Killswitch: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1)

by Joel Shepherd

  Sandy shook her head, calmly. "No."

  Vanessa's smile faded. "No? But someday, surely?"

  "Only if I change my mind. Maybe one day I'll want a kid. But right now, I think never."

  Vanessa looked genuinely dismayed. "Seriously? But that's so sad!"

  "I know," said Sandy, with a faint smile. "It'd be tragic, for the kid. Rhian might get away with it, she's low profile. But me, with my job, and all the attention ..."

  "You could manage!" Vanessa insisted. "Hell, Krishnaswali's got three! "

  "I don't want to be the mother of the child of a killing machine," Sandy said sadly. "I don't have the right to inflict the fears and dangers of my life upon anyone so innocent. I don't want him or her to have to live the rest of their life in the shadow of my legacy. And I won't put all this guilt on anyone else's shoulders."

  Vanessa just stared at her, in great dismay. Looking like she wanted to argue, but somehow, couldn't think of any counterargument. Sandy smiled, and put a hand on Vanessa's slim, uniformed shoulder. "But if you have a child one day, I'd love to be friendly Auntie Sandy, who calls in frequently to corrupt its innocent little mind."

  Vanessa's eyes gleamed. "I'd like that," she said. And took Sandy's hand off her shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze.

  "Now, you said there was news?" Sandy prompted, thinking that this particular encounter had gone about as well as she could possibly have hoped, and wanting to end it before things could degenerate again.

  "Yeah," Vanessa said with a sigh, releasing her hand. "Takawashi left. He went on an attached shuttle, registered to the League freighter Corona. There was a security lapse-remember the customs report last month saying there was too much emphasis on entry, and not enough on departures? Well someone got a visual on Takawashi's party after they'd gone through the checks, just before boarding. One of that party, Intel's pretty sure, was Jane."

  Sandy waited patiently outside the League Embassy front gate, the raincoat hood pulled over her head, hands in pockets. At her back, cars hissed upon the wet street, gleaming beneath the streetlights. Simple concrete blocks lined the street edge, an age-old precaution against car bombs. Two years ago, there had been requests to block off the entire road, but local residents had protested. Nowadays, violent Callayan activist groups were more angry at Earth than the League, and the Embassy security no longer had quite so many reasons to be nervous. But still, a simple, enhanced visual sweep through the metal rails of the fence showed the crouched, dark shadows of snipers upon the roof, and scanner grids overlaid across the broad, grassy garden.

  The Embassy itself was pleasant on the eye-a two-storey white building with Corinthian pillars, very much in the style of eighteenth century English colonialism. An instantly recognisable style, in Tanusha, with its prominent Indian influence that recalled such architectural influences readily. A long driveway curved in a U, meeting the Embassy's main doors beneath the front pillars. There was little decorative lighting to advertise the building's existence to the outside, and no sign on the fence. Everyone who was interested in such things knew what the building was, of course, but no one inside found a need to announce the fact to casual passersby.

  After twenty seconds of waiting, a police officer climbed from the van at one end of the street barricades, and walked toward her. His raincoat was transparent, clearly displaying his blue uniform beneath. He arrived at Sandy's side.

  "Excuse me, ma'am, do you have some business here?" Sandy looked at him, fully showing her face beneath the hood. The policeman's eyes went wide. "I'm sorry, ma'am ... I mean Commander. We weren't informed."

  "That's okay, Sergeant, I didn't inform anyone."

  The sergeant gave a quick look across the Embassy's broad, wet lawns. "Did you inform the Embassy?"

  "No."

  "I see. Is there anything we can do to help?" Hopefully.

  "Just continue what you're doing, Sergeant. And watch for any unusual activity within the grounds."

  "Yes, Commander." The sergeant nodded formally, then hurried back to his van. Sandy returned her attention to the Embassy. If the security people watching her now had any doubts of her identity, the sergeant's reaction had surely dispelled them. A moment later, the front doors opened, and a woman in a raincoat came out. The walk up the gravel footpath to the front pedestrian gate took more than thirty seconds. Sandy could see within the first few steps that the approaching woman was a GI, and was armed beneath her raincoat upon the left side. Probably a machine-pistol, or a snubbed assault weapon. The female GI came up to the gate, and Sandy stepped close. Thunder muttered and grumbled, distantly.

