective could bring out a new way of thinking, even aid in the evolution of the human species. She realized now how naive she had been. Simply opening up a new frontier hadn't been enough. The explorers of the Twenty-third Century were just as exploitative and greedy as those of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth.
The only way to change things was to change the laws; the attitudes would follow, as they had with civil rights in the 1950's and 60's. The military would have to be disbanded, or at least cut back, and forced emigration would have to stop. The exiles who wished to return to Earth should be allowed to, and those who wanted to stay should be given adequate supplies and funding to live with some kind of dignity. Corporate influence over colonial policies would have to end, as would the awarding of huge tracts of fertile land to friends of important politicians and corporate leaders. Things had to change.
And among the things that might have to change, she reflected, glancing back at her fiancé, who was still grumbling to himself, was her relationship with Glen. Ever since they had left on this tour, he had become insufferably protective and obnoxious. As distasteful as she found Lieutenant McKay and his militaristic attitudes, she appreciated what he had done in protecting the farmers against the atrocities of the Colonial Guard. Oh, she was sure he did it to protect her as a function of his duty, but it had been the right thing to do, nonetheless. Yet all Glen could do was bitch and moan about the Intelligence officer's actions, as he had the whole time. She understood his frustration, but he was doing nothing but making things worse. And if he couldn't keep his cool when confronted by situations as basic as this, how would he react to the kind of psychological warfare that could be waged by Greg Jameson?
Of course she still had feelings for him, but choosing a lifetime companion wasn't entirely an emotional decision. She had things she wanted to accomplish in her life, and they could only be achieved by high political office. She would need a husband who could retain his composure under pressure, and it was not at all clear that Glen was that man.
She was a bit startled when she felt Glen nuzzle against her neck---she'd been so lost in thought, she hadn't noticed when his tirade had ended.
"What are you so caught up in, honey?" he asked her, kissing her ear affectionately.
She considered telling him, but a look at the trust and dependency in his eyes robbed her of the will. There would be time for that later.
"Just the stars," she lied, stroking his hair gently. "Just the stars."
* * *
Jason hesitated in front of the door, suddenly feeling very foolish. He was an adult and an officer---he shouldn't have to beg some whacked-out wannabe ninja to cooperate with him. But, he sighed softly to himself, since he was an adult and an officer, he would do whatever he had to do to accomplish his mission. He knocked firmly on the door.
"Yes." He heard Tanaka's voice carry through the native wood.
"It's Lieutenant McKay," he said. "I need to talk to you."
"Come in."
He turned the anachronistic doorknob, feeling the cool tingle of its polished brass in his hand as the solid, hand-made door swung inward with a squeak of hinges. From the dim light of the chemical ghostlights at the baseboards of the room, he could see Tanaka sitting cross-legged in the center of the floor, staring straight ahead, his fingers intertwined in a complex mesh. Pushing the door shut behind him, Jason suppressed a shudder. Tanaka's face was wreathed in shadows while the rest of his form was lost in the darkness of his loose, black clothing. Burning red cinders floated where his eyes would be, from the reflection of the dim ghostlights off his retinas; and McKay almost felt as if he were stepping into some otherworld, with Tanaka as its resident demon.
"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," Jason stepped forward, feeling a bit awkward.
"Nothing that can't wait." The bodyguard rose to his feet lithely and economically, not a movement wasted. Jason realized then, for the first time, just how dangerous this man looked. Before, he had regarded him as just another hired merc out of the Eastbloc, but the way he m
oved spoke volumes as to the extent of his training.
"Mr. Tanaka," McKay began, "I think we've got a couple problems that we need to work out." He took a deep breath before continuing. "Look, I know you've been guarding Ms. O'Keefe for a long time, and I appreciate that, but I think we need to reach some kind of accommodation. It won't do either of us any good to keep bumping heads in potentially hazardous situations."
"I see no problem," the bodyguard replied, his face unreadable in the shifting shadows. "You and your people will stay out of my way."
"Uh-huh." McKay chuckled humorlessly, putting his hands on his hips in an effort to avoid making fists with them. He'd lost his temper once tonight already, and it just wouldn't do to get into a confrontation with a man he'd have to work closely with for the next year. "That's all well and good to say, but in a situation like this evening, your allowing her to leave the building could have gotten her killed."
