Killswitch (22 page)

She was only a little surprised when she heard the crunch of a footstep directly behind her. She spun, knowing it would be the last thing she ever did ... her weapon hit something immovable-a hand, she registered, clamped around the muzzle of her rifle. Another hand smashed her armour in the chest, and she was flying backwards into the wreckage of the platform cubicle, minus her weapon. The remains of the glass wall collapsed on her. And then she was staring up at the dark, leather and synthetic-clad figure before her, clutching her own weapon by the muzzle in one hand, another pointed directly at her face.

Several seconds passed, and Vanessa realised she was still alive. Perhaps there was some use to paying further attention, if just for a few more seconds enlightenment. The GI, she noticed with no real surprise, was female. Broadly built, but of only moderate height. Famil iarly broad, in fact, with shortish blonde hair. So familiar, in fact, that ... but a direct gaze at the face dispelled that sudden horror as fast as it arrived-it was a stranger's face that gazed down upon her, cool and emotionless. A leaner face than Sandy's. Not as attractive. There was no light in her eye, no familiar, subtle expression. Vanessa sensed nothing of warmth or humanity from her. It was as if the space before her was just void, occupied by a lethal, human shell.

"Helmet," said the GI. The voice was as flat and emotionless as the face. The weapon in one hand gestured at her helmet, wanting it to come off. Vanessa's hands reached for the seal beneath the chin, moving dazedly, as if on automatic. Snap, and the chinstrap came away, then the breather mask and visor unsealed with a release of pressure. Vanessa pulled the helmet off, feeling her short hair plastered and sticky beneath, cold with sweat in the open air. She disconnected the insert from the back of her head, and felt the flow of tac-net information abruptly cease, all additional visions and patterns vanishing from her mind's eye. The GI just looked at her. If she was curious or surprised, amused or angry, she gave no sign.

"Vanessa Rice," said the GI. "You're Cassandra Kresnov's friend." Somehow, that didn't surprise her much either. It wasn't exactly classified knowledge.

"I am," Vanessa replied, her voice hoarse with defiance. "You remember that, just before she kills you." For the first time, there was a glimmer of reaction in the GI's eyes. Perhaps amusement. Perhaps anticipation.

"I expect she'll try," was the reply. The voice remained as flat as before. "You nearly managed today. You're an excellent soldier, for a straight." Somehow it didn't sound like much of a compliment. The GI walked across crunching glass, and put a foot on Vanessa's armoured chest, the rifle muzzle held unwaveringly to her forehead. In the armour suit, she might have tried to trip the GI, and wrestle. Except that she'd tried that before with Sandy, in power armour, as had several others who'd dared. None of the fights had lasted more than a few seconds, except when Sandy prolonged them by not trying as hard, for demonstrative purposes.

"I want you to tell her something," the GI continued. "Tell her that if she wants to disable the killswitch, she'll have to contact me. Otherwise it will kill her. It's just a matter of time."

"Not before she gets you, you mechanical piece of shit."

The GI nearly smiled. Nearly. "Her time is shorter than she thinks. I know. Tell her to contact me, or she'll die."

The dropping knee-smash, like all the GI's other moves, came out of nowhere.

CHAPTER NINE

ANDY strode fast along the corridor, Hiraki leading the way, rifle to his shoulder and a mean swagger to his step. Soldiers moved aside in passing. Many recognised her, despite the dark hair, and saluted. Some stopped in their tracks, and snapped off salutes so crisp they sizzled, defiance in every postured muscle.

When they reached the entrance to the med-bay, Hiraki took up guard, rifle at cross-arms. "I'll be okay," Sandy told him.

"Even so," said Hiraki, scanning one way, then the other, with slanted, dangerous eyes. He was, Sandy had gathered, in an exceptionally bad mood. First, Vanessa had held gold squad back from the airborne assault on the residential buildings the missiles had come from. Then she'd held him in place while the GI had killed two of Vanessa's squad and then escaped. In Sandy's estimation, Vanessa had been right on both calls-the first because the threat assessment against an offensive assault at the buildings was low, and she'd wanted her best squad leader in reserve for something more serious; and the second because if Hiraki had gone into the Chambers' station, he and most of his squad would also have been dead. Lieutenant Hiraki, of course, didn't see it that way.

"You've got duties," Sandy reprimanded him. "I don't need an armed guard in my own building."

"It's not your building, it's the government's." Hiraki didn't even look at her. "You need a ranking officer here in case of wandering bureaucrats."

"I won't get reported." A pair of CDF soldiers passed, recognised her and snapped salutes. Everyone knew she wasn't allowed to be here. The expressions on passing faces was enough to suggest that even General Krishnaswali might not discover her presence until she was gone. And if he ordered her detained, it was unlikely to be obeyed. "Get back to your unit, that's an order."

"You're out of uniform," Hiraki said pointedly. "I'm not." Sandy half-rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"Fine, have it your way." She walked into the med-bay, and found seven of the twenty main beds were occupied. Vanessa was up at the end, propped on her pillows with her head bandaged, reading over various comp-slates, a half-eaten sandwich and a steaming cup on the bed tray to her side. She met Sandy's gaze immediately. Sandy felt her heart leap, with an unexpected shock of relief and fear ... it could so easily have been different, and now it really hit her. Vanessa returned a faint smile. Sandy responded, then stopped by the first bed, where a private named Rafale-one of Hiraki's-was lying.

