Sandy watched him for a long moment. She really didn't like being lectured by any young, know-all political whizz kid ... and never mind that Sudasarno was actually far older than she was, in simple years lived. Often necessity demanded that she grit her teeth, and bear it. Now, however, was not one of those times.
"Sudie." Firmly, making sure that his entire attention was upon her. "First of all, there is someone within your government trying to kill me. In all likelihood, it's someone allied with the pro-Earth hardliners-your enemies, Sudie. Katia's enemies. I don't see how that hurts you-find the bastard, or bastards, show them to the press, it only makes your enemies look bad."
"You ran away, Sandy! Without Neiland's knowledge, without your immediate superior's knowledge ..."
"What's Krishnaswali been saying about me?" Sandy cut in, suddenly suspicious of exactly what the President might have been hearing.
Sudasarno looked away through the side window, holding something back. "Look, I'm not at liberty to discuss anything like ..."
"That's okay," said Sandy, "I'll find out another way." Sudasarno stared at her. It was a direct threat to the administration's power base, and they both knew it. "There are people in high places who are more committed to me and my goals than to you and your President," she was telling him. And the President could fight it, for sure ... but in the glare of the media spotlight, replacing senior CDF and CSA personnel would have caused a huge row, not to mention the damage to planetary security in such a sensitive period. Sudasarno held up both hands, taking a deep breath.
"I don't want to fight with you, Sandy. That wasn't my intention in coming here. I wanted to warn you."
"Of what, specifically?"
"Fleet Admiral Duong has expressed grave concern at your unexpected "AWOL status" ... his words. So has Secretary General Benale. We think it's going to be brought up at the meeting tomorrow. A lot of very influential people back on Earth are demanding your removal as the barest precondition to any kinds of talks ..."
"The Fleet don't want their HQ based on Callay," Sandy countered, her eyes narrowing at him with what she hoped was intimidating effect. "They want to remain an Earth Fleet, not a Federation Fleet. That's big stuff, Sudie. Do you really think it'll matter two tiny turds to that agenda whether I'm in the CDF or not? What's the CDF to the Fleet, anyway? Just a goddamn planetary militia rabble. We only interest them on ideological grounds, they think they should have all the military power in the Federation bar none. They're bullshitting you, Sudie, they're just looking for a political agenda with which to scare people into thinking the same way they do. "Oh look, that dangerously progressive Neiland character lets a GI into her precious CDF and now she's run amok." It's a headline grabber. You can't ask me to make strategic decisions based upon simple political grandstanding that won't make any difference to the Fleet's true agenda in the long run anyway."
"And since when were you the one in politics?" Sudasarno was actually getting angry now, his dark eyes flashing. "Your job is to take orders within the system, Sandy ..."
"My job description has contained an enormous amount of latitude ever since I first signed on," Sandy shot back, "simply because no one else knew what the fuck they were doing!"
"We signed on an expert advisor, Sandy, not a goddamn loose cannon! "
"We can't just let them kick us around, Sudie," Sandy replied calmly. "The worst security scenario we face is them thinking that we can't and won't fight back."
"This is politics, Sandy," Sudasarno said firmly, leaning forcefully forward in a way that very few work acquaintances would dare with her. "Your analogies are all military. They're two different worlds, and they don't often translate."
"On the contrary," Sandy replied, just as firmly. "Everything's a conflict, Sudie. The very laws of the universe themselves. The collision of hydrogen atoms in every sun to make the fusion that makes all life possible. Every part of the universe is constantly in conflict with every other part. The reason I'll never be a pacifist is because it's not always all bad."
And Sudasarno could think of nothing to say to that at all.
Paraswamy opened his driver's side door as Sandy climbed out of the rear, and walked with her to the garbage bins at the end of the lane, where the shadows would hide them from a casual glance from the far end.
"I can't remember the last time you did anything for the government, Para," said Sandy, with great irony.
Paraswamy grinned toothily, still chewing. "It's the government, girl-they pay good money."
"I'll bet they did. All cash."