  "Please state your business," said the other GI. The tone was expressionless. Her eyes were alert and aware, but somehow there was something missing. A depth.

  "I'd like to come in," said Sandy. When dealing with regs, it was wise to keep things simple.

  "Make an appointment," said the reg.

  "I'm the commander of the CDF," Sandy replied. "I don't need an appointment."

  "Procedural protocols say you do."

  "Fuck procedural protocols." The reg frowned, apparently not knowing what to make of that. It was nice to know these regs were capable of frowning, Sandy supposed. She'd known some who weren't. In combat, they'd done plenty of damage, but not always to soldiers, and not always the enemy's. Their own life expectancy, during a heavy period, had been not years or months, but weeks. "Either you open the gate, or I'll jump it and walk in."

  "The Embassy is legally League territory." Sandy doubted the reg knew what that really meant, but had been instructed to say it when required. "We are allowed to use lethal force."

  "I'm not going to attack you. I'm just going to walk to the Embassy."

  "You're not allowed."

  "So stop me."

  Now the reg was becoming confused. "We'll restrain you."

  "You're aware of my designation. You know what happens when you try and fight a designation like mine." If this GI had ever gone hand-to-hand against Ramoja, she'd know. They'd need at least ten to stop her.

  "Then you will be attacking us," reasoned the reg.

  "No, I'll be defending myself."

  "On League territory."

  "So I'm not allowed to defend myself if ten or twenty GIs rush me?"

  The reg took a deep breath, looking more disconcerted than ever. "It would be much easier if you made an appointment," she said.

  "Forty seconds, and I'll jump the fence," said Sandy. The reg did not reply. From her slightly desperate look, Sandy reckoned she was asking for instructions ... but she couldn't tell for sure without her uplinks. It ought to have been safe to do so, with Jane gone. But in the proximity of the League Embassy, it wasn't a risk she was prepared to take.

  The metal gate clacked unlocked, then hummed open. The reg stood aside as Sandy walked in, looking about as relieved as was possible for a reg to look. Relieved not because she'd been fearing a fight, that wasn't in any reg's nature. But relieved to be freed from such an unsettlingly complicated problem of suitable responses. Regs were happier when things were black and white. In Sandy's experience, the battlefield was rarely that. And she simply couldn't believe the attitude of people who would send such mentally simple creations into combat. Regs-indeed, all GIs-had been an invention of desperation from a smaller power looking to even the odds against massive numerical inferiority. But now the war had ended, and still the League persisted with a backbone force of low-to-mid designation GIs. Inevitably, they'd become dependent. And worse, being League, they'd become infatuated with GIs' more obvious physical and technical advantages.

  But create an entire army of high-des GIs like herself? Like Ramoja, or Jane? That was to risk creating an enormously powerful weapon that could not be controlled. And so they persisted with blunt instruments like this one. It wasn't fair to the regs, and it certainly wasn't fair to any civilians in proximity to a hypothetical combat zone ... to say nothing of what it meant for the gradual disintegration of any League concept of
human rights, to even have regs in the first place. Sandy felt herself fuming with old angers as she walked up the crunching gravel path in the moderate, steady rain. Her thumb ached within its cast-a good sign, that the nerves were regenerating. And a bad sign, for the tension it indicated.

  To her little surprise, Major Ramoja met her just inside the front door.

  "Commander," he said mildly, as the reg shut the door behind. Sandy unbuttoned her raincoat. "Don't take it off, you won't be staying that long."

  "Is that right?" Sandy said flatly. Removed the raincoat, shook it out, and offered it to the reg standing at her elbow. The reg did not take it. Sandy shook her head. "The service in this place is simply not what it used to be." She tossed it to the floor, against the wall by the door.