She made her way along the line, talking briefly to each of the four who were awake, reliving the scenario and voicing her strong approval of their efforts-she'd uplinked the full tac-net record upon arrival, and knew exactly what had happened. Then she reached Vanessa's bed, and pulled up a chair.

"Hi, gorgeous." Leaned to kiss her on the cheek, not wishing to make too much of a fuss in front of the troops. Vanessa caught at her hand as she sat back-a light, grateful grasp. She wore her cps jacket over the dressing gown, stitched with many patches on the arms and shoulders. SWAT Four, Sandy recognised one. And the main CSA patch. Her college coat-of-arms patch too, though that had nothing to do with military service-Ramprakash University, she'd done an MBA there, of all things. It had been Vanessa's habit, back in SWAT, to adorn her jacket with all the units she'd served in, and all the places she'd once belonged. Somewhere along the line, other CDF officers had started copying that habit, and then the enlisted troops too. Although less than two years old, the CDF was already beginning to accumulate peculiar traditions.

"Cold?" Sandy asked, with a glance at the jacket, knowing full well that wasn't why Vanessa was wearing it.

"Feel stupid sitting in this damn polka dot gown." Vanessa glanced down, distastefully. "I mean seriously, polka dots? Which idiot in procurement ordered these horrible things?"

"Not my department." Sandy gave the standard reply.

"We're soldiers, not nursery rhyme characters."

"Let me make a note of that."

Vanessa snorted, giving her a wry sideways look. Sandy was relieved to see that she didn't look too bad. The bandages were wrapped diagonally, covering most of her right eye, cheek and ear. There was a cheek fracture, she'd already been told, and a corresponding one on the back of her skull where it had been slammed on the platform. Otherwise it was just concussion, which healed nearly as fast as fractures with microsynth treatments. Bits of wild dark hair stuck up through the swathed bandages, defiantly. Under the eyes, the last traces of blackness from the previously broken nose were still faintly visible.

"Been getting beaten up a lot, lately?" Sandy suggested.

"So what else is new? Does Krishnaswali know you're here?" With a sombrely measuring look from her good left eye. Sandy shook her head. "Great, so either he finds out and orders you detained, or he doesn't find out, and gets furious because no one told him."

"Fuck him," said Sandy. Vanessa considered that for a moment, offhandedly.

Then, "Yeah, I guess so," she decided. And gazed blankly across the ward for a moment. Sandy followed her gaze, turning in her seat. And saw young Private Moutada, unconscious in his bed, right arm swathed in bandages over bio-casts within a mass of fluid-tubes. The microsolutions healed the burns, encouraged the growth of new, unscarred skin, and formed new nerve pathways where the old ones were destroyed.

"He'll be okay," Sandy said quietly. "They can reconstruct the hand and wrist, it'll be just like new. Maybe better."

"Doesn't help the others much, does it?" Vanessa met Sandy's gaze once more as she turned back around. "Nor all Duong's marines." Pause. "Nor Duong."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Damn it," said Vanessa, with a sudden flash of dark irritation, "I don't need a lecture. I know it wasn't my fault. The whole fucking system was compromised from the beginning. They snuck a GI right into the damn Chambers through the underground. The missile attack drives everyone right into the exact place they wanted them. We were set up from the start. I'm not blaming myself, I can do my own damn shrink-work."

Sandy gazed at her for a moment. "Well, good," she said, injecting just enough of an edge into her tone, "I'm real pleased to see you don't have a problem."

"I'm angry," said Vanessa, a little more calmly. "And I'm not going to deal with all this emotional shit now. I have things to do."

Sandy took a deep breath. If that was the way Vanessa wanted to play it, she would oblige. "Are you going to be okay with the rosters?" she said instead.

"Sure, I've got Rupa doing revision plans on her spare time, even Arvid was surprised to learn he does know one end of a comp-slate from another. It's not so hard when suddenly no one's going home to sleep. We'll cover for you. Though it might be nice to know how long for?" With a questioning look.

"That's why I'm here." There was no point keeping her voice down -the soldiers in nearby beds could no doubt hear, with their enhanced hearing. But amongst CDF soldiers, she didn't mind the knowledge spreading. "That last lead we were on. Went back to the Senate."

Vanessa frowned. "That stray arms shipment?" Sandy nodded. "Where in the Senate?"

"Don't know. It gets kind of lost after that, even Ari can't get access to Senate files real easy. But he did find out what was in the shipments. Hi-Star multifire-type twos, plus ammunition."

"So somehow," Vanessa said slowly, "a couple of military grade, multifire rocket launchers get through customs en route to a Senate address, then wind up in the hands of a Tanushan radical nationalist movement. Ari should have fun trying to join those dots."

"Well, he's hardly bothering with the Senate," Sandy replied, "that's just banging your head against a bureaucratic wall. But he was talking to some contacts who know the Callay Rashtra. It looks like this was coming for a while."