Paraswamy shrugged, still grinning. Looked her up and down, rubbing his bristly chin with a gold-ringed hand. "Nice look. You going to Ari's tailor now?"
"If you want some chitchat, why don't you try me again in about a year? I might have a spare minute or two then."
"City might not be here in another year," Paraswamy countered cheerfully. Sandy just looked at him. Paraswamy's look turned shrewd. "I have a friend in customs," he said then. No great news there, from a master of the Tanushan blackmarket. "She says she found an irregularity just a few days ago. A consignment somehow made it through the security screens without a proper inspection seal. She halted it and called a superior to deal with it, but word came down not to worry with it. The next day, the consignment had disappeared."
Sandy's eyes narrowed slightly-it was as much of a curious frown as she was prepared to allow herself, in this company. Never a good idea to let on how much you were interested, Ari had told her often enough. "Happens often enough, I gather," she said. It didn't, actually—Callayan customs were generally excellent, by high Federation standards. But the volume of intersystem trade was such that the inevitable few consignments here and there would not be missed ...
"This consignment was addressed to a government department."
Which did get Sandy's attention. "Which one?" she asked.
"Silent address," said Paraswamy. Meaning that for security reasons, the precise identity of the intended recipient was not publicly listed. Such deliveries would be taken by general government mail, then sorted in-system, where there was no chance of anything unpleasant being planted on the delivery in-transit, nor any chance of outsiders keeping notes on which department or government employee had received what deliveries.
"Well, that's very interesting," Sandy remarked, "but not in itself alarming."
"You check it up," said Paraswamy, knowingly. Spat out his pan on the rain-wet lane. The red colour stained a puddle. Paraswamy reached into a pocket of his jacket, rummaged in a plastic packet for another, and popped it into his mouth. "I think you'll find it very interesting."
"What else do you know?" Paraswamy shrugged. Sandy grabbed him by the front of the shirt, in no mood for games. "Don't tempt me."
"Tempt you to do what?" Again the toothy smile. Infuriatingly unworried. "I know you too well, Cassandra Kresnov. Some people are still scared of you, huh? I think you're just a pussycat. What are you going to do, hurt me?"
It was tempting. But not tempting enough. Sandy let him go with a push. "If this delays me, or costs anything, I'll get back to you." Pointing warningly at his chest. Paraswamy shrugged, adjusting his shirt and jacket.
"You just can't get enough of me, can you, baby?" And he cackled, toothily.
CHAPTER
don't know what to tell you, Am" Vanessa stood atop the best vantage spot on the Herat Complex grounds, fully armoured and sweating in the midmorning sun. The visor display told her, among a multitude of other things, that there was a cool breeze blowing from the south east, but it did her precious little good beneath layers of micro-compressor and myomer-powered ceramic. "I'm on the highest alert we've got, it doesn't go any higher."
"Look ... " Ari's voice sounded agitated in her earphones. Lately, that was as usual. `Just keep an eye out, will you?"
"Oh, well, that's real fucking useful advice, that is," Vanessa snapped, hefting her assault rifle with powerassisted ease. The laser-target assist flicker
ed across her visor as the muzzle moved, highlighting fire-trajectories in her field of view. "Where would a CDF officer be without such sage advice? Anything else?"
"Vanessa, I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, I'm just saying that there's something here that looks very suspicious ... "
"There always is. No interruptions for the next hour please, I'm going to be busy."
She disconnected, and scanned once more across the broad, open space before her. From atop the Central Chambers of the new Federation Grand Council building, she had a mostly uninterrupted view across one hundred and eighty degrees. At her back, the enormous curving ribs of what would soon become the Chambers' central dome soared another ten storeys high. Two construction cranes loomed upon either side of the nascent dome, silent and idle at the moment, their crews sent home with the rest of the Herat construction teams for today.
To her left and right were other buildings, the beginnings of stately grandeur emerging from within the mass of construction gantries, cranes and obscuring canvas sheeting. Between the flanking buildings the main access road curved in from the heavily fenced perimeter in a giant U shape. Within the U, an enormous court of pavings and gardens was emerging from the chaos of digging and earth moving equipment.