  "What do you want?" Ramoja asked. He stood in the middle of the broad entrance hallway, on polished floorboards before an expensive Indian carpet. Paintings on the walls, and a large overhead chandelier maintained the eighteenth-century ambience. A carved wooden table at the cross-corridor behind held a vase containing a brilliant plume of peacock feathers. To Sandy's maxed hearing, the Embassy seemed remarkably quiet. On her previous visits, there had been much bustle and activity, Embassy staff going about their routine chores, and serving drinks or meals for the various official activities that seemed to continue on a steadily rotating schedule. Now, she could hear barely an echo of compressed floorboards, nor a murmur of distant conversation. The security outside, however, had been as intense as always. Doubtless they were all still here. Equally doubtless recent events had brought the typical daily cycle to an abrupt end.

  "I want answers," Sandy told him. "I want to know everything you know about Renaldo Takawashi. I want to know exactly what he was up to in Tanusha. I mean what he was really up to. And I want to know exactly which League faction authorised Jane's recovery, and how."

  Ramoja raised an eyebrow. He wore military pants and jacket, with many pockets and obvious weapons. Lately, in quieter times, he'd taken to wearing suits. Doubtless he'd found it enhanced his newly discovered dapper self-image. Today, things were evidently different. "You already seem to know all the answers," he said mildly. "Why don't you tell me?"

  Sandy shook her head. "You don't understand. Ibrahim's preparing an order to close down the Embassy."

  Ramoja nearly frowned. Nearly. Sandy knew a GI's reflexes well enough to recognise the onset of combat-reflex. Ramoja was highly alarmed. "Why?" he said flatly.

  "Suspected complicity with a direct threat to Callayan and Federation security of the highest level. Suspected complicity in the assassination of Admiral Duong, and with the attempted assassination of the Callayan Secretary of State. Neiland's authorising him for any measures necessary. He's not just going to send home the Ambassador, he's going to close down the Embassy. By force, if you don't meet his timetable. His timetable, in case you're wondering, is the next thirty minutes. Either you talk, or you're all gone."

  Upon which she folded her arms and waited. Somewhere above, a door slammed. Then footsteps, multiplying as they echoed down hallways and across rooms. Some echoing voices. Ramoja seemed to be waiting, lips pressed to a thin line, arms folded tightly. From the hard look in his eyes, Sandy guessed he was processing a terse, uplinked conversation.

  Then ... "I said I'll handle it!" he snarled aloud, to that silent interlocutor. The approaching footsteps continued, and then Ambassador Yao himself arrived in the hall, appearing somewhat less collected than Sandy could ever remember seeing him. He strode quickly across the carpet, a somewhat rounded, inoffensive-looking Chinese man with his tie uncharacteristically askew.

  "Commander, please, you must tell the Director that we had nothing to do with ..." And he broke off as Ramoja spun to face him, stepping firmly across his path.

  "I said I'll handle it," Ramoja said in a dark, tight voice. Yao blinked at him. Ramoja stood no taller than Yao, and despite an intensely muscular build, probably weighed less too. Yet his sheer physical gravity seemed to suck all presence out of the Ambassador, and render him transparent by contrast.

  "Major," Yao managed to blurt after a deep intake of breath, "I am the Ambassador here, and it is my responsibility to ..."

  "League security is in question," Ramoja replied, tautly. "It just became an ISO matter. I rank you."

  It evidently wasn't a question he wanted discussed in front of the CDF Commander-who ranked who in the Embassy, and when, was a matter of speculation still within the CSA. Well, she was now a little wiser. For whatever good it would do, if she didn't get what Ibrahim considered a reasonable set of answers. Yao blinked furiously, evidently thinking fast. Which was what he was best at, by all reports. But none of his conclusions appeared to give him a way past the bundle of lethally coiled synthetic muscle that currently blocked his path, and so he stood aside, and waited in anxious silence. Ramoja swung on his heel, and faced Sandy once more.

  "Takawashi's mission was to recover the FIA's GI," he confirmed, shortly. "He appears to have been successful."

  Sandy just fixed him with an unimpressed stare. "Do better," she told him, just as shortly.

  "It was authorised a long way up the chain. The Embassy was instructed to provide cover, but not direct assistance."

  "We in the business of Callayan security don't have the luxury of making that distinction," Sandy remarked sourly.

  "I protested the instruction."

  "Well, good for you," said Sandy, with much condescension. Ramoja's eyes narrowed beneath dark, firm brows. "I'm so glad to see you're developing along your moral continuum."

