Better to Beg Forgiveness (20 page)

"Well, well"—it was amazing how the backpedaling started—"you don't expect the best to sign up for a position in a corrupt organization. If the President had asked me for help, I would have offered support, but of course, that would mean acknowledging that our society is broken . . ."

"I need hip waders even here," Vaughn growled in disgust.

"I wish we could drink," Bart agreed. Oh, how a few liters of beer would make this less painful. Or a few shots of good whisky.

"Who the hell is that fat toad? I recognize him," Aramis said, pointing.

Alex said, "Yeah, he was big on TV when you were about twelve. LeMieure. He rolled it into a job with BuState. He's deWitt's boss."

"No wonder Mister deWitt looks so unhappy," Elke said. "And no wonder he's not allowed to have weapons."

LeMieure's comments made his blood run cold.

"The President of course regrets the events, and has assured me that he will work tirelessly to provide a new solution, which is more equitable. He is unavailable at present, due to being stressed by the attack . . ."

It was right then the President stormed in from his apartment, past Shaman at the door. He certainly appeared to be stressed. He was not resting.

"How dare he? I made a statement, and that was not it! I aaeerggh!" His fists were balled, he was sweating, and his eyes bulged. He looked as if he were about to smash holes in the walls. Shaman hurried over for reassurance, but had a trank behind his back, just in case.

Incoherent rage didn't seem to indicate agreement with the program.

There was a knock at the door. Everyone tensed until Alex said, "It's White. I cleared her a few minutes ago."

White came in, along with deWitt and another AF technician. She raised a finger to her lips until her assistant, who actually outranked her, being a sergeant, fumbled with some gear and nodded.

"I've damped all the sensors in this room," she said as she sat on the corner of a table. Her uniform, as always, was spotless and she looked professional. That wasn't just a look for her, Bart realized. It was her normal manner.

"All of them?" Vaughn asked, sounding cynical.

"Trust me. Look at your own gear if you wish." She was curt and snappish, but it wasn't directed to anyone in the room that Bart could tell.

"All right, what's up?" Marlow said.

"You've seen the alleged news," she said.

"Of course," "Yes," "Yeah," and a growl from Bishwanath.

"All I can tell you is that there are serious attempts to hack your commo and network. We're here to strengthen it for you."

No one moved.

Finally, Elke said, "And will you have a back door?"

"I have a back door to everything," she admitted, "but I don't talk out of school. Not even about that conversation Elke, Alex, and Shaman had yesterday," she said. "Nor about Elke's game program of a few nights ago." Elke twitched at that but retained her poise. Bart had no idea which either of the references were to, but they seemed to reassure Alex and Elke.

It was true that White was inscrutable, and that their radios had already been cracked, while nothing he'd done or said had leaked out other than through the press's spying. Though it could have gotten to them several ways.

When Marlow looked his way, Bart nodded. It made sense. Better her than whichever scum were trying to run things.

"Do it," Marlow said, and the tech nodded and went to work. His name tape was off his uniform. That seemed to be a hint.

DeWitt finally spoke. "It should be obvious there's a power struggle going on here. I can't do anything about it. All I can do is offer hints and possible warnings of disasters. I'm not worried about my job, I'm worried about the lives of people I work with and care about. It's escalating to that level fast."

"What can be done about it?" Anderson asked. "Anything? Are we just puppets?" The kid was cool and attentive, all pretense gone.

"The President could do what people want him to do," deWitt said. "I'm sure that's not going to happen, and I don't suggest it. But that's what they plan to get."

White said, "I'm here for Major Weilhung, too. He's not happy with being in the line of fire of what he calls a 'pissing contest' between BuState and BuCommerce factions. So while he can't officially do anything, he's not a hostile at this time."

"Nice disclaimer," Vaughn murmured from his perch on the back of the couch, very close to the weapons locker.

She looked at him and ran a hand through her bobbed hair. "The way things are changing, I don't think anyone can promise anything, Agent Vaughn."

"Yeah, it's that kind of meat grinder," he agreed.