This, the new district of Herat, was to be the new centre of the Federation. The imposing scale of it all drove home the stakes involved in recent happenings like nothing else could. Not merely the size of the grounds under construction, but the style. It was the architecture of power, all grand domes and pillars, beautiful yet authoritative, with influences borrowed from several of the greatest empires of human civilisation-Indian, Arabic, and European in particular.
Beyond the tall, wrought-iron fence around the grounds' perimeter, the road was clear of traffic save the usual police patrols. At either end, large roadblocks manned by thick lines of police in armoured riot gear held back enormous crowds of protesters. The chanting reached Vanessa's ears clearly enough through her helmet's audio receptors, and if she blinked the right icons, inbuilt software could sift the mass of noise for anything potentially alarming. According to software parameters, anyway, which she didn't trust a millimetre. Besides, she had more important things to bother herself with.
"The Maharaja is at ETA one minute," announced a controller on tacnet. "Maharaja" was Secretary General Benale. President Neiland, as befitted a good host, was already here. "Dacoit"-meaning Admiral Duong-the tac-net further advised her, was five minutes' flight time away, having come down by his own shuttle to Gordon Spaceport. If Vanessa wasn't so certain the CDF's tac-nets were so secure, she wouldn't have risked allowing her underlings to brand Duong with the Hindi term for "bandit." "Maharaja," of course, was pure irony.
Vanessa peered over the rim of her rooftop vantage point. Far below, a grand flight of steps led up to a broad marble floor, decorated now with guards, functionaries and leafy tree ferns in pots beneath enormous stone pillars. There was commotion there now, official media and documentors scurrying upon the stairs for positions, some arguments with local security, a groundcar pulled up too close on the road and being asked to shift quickly before the procession arrived.
Vanessa scanned the tower-studded horizon, and spotted a row of incoming vehicles, breaking into local airspace where civilian traffic was not allowed. Tac-net eliminated the need for mundane communications-Vanessa could see the graphical display of all Herat district, including the immediate status of all her units and others. She switched to a broadscan display of the immediate foreground as the convoy of vehicles approached, and saw a multispectrum view of all neighbouring buildings, parks and available spaces, computer-sifted for hostile activity, meaning anyone looking to shoot at the Secretary General as he passed overhead. Nothing registered.
"We look clear," came Rassmusen's voice on the tac-net. Meaning that no one had tried to shoot down the convoy yet. Vanessa switched to rearview perspectives where several units were guarding the rear of the Chambers-more half-completed gardens, and more buildings under construction. Beyond those, the unspoiled wilderness of the Shoban Delta, a horizon of unbroken trees and rivers, lifting into the southern reaches of the Tuez Mountains in the distance. It was the obvious direction from which threat would come, or could come, with everyone facing the other way. Except that the immediate forest behind the grounds was strewn with enough covert, buried and implanted sensory equipment to track individual insects in their flight, and watch the mating rituals of local frogs and bunbuns.
Directly ahead, the first of the vehicle convoy was now coming in to land, midway up the approach driveway. Underside wheels unfolded, and the black, armoured cruiser touched with a bump of heavy suspension, then drove the rest of the way on four wheels, idling to allow the next vehicle down to catch up. Vanessa raised her rifle in the direction of the leftwards group of protesters beyond the fence, magnifying the visor display to get a good look through the sight. Fists were raised as each convoy vehicle whined overhead, placards waved as jeering yells pursued each arrival. Someone lit off some small fireworks, little incendiary rockets soaring skyward to detonate near a cruiser's underside with remarkable accuracy. The crowd cheered. The riot police on the barricades looked agitated, and the tac-net registered a sudden upsurge in police communications.
"Major Rice," came a voice in her ear, tac-net identifying it as belonging to Chief Malakian, the head of Parliamentary Security, or S-4. "Threat assessment and response has been called for."
