Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) (57 page)

She rounded a section of waiting seats, constantly aware of the spread of her SWAT troops around her, and strolled up to Ramoja ... Dali had collapsed wordlessly into a seat, his two guards standing over him, and was staring blankly at the wall. That surprised her, she'd expected outrage, complaints, demands for the protection or administrations of his beloved bureaucracy in one form or another. But there was none of that, just the bleak, frightened silence of a man who was perhaps only just coming to realise what he'd gotten himself into by agreeing to work hand-in-glove with the FIA in their little biotech laboratory project in Tanusha ... and what it ultimately might end up costing him.

It had nearly cost him his life ... Ramoja and his GIs must have been good, Sandy had no doubt the FIA would have killed him if they'd realised they were about to be overrun. A better option than leaving him on Callay, perhaps to be subject to full, independent investigation by independent bodies once Callay, and not Earth, became the legal, bureaucratic and administrative centre of the Federation. No hiding what he knew. No more friendly faces from old, Earthappointed bureaucracies to sweep things under the carpet, to keep the old power structures safe and intact from unwanted questions and unwelcome questioners. They'd find the connections implicating the FIA in the appointment of federal governors to member worlds, and in the workings of secret FIA operations on those worlds ... operations that had cost the lives, and trampled the rights, of innocent Federation citizens in the name of advancing the FIA's outdated, paranoid, xenophobic goals. They'd trace it all back to senior power figures in the Federation Grand Council, manipulated behind the scenes by powerful people on Earth, to serve Earth's own narrow, conservative interests rather than those of the broader Federation.

Dali stared now at the wall with the stricken look of a man whose entire world had just fallen in upon his head. Well, it had. And Sandy wasn't certain whether the fear in his eyes was from the fright of a recent brush with death, or from the greater fright that he was still, inconveniently, alive. She stopped before Ramoja. He stood calmly expectant, smiling the faint, measured smile of a man very, very pleased with himself.

"Nice job," Sandy said, with a glance to Dali. "Why do it?"

Ramoja's smile spread a little wider across his handsome black face. "I told you, Cassandra, I'm here to fix things. The days of League complicity with secret FIA plans are over. The new League Government wishes to re-establish friendly relations with the Federation. You can take this as a gesture of our good intentions, and our desire to see lawful conduct reign within the broader Federation."

"That would be nice," Sandy agreed. "Maybe we could then export some of that lawful conduct back to the League."

"I should definitely hope so."

"How are you here? Your shuttle only just arrived, this area was cleared when we realised Dali was missing."

"It was I who called the shuttle down early," Ramoja replied. Very pleased with himself indeed, Sandy thought sourly. "I came out here just as early to meet them-dodging the security-evacuation was not difficult. I could not be sure the FIA would move as it did, but there were oh-so-many of its agents scattered throughout the various Earth delegations ... the major trans-national, planetary delegations are particularly vulnerable, Cassandra, the United Nations, Earth Gov, the Grand Council itself. In the mishmash of overlapping security procedures of such enormous organisations there is much room for infiltration and dark ops, individual national delegations like the Indian or Chinese delegations are far tighter by contrast."

"We know. Intel had already figured this might happen, but hardly anyone knew what Neiland was planning. Someone who didn't know overrode Intel's orders to put Dali under special protection ... typical bureaucratic stuff up. There's so many of them here-this place was made for business not security ops, public sector infrastructure here stinks."

"I've always said an emaciated public sector was death for any civilisation," Ramoja agreed mildly. "Though, as soldiers both, it is perhaps predictable we should reach such a conclusion."

"No shit. Vanessa ..." as the smaller, armoured figure arrived alongside, "... this is Major Mustafa Ramoja, League ISO. Major, Lieutenant Vanessa Rice, Callay's leading SWAT officer."

"One does observe," Ramoja acknowledged, with a meaningful glance back down the north wing thoroughfare, rapidly obscured by more smoke than the air scrubbers were designed to readily cope with. Extended his hand, and Vanessa shook it with reflex yet unnecessary concern of her armoured grip, her faceplate visor lifted for politeness, despite the gathering smog in the air. Somewhere back down the long thoroughfare, alarms and speakers echoed above the crackling of flames and the hiss of localised fire retardant. "Federal Intelligence, my sources tell me, is no fan of yours, Lieutenant. Their casualty levels in Tanushan operations have become quite alarming. It is assuredly causing a reassessment of their operations here. Gratifying, is it not, that just one or two talented, well placed people can change the direction of such policies, and thus the course of history?"

Vanessa nearly smiled. Sweaty and tired within the helmet, Sandy could see her eyes flash with familiar, gleaming energy. You slick bastard, she thought at Ramoja. He'd met her for all of ten seconds, and immediately pressed precisely the buttons to which Vanessa was most responsive. She'd never had such instinctive people skills, herself. She'd assumed all GIs would be lacking in them. It seemed she was wrong.