"What is Commerce's stake in this?" Shaman asked, looking from the President to deWitt.

"Same as always. Get a bunch of contracts for companies with connections to them or people they owe favors to," deWitt said. "They can't be too unhappy with factories getting bombed. More work for them."

"No one wants to stop the fighting here," Bishwanath said. "This isn't an Iraq or a China or an Indonesia. This is more like the American Civil War, where the British were happy to trade for cotton from the Confederacy and sell weapons to the North. The only question here is who is going to control the market to the factions. I'm in the way."

"You've got a lot of courage, sir," Anderson said, and meant it. He appeared to be grasping that not all bravery was physical.

"And BuState is the referee?" Elke asked.

DeWitt sighed. "BuState is charged with developing the civil affairs of this nation. So the military has to clear through us on how much damage they can do, which they don't like, and I don't blame them. Commerce has to clear through us on how much money they can throw and where, which they don't like, and I don't blame them. Mister Bishwanath has to deal with us to
get
off world support, which he doesn't like, and I don't blame him. Same for all the smaller factions, the larger corporations, everyone except the media, who are trying to gain leverage over everyone so they can blackmail us into doing the things their sponsors want—more trade, better weapons. The reason Ripple Creek is taking a beating is because you don't have trillion-dollar weapons contracts, multinational ad campaigns, or a factory to sell. You're the little guy in the corner of the bar."

"It's my experience that that little guy is the killer to avoid messing with," Bart said in warning. He handed his fliptop over to the tech without protest.

"Which makes you smarter than my boss." DeWitt grinned sickly. "Look, I'm a career civil servant," he said. "I've been working here for years, and other unsavory places before that. I have a masters degree in the field, hundreds of connections, and have written operational guidelines that have worked more often than not. People like leMieure come in instead by sucking up to whoever is SecGen, President, Premier, or Prime Minister at the time, and show up for a year or so grandstanding. They know they won't have the job long, because only competent people do ultimately last, 'competent' in this context meaning getting the job done so the next leader doesn't have a mess to clean up. LeMieure knows he's back to making fifth-rate crap no one will want to watch within an election or two. So he's grabbing all the credit and blackmail he can now. If I do something that works, he'll claim credit. If he does something that fails, he'll try to pin it on me. So that means I am
also
looking for someone to take the fall, and because I'm ethical, I only want to take down assholes.

"You guys are assholes," he finished, "but not that kind of asshole. So I have my work cut out trying to piss on fires and find someone who needs a good humiliation session."

"Obviously, leMieure has help from the media if he can fabricate presidential appearances," Anderson said.

Bart took his computer back. Nothing seemed changed but a program had been added, labeled only "Games." He suspected it actually did contain games, as well as other software.

"He has help from my branch, too," White said, and they stared at her.

"I looked at the images as they came out," she explained. "Those were background shots that we arranged for as a courtesy, since there isn't a good studio or hall that size in the palace," she said.

"Correct," Bishwanath said, looking surprised. "I talk against a chroma key in the conference room. Everything else is assembled electronically, including the audience, who are in the studios set up at the Civic Center."

"So someone is selling your tech?" Anderson asked, sounding on edge.

"I think rather that they've cracked one outer layer of encryption to stuff like that of no military significance," she said as she ran a hand through her hair again. "But it's of political significance. I've told my bosses, who are not going to file a suit for infringement yet, but can and will when it's appropriate. Meantime, I don't want to button up and let them know I know, and I have to secure what they don't yet have. When this asshole falls, it's going to take God to put him back together again, trust me." She sounded pissed.

"Does anyone have any evidence that Dhe was behind that shelling?" Marlow asked.

"Hard to say," White replied. "He might have been. His faction has the capability for it. I know the Army tried to interdict, but was hampered. No Air Defense close enough, because no one expected that and it's not really their lookout, and they couldn't counter fire. Not allowed."

"Can they at least tell us where?" Elke asked. "Knowing the weapons and range, if I can get a good location on origin we can look at images for camouflaged launch sites. Jason and I are trained for that."

