Killswitch (23 page)

"It's not fair what GIs can do, Sandy," Vanessa said quietly. "It's real convenient when they're friendly and on your side. But on the receiving end ... it's just not fucking fair. They were good kids. Good soldiers, too. They didn't stand a chance."

"Ricey." Sandy reached for Vanessa's hand upon the covers. Clasped it gently, and gave a light squeeze. "She's her. I'm me."

William Reichardt sat in Mekong's captain's chair, and listened to the procession of bad news over station com. About him, the cramped metal spaces of the warship's bridge glowed the dull red of full alert, all posts occupied, terminals and operators interfacing in a familiar embrace.

"Captain," called the com officer, "we've reports of shooting in green sector, as many as seven casualties. Dockworkers, I think."

Reichardt set his jaw hard, and did not answer. Station feed was still broadcasting full schematics on Fleet encryption, and on his chair's primary display screens he could see the small blue dots of Fifth Fleet personnel spread throughout the station's circumference. It still ached-the stationmaster's final pleas for intervention clear in his memory, the thumping crashes in the background as Amazon's marines had battered through the last barriers of the desperate bridge crew. There were few things William Reichardt enjoyed less than sitting helpless and watching while bad things were done. He was not, at this moment, feeling at all pleased or proud of himself. From the expressions on the faces surrounding him, he knew he wasn't the only one.

"Sir," said Cho from armscomp into that pause, "shouldn't we at least talk to Rusdi?"

"That's Captain Rusdihardjo on this bridge, shipmate," Reichardt replied, eyes not leaving the displays. "And we've got nothing to talk about."

"Captain ..." Cho persisted, "... couldn't we at least try and get the stationmaster out of detention? That's just nowhere in the procotols, it's just plain illegal ..."

"And shooting recalcitrant dockworkers with Fleet marines is?" Reichardt glared across the tight, display-lit space at his first mate. Cho looked exasperated, tense with anger and concern. "The Fifth just lost its admiral, Cho. This isn't a rational military procedure. This is revenge. Talking won't help."

"Captain," came first com again, "I have a secure transmission from Pearl River."

"Captain's chair," said Reichardt.

"Billy," said Captain Marakova in his ear the second his connection established, "I've given you an hour to think it over, and now I want an answer. What's your next move?"

"Lidya, I have no authorisation to deal with this situation." It took several seconds for the signal to reach Pearl River and return, from midorbit to high geostationary and back. Reichardt's display counted the seconds for him.

"Utter nonsense, those gutless fools left you in charge, they're in no position to complain if they don't like your actions. Rusdi's always been half-crazy, you know what I think happened here. "

"Yeah," Reichardt replied, not bothering to keep the frustration out of his voice, "I'm not real interested in political conspiracy theories right now, Lidya. Neither am I in any frame of mind to initiate hostilities with the Fifth Fleet."

His eye strayed over the nav display as he spoke. Four major stations servicing the world of Callay. The Third Fleet, under his unofficial command, had one warship docked at each, and three more in geostationary "watch." Mekong was the only carrier. Pearl River was an intercept cruiser, as were three others of similar class-plenty fast for deep space engagements, but equipped with only small marine complements, and not designed for boarding and occupying. The other two were rim hunters, midsized and equipped for outer-system sweeps, where pirates and raiders liked to hide. Lots of sensory gear, plenty of mobility, but not much firepower.

In situations short of a shooting war, carriers were most useful, and most provocative. Amazon's complement of three hundred marines, plus another three hundred from the Yangtze, now held Nehru Station, and its entire thirty-thousand-strong resident population, completely under Fifth Fleet control. Carriers on two of the other three stations had done likewise-Ryan Station was oldest and smallest, and only required several cruisers' complements to secure. Four carriers ... one hell of a provocation. One didn't send four carriers to a supposedly friendly system unless there was a great suspicion that they'd be required. Damn right his old friend Lidya Marakova was suspicious.

"Hell, Lidy," he muttered into his headset mike, "thirty years. Thirty years we've been doing it this way-a planet here, a few stations there. Thirty years out in the cold, away from civilisation, making our own rules against opponents who didn't always believe in them. Now we're back in civilisation, and it doesn't recognise us ... or we don't recognise it. What the hell's happened here?"