  "Takawashi was dubious of the need for our assistance," Ramoja continued. "He felt that Jane would be open to persuasion."

  "Persuasion?" Sandy exclaimed, with raised eyebrows. "Jane?"

  "He felt that she would wish to meet her maker." There was now a trace of dark irony in Ramoja's voice. A scepticism toward Takawashi and his intentions. From Ramoja, the clean-cut, every-League-officer's-favourite GI, it was unexpected. "He told me that she was confused. That she would jump at the chance to be where she belonged, and to broaden her horizons."

  "Yeah, she's a real compulsive socialiser, huh. Maybe that or she's got a killswitch in her brainstem too, and he's got the trigger."

  Ramoja made a "maybe" motion of his head. "She did display an instinct for self-preservation."

  "What have the FIA said about Takawashi stealing back his prize?"

  "No, no." Ramoja shook his head, some of the usual, familiar smugness returning. "You don't understand. Jane was not stolen from Takawashi by the FIA. She was a gift."

  Then she did understand, having already suspected. But she said nothing. Ambassador Yao coughed, nervously, and wet his lips. "Actually, Major, I'm not sure that you should be speaking of. . . "

  "Takawashi's pathetically self-serving mission is over," Ramoja cut him off, hard. "We've been forced to jeopardise our broader mission enough with his foolishness. League relations with the entire Federation are now at stake, thanks to his little escapade, and now we must return to our true priorities." Yao nodded quickly, lips pursed.

  "The war was ending," Ramoja continued to Sandy. "Takawashi's greatest perfection of his life's work-us-was complete. Yet GI production was ending, the old government was falling, and with it, all support for him and his research projects. He wanted to give his creations life, but was not allowed. There was an order to destroy his prototypes, yet he refused. I cannot prove what happened next, but suffice to say that I do not find his evidence of their destruction convincing."

  "Why the FIA?" Sandy said suspiciously. "What did they offer?"

  "As far as I can discern, they offered nothing. Merely the chance to give Takawashi's baby life. It took much preparation, though." And Ramoja's eyes narrowed. "Some of the required information could only be gleaned by close examination of a physical subject. And Takawashi had no prototype of the advanced design available. Except for one, who had wandered off. Directly into Federal Intelligence's web."
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  Sandy stared at him, unblinkingly. Then, in a low voice and as calmly as she could manage, "You're saying that Takawashi set me up, two years ago?"

  "I can prove nothing," said Ramoja. "I only know that Takawashi was disappointed in you."

  "He expressed otherwise," Sandy said darkly.

  A corner of Ramoja's mouth twitched upwards. "Oh, he was pleased enough that you had shown such ... initiative. But your defection to the Federation did represent a definite failure on his part. Renaldo Takawashi was once a simple researcher, as he often says. A shining star in the independent, nonpolitical League science community. But however reluctantly he joined the League's military development projects when it seemed to League policy makers that war would become inevitable if the League were to fulfil its manifest destiny, he quickly changed his tune. He would deny it, of course. But for at least fifty years now, Renaldo Takawashi has grown accustomed to his immense political influence within the League, and his enormous research budgets. Not to mention a lavish lifestyle that verges upon the obscene. That ship in orbit, the Corona, to which he is currently headed? It is listed as owned by the Cognizant Corporation, the holding company to which Cognizant Systems is affiliated. What is not well known is that Takawashi effectively owns a controlling stake in Cognizant Corporation, through various roundabout methods. And the Corona is effectively his private starship."

  As many wealthy people as there were in the Federation and League combined, there were very few who owned private starships. For those who did, it remained the ultimate statement in wealth and privilege.

  "Your disappearance greatly damaged Takawashi's prestige within the League government and military," Ramoja continued. "He had warned that it was a possibility within your first ten years of life. After that, however, he firmly expected that your loyalty toward the League and its principles would be firmly entrenched. When you left, he lost face, and the powers that be lost confidence with his predictions. I believe that Jane had been merely one of several side-projects up until that point. Afterwards, however, he felt compelled, by ego as much as the technical challenge, to work toward a solution to the problem you posed."