"From a couple of firecrackers?" Vanessa replied. "Zero and zero. Let 'em shoot." Damn security squibs, she thought darkly to herself, flicking to other monitors and tac-net locations, determined not to be fixated on the colour and movement, and thus miss the real threat. The next convoy vehicle came under fire from two rockets, one of which burst immediately before the windshield in a puff of white smoke. More cheers from the crowd, and the clearly audible chant of "Fuck the Fifth! Fuck the Fifth!" So they thought they were shooting at Admiral Duong. But then again, she reckoned Benale, or any senior Earth politician, would have suited them well enough.
"Major Rice," Malakian's voice reappeared in her ear, "the organisers are demanding an immediate threat assessment and action. The security guidelines clearly stipulate that aerial hazards must be dealt with immediately in proximity to any red-zone airspace ... "
"What d'you want me to do?" Vanessa snarled. "Open fire on a bunch of civilians because they've got a couple of illegal party pops? I don't care how bad it looks on the news feeds, those cruisers can take direct hits from far worse than fireworks and I've got more important things to worry about! If you're that concerned, get the cops onto it. Now stop clogging the audio."
She disconnected, refraining from uttering a few more choice phrases for all to hear. She did not like giving the local security access to tac-net, they weren't familiar enough with CDF operating protocols to be much more than a nuisance. If Sandy were in command of this operation, she doubted it would have happened. But because it was being commanded by a mere major, Krishnaswali had seen fit to override her recommendation. Just as he'd seen fit to allow Duong and Benale's security teams their own bandwidth for independent tac-nets on the local network, forcing a certain CDF major to stay up half of last night in conversation with those security team leaders to coordinate the protocols so they didn't trip over each other's feet.
It was one more hassle on top of every other recent disaster, and Vanessa was not in the best mood of her life this fine Tanushan morning. Particularly when she had to put up with the renegade, tag-team duo themselves interrupting her with VIPs on approach to give warning of some new plot they'd uncovered to source illegal weapons through some obscure branch of the Foreign Office ... she hadn't made sense of all the details, but Ari had sounded alarmed. That Sandy had let him contact her suggested she was too. But damn it, Sandy of all people should have known that the one thing a commander on active duty didn't need was too much peripheral information. But of course, for Sandy's augmented brain, there
was no such thing as too much information. Well, some of us are only human, she'd considered snapping more than once of late, despite knowing it was unfair. Deal with it.
Upon the approach driveway, the convoy formed up as the final vehicles touched down, and began rolling toward the broad main stairs. One convoy down, and the second on approach, tac-net switched to phasetwo, focus-scanning along a new set of parameters. Amongst Vanessa's team not a word was spoken. They knew their jobs too well for that. Ten storeys below Vanessa's vantage point, Secretary General Benale emerged from a cruiser in the centre of the convoy. He took his time getting up the stairs, between handshakes, pleasantries, and much smiling and waving to the small media contingent and stage managed well-wishers. And she did a fast double-take at one low-angle feed on tac-net-several Tanushan school children, no more than six years old, presenting the Secretary General of the United World Council with native flowers.
Children? It was all she could do to remain focused on her job, and not blow her top completely. They'd assured her there would be no children. It wasn't safe, she'd told them, reviewing the original plans presented to her. The bureaucrats in question had complained that it was only a couple of children, and they wanted a softer image of Callayan greetings to Earth's senior politician than the usual suits and ties. No, she'd said. And now, they'd ignored her. It wouldn't have happened to Sandy-they'd never have dared. With or without Krishnaswali's approval, she was going to kick some heads in when this was over.
At the top of the stairs, Vanessa saw on her visor tac-net display, President Neiland greeted Benale with a smile and a handshake. It all looked pathetically, fraudulently civil. God, she hated politics. And switched her fullest attention back to the landing vehicles in Duong's convoy, who were coming in from the north rather than the east, and were thus avoiding any colourful groundfire. Admiral Duong's arrival didn't help Vanessa's mood any, given that she'd personally have bet several limbs that he was in some way responsible for the attempts on Sandy's life. She was in such a bad mood, with the cumulation of recent events, that it truly didn't surprise her at all when the first missile contrails erupted a little over sixteen hundred metres away.
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