"When I said 'not allowed to,' I mean the word came down from Army HQ not to turn the radar on. Officially so no one could track their location. Which, I admit, is a valid concern," she said with a nod.

"A convenient one, too," Bart observed.

"When I get a program of the players, parts, and staff, I'll let you know," White sighed. "I've never had this much hassle before. I had better see it reflected in my counseling and at promotion time."

"One way or another, I will see to it," Bishwanath promised. "All of you. Without you and Rahul, I would have nothing. My own staff are largely useless or ceremonial or both. Courtesy of Mister leMieure," he said bitterly.

Marlow said, "Tech White, when it's time to jump, will you give us a warning?"

"If I can," she replied. "And I may need a lift." Her eyes were wide and serious.

"Agreed," he said.

It felt like a wary retreat after a battlefield truce, as everyone split and departed.

Jason sat in the parlor, actually out in public, but all alone, everyone else long since gone to bed. He was often awake and alone, but liked the solitude, though not the loneliness. It was an interesting dichotomy he pondered often without resolution.

In the background he heard muted mortar fire. There was also small arms fire, but that couldn't be heard through the mass of the palace and the soundproofing. There was a bona fide civil war going on now, and the Army was stuck trying to drive wedges between factions to stop it, while being "sensitive" to the risk of civilian casualties. Always the way.

Jason wrote home often. He doted on his kids, and loved his wife more than anything in the universe. Long-term relationships and single households might be old-fashioned, but they worked for him. He had stability. That stability did help ground him here in this shit hole. Not the spiritual "grounding" the priests spoke of, though maybe it was. He hadn't been to Circle or to any church of any kind in years. Decades. It gave him some stability to know something waited for him.

And he missed them. This wasn't that long of a tour, but it was long enough. Especially when adapting from the twenty-eight hours and twelve minutes of Grainne's day to the barely twenty-one hours here. He wasn't a very social animal anyway, so stayed in his room asleep, exercised in the gym down the hall on treadmill, rack, and heavy bag, and crawled out to eat and go on duty. A semihermit, but it suited his temperament, so he often had night shift guard post.

The letter would go out electronically to whichever ship was outbound, be packeted, transmitted once that ship reached Earth's side of the jump point, then caught and transmitted again by a ship reaching Grainne Colony's side of that jump point. It might take two days if all went well, though three to five was more common and two weeks possible. That delay was part of what caused the loneliness. Granted, everyone from outsystem had the same problem. But there was regular traffic with Earth. Personally encrypted love letters zipped back and forth for hours at a time, several times a day as traffic came through. Grainne was another jump from there with more lag.

Dear Uberwensch,

Yes, I know I called you that last time. I'm busy here and having trouble being original. Forgive me?

I can't decide if you're being romantic or sadistic with the smut you send. I can't do much more than think about it. We don't have privacy to speak of in the palace, and while you said I can play, I don't have the time to work on seducing anyone. No locals I'd dare associate with, few military, and the one woman on our team is off-limits for that reason.

A shame. She's slim, healthy, has a darkly twisted sense of humor that helps keep me sane on operations, and she seems to think explosives are erotic. Heck of a woman. All EP women have to meet the same physical standards as men, so she can do 75 push-ups in 90 Earth seconds, at least 100 crunches, 15 pull-ups, and can run 3 kilometers in fifteen minutes with some light gear.

As to life, I can't complain. The pay is phenomenal, the colony doesn't tax external income because it's effectively an export (me exporting my skills), and the living conditions—the six of us have a suite, a private room each, and the run of a fucking PALACE that looks like the Bon Place hotel inside, only bigger. We have good gear.

We did get shot at today. Nothing serious. These savages have no concept of fire and maneuver, cover, advancing by team, taking objectives, and holding for reinforcements . . . it's more scream, shoot, thump chest bravely, get shot. They aren't even taking many casualties because it's not worth it to shoot them. Just let me say that everything you saw in the news about it, if you did, is complete and utter bullshit. Those cowardly, cocksucking pieces of shit will fabricate anything. When they got done, Julius Caesar would lose to Vercingetorix and Napoleon would just be a corporal.