"Since customs went running madly in the other direction," Vanessa said, "as ranking officer here I'm going to have to ask you what's in the shuttle, and request that you show me a full manifest." Her voice gave no indication that flattery would impact upon her professionalism.

"Of course." And spared a brief glance over his shoulder as several more people came down the Berth 15 access behind him. "All of our personnel shall remain in the vicinity until customs returns and reestablishes proper procedure. Mostly, Lieutenant, we brought down personnel. GIs, for precisely this operation, when we suspected that something of this nature might occur. And I decided to play a particular ace up my sleeve that I had been saving for just such a moment. An ace I believe Cassandra will find greatly interesting."

And indicated aside to the three people exiting the Berth 15 access ... GIs all, lean and armed, looking no less dangerous for the lack of armour. The last of the three carried a small hand recorder, militarymodel, onto which Sandy guessed the FIA's shuttle flight systems and comp-data had been downloaded. The woman headed for Ramoja, and stopped dead, staring at Sandy.

She stood at middling height, a lean, Chinese-featured woman with short black hair and an STZ snub rifle in her free hand, comfortably grasped with the effortless familiarity with which an orchestra conductor might wield a conductor's wand. Beautiful, in the dark, lean, dangerous way of most GIs, a lithe swagger to her poise, even standing dead still before them. Sandy stared, forgetting to breathe. The rifle slipped from her cross-hold to dangle limply in her hand, muzzle to the floor.

"Chu?" she breathed.

Chu grinned. "Hi, Cap. I thought I might find you here. The Major said you would be. Can't ever keep you out of a fight, he reckoned."

Sandy back-racked her rifle with one fast move, strode forward and grabbed her in a tight embrace that would have crushed a straight to mangled flesh and broken bones. Chu hugged her back, with similar force, and she felt her armour creak. She hung on for a long time.

"Um, Cap?" A happy yet quizzical voice in her ear. "Cap, that's actually starting to hurt. Come on, I'm not as big as you." Sandy lessened her grip somewhat.

"Are you the last? What about Pessivich and Rogers?" Sandy's voice struggled to work and her vision was blurred with moisture.

"No, they're gone. Bastards who took us blew 'em away when the government changed and ISO tried to take over the operation ... see, Cap, you're not the only one who's been having adventures, I got a whole stack of stuff to tell you. I've been busy the last year."

"You're gonna tell me. I want to hear all of it." The ground felt unstable beneath her. In the suspicious, rational corner of her mind, she'd half expected this from the moment she'd heard of the League delegation on Callay. But it hit home like a forty thousand volt shock to the system. And she remembered something abruptly, released Chu and spun about to Vanessa ... found her just on the verge of sneaking away, presumably to offer them some privacy ... "Hey, Ricey, come here. I want you to meet an old friend."

Vanessa came over, helmet off, eyes intensely curious beneath the bedraggled, sweaty fringe. Extended a hand to the other woman. "Sandy's told me all about you. And about your friends. I'm really sorry."

"Can't be helped," Chu said with a shrug, clasping her hand. Her expression was equally curious.

"Chu, Vanessa's the best straight friend I've ever had. And one of the best straight soldiers I've ever seen." Adding the latter because she thought it probably carried more weight with Chu than the former. But...

"A friend of Sandy's?" Chu said quizzically. "You must be nuts too, huh?"

"Certifiable," Vanessa replied with a smile. "And you came to Callay-that makes three of us."

"Oh, man," Chu said with an amazed gleam in her eyes. "I've been following the stuff that's been going on here on the Fed-sat newscasts the ISO picks up, it's been crazy, huh? They're changing the whole Federation upside down, just like the League's gone all spaced out since the government changed. All of us here together, now everything's changing ... League and Callay working together to kick the FIA and Old Earth's butt ... We're gonna have some fun now, I reckon. This is gonna get interesting."

Vanessa gave Sandy a flat, quizzical smile, an eyebrow lifting slightly. Sandy sighed.

"Same old Chu. Welcome to the Federation."

oel Shepherd was born in Adelaide, South Australia, in 1974, but lived in Perth, Western Australia, for many years. He now lives in Adelaide. He studied film and television at Curtin University but realised that what he really wanted to do was write stories. His first manuscript was shortlisted for the George Turner Prize in 1998, and Crossover was shortlisted in 1999.

Apart from writing, Joel helps in his mother's business, selling Australian books to international schools in Asia and beyond. This has given him the opportunity to travel widely in Asia and other parts of the world. Joel also writes about women's basketball for an American internet magazine.

Crossover, the first Cassandra Knesnov novel, was Joel's first published book.