"When armored personnel carriers come to call," Tanaka declared, smiling thinly, "the worst possible place to be is inside their probable target."
"That may be," the Lieutenant said, trying to work the tension out of his neck. "And you may have insights in the future that will help us both take care of Ms. O'Keefe. That's why I feel we have to work together."
"Lieutenant McKay," the Japanese man interrupted, "I have had much experience with soldiers, of one government or another. Some of them were honorable men, some were not. But all had overriding loyalties to a General or a Chairman or a President---or merely to a career." He seemed to look McKay up and down without moving his eyes a millimeter. "From what I have seen, you are not without courage, but I cannot trust you." The bodyguard sniffed almost imperceptibly, a dismissive gesture that was the most expressive thing the man had done since Jason had stepped into the room. "The point is moot. I am not under your command, and I will continue to act as I see fit to safeguard Ms. O'Keefe's life. Your assignment, whatever it may be, is your own concern."
"All right." Jason took a deep breath, his shoulders squaring as the fire that had been kindling in his gut for the last five minutes flared behind his eyes. "I tried to be pleasant about this, but I haven't yet found one of you damned civilians who wanted to listen to any kind of reason, so I'm going to be blunt." He stabbed a finger at the bodyguard. "You can go ahead and be as stubborn as you want to be about all this, and you can ignore me as much as you want. But when the time comes that you get in my way, or obstruct any decision that I consider vital to ensuring Ms. O'Keefe's safety or the safety of my team, I'm not going to argue with you, and I'm not going to bother trying to arrest you. I'm just going to have someone put a bullet in you, and worry about the consequences later. And that's something you can trust."
Jason stormed out the door without another word, slamming it behind him with a negligent shove, and stalked his way down the darkened hallway, cursing as he went. He started in English, worked his way through Spanish and French, and was well on his way into German by the time he found himself in the large, extravagantly-decorated study at the other end of the wing. The reading lamp over one of the couches was lit, and beneath it, he noticed too late as he entered in mid-invective, Shannon Stark sat reading an old-style, jacketed book. She looked up at his entrance, eyebrow raising.
"Problem?" she asked him, setting the volume down beside her.
"Naw," he chuckled. "Just rehearsing for my court-martial. What's keeping you up at this hour?"
"Well, we may not think much of His Honor, the Governor's taste in architecture," she explained, "but he has a hell of a library." She ran an appreciative hand over the spine of the lavishly-decorated book she'd been reading. "This is a Hemingway first edition, and there're dozens of others in here." She stood, motioning back at the shelves behind her. "All the old classics, most of them first editions, some even signed, for God's sake. It must have cost a small fortune to have them imported here from Earth."
Jason stepped over to the couch, picking up the book.
"I used to love reading when I was a kid," he told her. "I'd sit out at the docks with a hardcopy of Hemingway or Heinlein and lose myself for hours." He laughed softly, eyes seeing something long ago and far away. "Dad thought I was nuts, but Mom told him to leave me alone---Mom was always the old-fashioned one."
Shannon moved closer to him, putting a hand on the book he still held, her fingers brushing against his. She wore khaki shorts and a matching top, unbuttoned over a pale t-shirt; and he was suddenly acutely aware of the warmth that radiated off the bare skin of her legs and neck, and of the faint but unmistakable sweet scent of her perfume.
"I enjoy the old poetry the most," she told him, green eyes locked on his like sighting lasers, the expression on her face displaying an intent totally separate from her words. "Like Lord Byron:
'Away with your fictions of flimsy romance,
Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove!
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,
Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.'"
She had brought her face closer to his with each word; and by the finish, her lips were inches from his, only the book separating them. For some reason, Jason found himself having difficulty putting together a coherent thought; his chest felt tight and his head was light. There had to be some reason he shouldn't be doing this, he thought as he leaned forward almost imperceptibly to allow their lips to meet, but he couldn't for the life of him think of one right now.
* * *
"I don't like this," Jason heard Vinnie mutter, half to himself, half to Jock. McKay had to agree that there was a lot not to like.