"Someone should explain to Rusdi that she was never betrayed." Marakova's voice was filled with contempt. "The Federation didn't abandon her or her values. Rather it had never accepted her damn values in the first place. Somewhere out there in the cold, she forgot. That is all that's happened here."

"She thinks she came home from the war to find her husband in bed with another woman," Reichardt countered. "That's what we're dealing with here. She's real pissed, and I'm not going to start playing chicken with someone who doesn't know how to flinch." His screen illuminated briefly, indicating another incoming call. "Hold on, Lidya, I've got Verjee on the line." He switched to the local, station line. "Hello, Captain Verjee, what can I do for you?"

"Captain Reichardt," came the new voice, with none of Marakova's easy informality. "Due to recent events, the station is now facing crew shortages in cargo and docking departments. This is an official request from actingAdmiral Rusdihardjo that you deploy a complement of your troops to help fill this vacancy."

From the neighbouring seat, Cho stared at him in disbelief, sharing the higher officers' linkage to all operational com. Reichardt took a deep breath.

"I'm not deploying anyone from Mekong into an unworkable environment," he replied, with what he thought was commendable calm. "You reinstate the stationmaster to his rightful post and release all the dockworkers you've detained, and I might reconsider your proposal."

A pause at the other end. "Is he fucking kidding?" Cho mouthed to him, silently. Reichardt just shook his head.

"You misunderstand the nature of this communication, Captain. This is not a request, it is an order from a senior officer."

"I do not accept Captain Rusdihardjo's new promotion," Reichardt replied with a hardening tone.

"We are a long way from any committee to decide the issue, Captain. As I understand the order, you shall either comply with this instruction, or you shall be found to be in defiance, and removed hencewith. "

"Like fuck you will," growled someone from the other side of the bridge. "You can try," Reichardt said simply. There was no immediate reply from the other end. Anxious faces around the bridge turned Reichardt's way. Familiar faces. Close friends, many of them. People who'd been there when Kresnov had ordered the orbital strike upon Tanusha's Gordon Spaceport, and gotten them embroiled in this twoyear-long mess. Some who'd been there far longer than that, through combat against the League, through horrors and terrors he'd never have wished on anyone, least of all his friends.

The Fifth Fleet had gone through those horrors too. Only it hadn't been the same Fifth Fleet, then. When it had all ended three years ago, lots of ships were decommissioned, lots of crews stood down and eager to return home. Somehow, the hardliners had all stayed. Many of those from broken squadrons in the other Fleets had also, somehow, gotten transferred sideways into the Fifth. Reichardt had always known these people existed. But he'd never seen so many of them all crammed into the one space at the same time. In command of so much firepower, in orbit around the world that was to become, God willing, the new centre of the Federation. Something had gone very badly wrong with the whole process for things to end up like this. It made him wonder, for the thousandth time in recent days, if that alone didn't prove what the likes of President Neiland had been saying all along, about the bureaucratic despotism and corruption that had grown into the old, Earth-centric Grand Council over thirty years of war, unlimited budgets, military secrecy and centralised power.

What would these people give to hold onto their preciously acquired authority? What would they do? What had they done already? And how in the name of all the hells of all humanity's many religions had he managed to end up holding the can?

"Captain," Verjee said at last, "we are the Fleet. We cannot be so divided. You have no authority to reject acting-Admiral Rusdihardjo's demands. "

"Fine, you tell her to start abiding by Federation law, and I'll place myself entirely within her service."

"That is not your call to decide, Captain."

"Nor hers to blockade what is effectively the capital world of the Federation."

"Not yet it's not."

Reichardt nearly smiled. There it was, right there. Four little words, one enormous problem. "But it is, I'm afraid, Captain Verjee. Little thing called democracy. The people of the Federation have spoken. I serve their wishes. You only serve Earth's wishes. Until your attitude changes, you have no authority, by Federation law, over me, or over any vessel of the Third Fleet. If you attempt to assert such authority, the Third Fleet within Callayan space shall be left with no other choice than to resist by any means necessary, in accordance with our oath to serve the people of the Federation. Do you understand that, Captain Verjee?"