"I bet Ari's real pissed he didn't notice."

"Well, that's the thing," Sandy countered, "Callay Rashtra were such patsies, they had everything fed to them on a spoon, and they bought it. Someone in the government gave them the equipment, gave them the intel, set them up for the whole thing. Ari reckons they were lured to make the rocket attack, and think it was their own idea. He doesn't think they knew about the GI."

"So the home grown Callayan loonies take the blame," Vanessa concluded, "while the real masterminds stay hidden."

"Giant fucking setup," Sandy confirmed. "And it worked."

"Yeah," Vanessa murmured. Her gaze slid to the small display screen upon the opposite wall, angled so the rest of the ward could view it. It was a local news channel, of course. The broadcast had slipped into what was being called by some the "holy shit" mode, where the screen was filled with blurred, uneven live images of explosions and flaming wreckage. Glimpses of weapon fire and confused carnage were interspersed with experts, espousing their very well-paid opinions. Several, to Sandy's small surprise, had books to sell, or analysis-services to promote. A few had once been CSA. And, worse, Special Investigations Bureau.

"Been following this?" Vanessa asked, sombrely.

"My seekers buzz me whenever something interesting comes up," Sandy replied. "Lots of buzzes lately."

"Saw Benale's speech?"

"Uh-huh."

There wasn't much more to say. The Secretary General had been furious. The kind of shaking, head-sweating fury that usually followed a close brush with death, in Sandy's experience-particularly when the person in question was utterly unaccustomed to such things, and was inclined toward mortal offence at the smallest inconvenience to his person. Or, rather, his Very Important Person.

There had been a huge barrage directed at the CSA and the CDF, for their "utter and inexcusable failure to provide even the smallest modicum of basic security." And another barrage for the Neiland Administration, and President Neiland herself, for "direct responsibility in stirring up some of the basest emotions at work within the Callayan political spectrum." Such an incident, he had stated, with beads of sweat gleaming in the lights on his shaved scalp, was "a grave provocation to the forces of Federal unity that Earth and its institutions represents."

"That last line was certainly a killer," Vanessa completed their mutual train of thought. "`If the government of Callay cannot even provide the basic security required for a simple summit meeting, how in the galaxy can they possibly be trusted to hold and protect the very seat of all Federation authority?"'

"Subtle little fuck, isn't he?" Sandy murmured.

"What's the Fleet doing?"

"They're in conference," Sandy said with a sigh. And hung her head, elbows forward on knees. Her neck was stiff, and she had the beginnings of a most rare condition-a headache. "Official next in command of the Fifth is Captain Rusdihardjo. Makes Duong look like a moderate. It's not going to be pretty."

"Convenient," said Vanessa. Flatly, her good eye dark with sombre meaning. "For people who'd like that promotion." Sandy nodded, wearily. "We're going to lose the stations, aren't we?"

Sandy nodded again. "They'll interpret their security prerogative independently, as is their right. Earth's a long way away, they're authorised to take whatever action they require. Intel thinks it'll be a full blown blockade. Maybe worse."

"That's not good." There was a brief silence, but for faint footsteps in the corridor beyond, and a muffled conversation between doctors. "A blockade is already a violation of Callayan sovereignty within the Federation charter. Anything more is ... well, war."

"What really shits me," Sandy said with eyes narrowing, "is that for someone out there, this is turning out exactly the way they'd planned. I have to find that GI. She's the link between us and whoever's planning this whole mess. And if she's leaving you cryptic messages to pass on to me, maybe she'll talk rather than shoot."

"Track record there doesn't seem great," Vanessa murmured.

"GIs," Sandy said firmly, "are unpredictable. They're not machines. Higher-designation minds can't be programmed like regs. I think the message was a sign of that."

"Or maybe it's exactly what she was told to say," Vanessa replied blandly. "Maybe it's a part of a plot to get your hopes up and your guard down."

Sandy shrugged, concedingly. "Either way, I have to try. It's so much easier when they talk without shooting."

"All the same to me," Vanessa muttered. Sandy gazed at her, worriedly. Vanessa turned her single-eyed stare upon her, with dark emotion. "If she won't play civilised, promise me you won't go all soft and mushy, huh? You can't play a gentleman's game with a chimpanzee, Sandy. If she so much as blinks, you fuckin' waste her, you got me?"

It was fury, pure and simple. Worse than fury. Hatred. Sandy gazed at her friend for a long moment, and felt a slow, creeping dread moving in the pit of her stomach.

"Sure," she said finally. "Sure I will." And glanced down, for the first time, at the comp-slate resting on Vanessa's lap. Zoomed on the writing there. It was a letter. To Mr. and Mrs. Hussein, parents of young Private Omar Hussein. And she recalled in a flash a cocky, confident young man with an easy grin. A little arrogant, in the way of so many young Tanushan men, but full of spirit and life ... "esprit," Vanessa had termed it before, in her fluent French. A word larger than itself, and much to be admired. She'd never had to write a letter like that herself, Sandy realised. All the soldiers she'd lost directly under her command had been GIs. And GIs had no one waiting at home to grieve when the letter arrived.