The three squat hemispheres of buildfoam that were the Mendoza's farmhouse jutted out of the rocky, arid wastes that bordered the northern deserts, the white surfaces glaring harshly in the midday sun. The flitter that had delivered them there crouched buglike a good fifty meters from the buildings, the governor's pilot and a security guard lounging lazily in the shade of its open boarding hatch, while Valerie O'Keefe's party and McKay's team slowly approached the farmhouse.
They were all out in the open, with the nearest backup a hundred klicks away, and no more of an advance recon than a couple low fly-bys. McKay had requested an earlier visit, with his team going first in a separate vehicle and checking the whole area out, but O'Keefe had found the idea insulting.
"These people are personal friends of mine, Lieutenant," she had told him coldly. "I will find any such treatment of them a personal insult." And that had been that. Jason had been in too good of a mood at the time to push the argument any further, not that it would have done any good.
He glanced at Shannon, saw her returning the look behind her round-lensed sunglasses, and had to smile. He'd worried, just before they'd drifted off to sleep early this morning, that things would be awkward for them now, and that he'd just sacrificed any chance at a good working relationship for a couple hours of---admittedly intense---pleasure. But in the morning, she'd managed to handle it just right, playing it loosely, but not lightly. He'd left his bedroom with the feeling that, although what had happened was not serious enough to affect their military association, nor was it something he could dismiss as a meaningless one-night stand. In fact, rather than worried, he actually felt damn good about the whole thing.
He forced himself to concentrate on the business at hand as from the largest of the three structures emerged a Latino couple whom McKay recognized from Val's speech as Jorge and Carmella Mendoza. They looked much the same as they had in the holo from two years before, perhaps even a bit healthier and surely better dressed. But something about them struck Jason as not right, before they ever spoke a word. They seemed nervous and fitful as they stepped away from the door, like cornered animals. And he had an odd feeling that the thing responsible was the man that walked out that door just behind them.
He was a short, broad-shouldered man, dressed in work clothes and a broad-brimmed hat that shadowed a hard, craggy face and deep-set dark eyes. His beard and
salt-and-pepper hair were cut short and neat, and his whole bearing suggested discipline and control. With a start, McKay realized that the man reminded him of the Snake. Now that was a scary thought.
"Jorge, Carmella!" Val ran toward them, sweeping them both into a warm embrace. "You both look wonderful! It's so good to see you!"
"Gracias, senorita Valerie," Jorge said. "It is good to see you as well." His eyes flashed at McKay and the others.
"Where are the children?" Val asked, looking around for them. "Are they well?"
"Si, Valerie," Carmella answered. "They are visiting neighbors. We hoped to get them back in time to see you, but..."
"It's all right," Val assured her, smiling through her disappointment. "Jorge, Carmella," she introduced, "this is Glen Mulrooney, my fiancé."
"Senor Mulrooney." Jorge Mendoza shook the man's hand. He glanced back at the stranger hesitantly, and Jason could have sworn that the man nodded at Jorge, as if giving him permission to tell the others his name. "This is Senor Carlos Gomez," he said. "A leader in our community. He wished to meet you."
"It is a pleasure, Ms. O'Keefe," Gomez said in unaccented English. "I have much appreciated the work you have done for our people."
"Thank you, Mr. Gomez," she acknowledged. "I try to do what little I can."
"Please, senorita," Jorge said, "would you come inside and sit down with us?"
"Ms. O'Keefe," McKay interrupted, "if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to have my people at least sweep the house with the scanners first."
"Lieutenant McKay," she snapped, spinning on him with a glare, "how many times do I have to tell you that the Mendozas are my friends?"
"Senorita," Jorge spoke up. "It's all right. We will not mind."
"Well..." She didn't like it, but if it would keep McKay quiet... "All right," she acquiesced. "But make it quick."
"Vinnie, Jock," Jason ordered, "go inside and run a quick scan---sonic and metal detection."
The two sergeants slung their shoulder weapons, pulled compact hand scanners out of the cargo pockets of their fatigue pants and headed into the farmhouse. The hand-held devices weren't perfect, but they could pick up a human heartbeat and detect metallic weapons; it didn't seem too likely that anyone out here would be able to get their hands on the polymer weapons used by military forces and police; but, at any rate, the chemscan that would have detected them would have required a much longer process with heavier equipment, which was more than O'Keefe was willing to allow.