Another link established itself to Mekong's com. This one came directly from Amazon.

"Captain Reichardt," came Rusdihardjo's cool, mild voice. "Your position is very clear. At least, now, we all know where everyone stands."

"Indeed, Captain," Reichardt replied. "Indeed we do."

"I'm not listening to you," Sandy told Ari, gazing out at the blazing carpet of light that was nighttime Tanusha. A gentle breeze, smelling of rain and recent thunderstorms, tossed at her hair. Beyond the rooftop security railing, fifty storeys below, lay Chatterjee Park, dark and crisscrossed with lighted paths.

"Wh ... why aren't you listening to me?" Ari gave her a sideways, concerned glance, gloved hands upon the railing. He'd had false retinal overlays done long ago, but he still worried about fingerprints. Sandy had assured him often that no Tanushan organisation she knew of, legitimate or otherwise, concerned themselves with fingerprints. But, well ... some people called Ari paranoid.

"I'm not sure," said Sandy. "Perhaps it's the two years of lies and secrecy in all the time I've known you."

"Oh, right ..." Ari nodded. "I guess that could be it, huh."

The target of their attentions, the Golden Welcome Hotel, stood upon the northern end of Chatterjee Park. Perhaps fifty storeys tall, it was shaped like a giant, four-sided pyramid. Fancy lighting flashed along its angled corners, and at some points decorative lasers strobed the overcast sky.

"He's bound to be very well guarded," Ari attempted again, in a mild, matter-of-fact tone.

"I know," said Sandy. "That's why you're going to help me."

"Um ... when I said very well guarded, Sandy, I kind of meant the network barriers as much as the physical ones."

"Enough with the false modesty. I know you can get me in."

Ari coughed self-consciously. "What if I don't want to?"

"Then I'll probably get caught, and it'll be very embarrassing for the CDF, CSA, President Neiland and Callay in general."

"Sandy ... look, I do a lot of things in the service of this wonderful planet and its ... its charming, worthy inhabitants," Sandy rolled her eyes, "but I never just outright go and break the law." Sandy looked at him. "Well okay ... I do fiddle a bit at the edges, but I'm allowed to, that's the wonder of the new security legislation."

"You're telling me that you're a professional law breaker? Oh, that's all right then."

"I'm trying to tell you," Ari said with the beginnings of impatience, that just breaking into a private company's data files is illegal."

"This isn't a big enough crisis for your security legislation to cover?"

"You're a soldier, Sandy. Special circumstances cover Intel operators only."

"So help me, Mr. Bigshot Intel Operator, and I'll be a part of your operation."

Ari sighed, knowing a losing situation when he saw one. Lightning leaped upon the distant horizon, outlining a forest silhouette of towers between, stretching away into the distance. On streets below, people flowed like a river, alive with lights and the occasional, airborne streak of amateur pyrotechnics.

"They're rioting over at EarthGov Embassy," Ari commented. "My friend Sanjay was there, he said the marines guarding the place looked nervous." There was a note of disbelief in his voice. Ari criticised Tanusha often, but it was his home. He'd lived here all his life, and had no intention of leaving. Sandy wondered what it was like, to be that attached to a place, and see it all turned upside down so quickly.

"Cops must have done a good job though," she said. "Considering no one's dead yet."

"Give it time," Ari murmured. "I've never seen people so angry. I mean, a blockade. They're blockading commerce. That's like banning a musician from playing music, or ... or a net addict from diving."

"Or a nymphomaniac from screwing," Sandy offered.

"This friend of mine, Sanjay ... did you ever meet Sanjay?"

"Not yet."

"He was a key organiser in a group called `Callayans Against the War,' one of the pacifist groups protesting the League-Federation war. He said nothing could ever justify violence. Now he's throwing stones at the EarthGov Embassy." Ari shook his head in amazement.

"Only people who've never suffered," Sandy murmured, "and never known what it's like to lose everything at the point of a gun, could ever think there was nothing in the world worth fighting for."

An hour later, Sandy walked along the central path of Chatterjee Park, gazing up at the enormous, sloping side of dark glass, tapering toward its pyramidal apex far above.