Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire (60 page)

“I just need to get in past that kill zone,” she said. “All the heavy weaponry in the world won’t help them in a built-up environment. Once I get in there, they can’t shoot without destroying their own city and their own people.”

“Kiet’s only got about two hundred people. Sandy, there’s tens of thousands in there, plus all those robots . . .”

“I know. We’ll get their command and control, first targets.”

Danya said nothing. Sandy glanced at him. He looked unhappy. Frightened. Sandy thought about it for a moment. Then she realised.

“Hey.” She reached, and put a hand on his knee. “This isn’t a suicide mission. I’m good at this.”

“Nothing good’s ever happened to me without it blowing up in my face and making everything worse,” Danya said bleakly. He gazed at her, with frank honesty. “You’re something good.”

Sandy didn’t know what to say. It was confusing. These kids were amazing. She’d never felt so strongly about anyone so soon after first introductions, save for maybe Vanessa. They saw in her . . . something. A parent figure, perhaps. A protector, certainly. And these were tough kids. They’d seen a lot of people come and go, often violently. They were tough judges, sceptical at best, brutally cynical at worst. She’d seen veterans like that, eyeing the new recruit and concluding he’d be gone within a week. And keeping their distance, because you couldn’t get attached to such people. If they were gone in a week, better they didn’t take any of your soul with them.

Dangerous to be a 50-series GI around such kids. A 50-series GI wouldn’t be gone in a week. She’d exude power, and protection. A kid might yearn for such things, and think to have found them in her.

But a 50-series GI wasn’t cut out to be a parent. She’d avoided it for precisely this reason—Rhian might be able to settle down and adopt, but Sandy had seen this coming. Not specifically, but in general, the collision of two opposing worlds. She was a soldier. A killer for a cause. There’d been a time she’d thought her causes had evaporated, and with them, she’d hoped, her killing days as well. But events had proven that a false hope. And now she had Danya, seeing in her something that she could never be for him, and wishing that she could stop being what she was, because he feared the outcome. Well, so did she. But she feared the alternative worse.

Besides which, she’d never felt stronger about a cause than she did about this one. That didn’t just mean passion, that meant fury. When she got this angry, lots of people died. How could she be that, furious and deadly, and also this . . . this whatever it was that Danya wanted her to be? Motherly? What was she going to do . . . launch an all-out attack on the corporate headquarters of Droze, then return to embrace adopted children with bloodstained hands?

Those two parts of her life, of her soul, had to remain separate. She couldn’t see them blurred, combined . . . the prospect filled her with a dull heart-thumping panic she could not put words to.

A flash lit up the horizon. Then another, close to the first. Sandy looked, zooming on the fireballs, debris raining down. Whatever it was had taken the top floor off a pair of buildings. Then another, five hundred meters from the first two.

“Shit,” she murmured.

“Artillery again?” Danya wondered.

“Yeah. I guess this is why Home Guard don’t pick fights with the corporations any longer.”

Boom, as the sound reached them. And again. Footsteps in the corridor outside, and a burst of short-range transmission—Gunter. He entered a second later, sliding through the half-open door and keeping low across the bare concrete floor.

“We okay?” Sandy asked him. They had directional coms across the city that could be used in short bursts without the corporations seeing them, but they had to know where to point them first. That meant small groups of people who knew where other people were going to be stationed—a security risk, but a necessary one.

“I think so,” said Gunter, peering out the window above what had once been a kitchen bench. “They’re shooting blind. Probably they saw movement. It happens sometimes when they’re on high alert.”

“Yeah, and they kill some people for walking around in their bedroom,” Danya muttered. “Hector’s gonna love this.”

“There are reports of Home Guard following us,” Gunter confirmed. He had a laser com sight mounted on his short rifle, the easiest way of pointing. “We’ve had to warn them off.”

Sandy exhaled hard. “They’re going to give us away. With those UAVs back up.” They’d shot a couple of UAVs out of the sky with missiles, but those missile firings had immediately been targetted by corporate artillery. Their shooters had barely got away in time. A few more civvies killed, Home Guard even more furious, it had become clear they’d have to let the UAVs operate unmolested once more.

“They’ll give you away on purpose,” said Danya. “Like they gave us away in the neutral zone. Spies everywhere.”

“Don’t know about everywhere,” said Gunter. “But some, certainly. With Home Guard against us, we can’t operate freely in this city. The corporations don’t care how many civvies they kill.”

“Which means we have to go in sooner rather than later,” said Sandy. “I think we can do it into Heldig Corporation here. Those networks are pretty invulnerable from the outside; that might change once we get in. But I can see a geometry here between a few buildings that blocks line of sight for their second layer defences, and if we can drop a few missiles into their roads a block or two in, bring down a few walls, cut off mobilisation of those secondary assets . . .”

“Straight explosive entry?” Gunter asked. Perhaps dubiously, but the man’s bland expression made it hard to tell.

“With a diversionary attack. There are ways.”

“And once inside?”

“Go fast straight across Heldig Quarter. We go through the buildings, a few floors up. They can’t stop us without bringing buildings down, we only expose ourselves leaping over roads between buildings.”

Gunter scratched his jaw. “I’ve never done that before.”

“I have. For fast movement in an urban zone it’s the only way to go. Straights can’t do it, so few people have thought of defence against it. Least of all League or ex-League, who’ve never expected attack by GIs.”

“Then all the way to Chancelry? That’s a long way, corridor by corridor.”

“Their defences will diminish further in. And the crossing into Chancelry territory will be lightly defended. They’re not expecting direct attack from another corporation’s territory.”

“What do you figure for casualties?” Gunter asked somberly.

Sandy pursed her lips, still watching the dissipating explosions. Thick smoke now rose, blocking city night lights. “Not light. Conservatively twenty percent, if it all goes well.”

“And not conservatively?”

“Attacking into a vastly superior force means we’ll be completely surrounded,” Sandy answered. “If it doesn’t work, getting out will be nearly impossible.” She took her eyes away from the scanner to look at him. “But I think everyone knows that. If they don’t want to come, no one will think less of them.”

“Yes they will,” said Gunter, gazing toward the lights of corporate territory, between various buildings ahead. “I know I will.”

Danya said nothing, back to the wall beside the window, with no interest in the view.

Gunter’s com unit flickered. Gunter frowned, and looked at the hand screen, dialling frequencies and adjustments in his head. “That’s broadband,” he observed. “Must be corporate, anyone else would be dead in seconds.”

“Can you put it on?” Sandy asked.

Gunter took Danya’s place by the window so he could show the screen without that illumination registering on any distant scan. Danya crouched by Sandy, watching. On the little handscreen was a man in a suit.

“That’s Tarasan,” Danya and Gunter said simultaneously. Emilio Tarasan, that could only be. Chairman, Chancelry Corporation, New Torahn Division.

“Apparently,” Tarasan told the screen, with an air of dry contempt, “there are violent, dangerous people out in Droze tonight who seek to attack Chancelry Corporation and its allies. As you are now observing, recent attacks have been answered in full. Our retribution shall be harsh, and further security measures are being pursued even as I speak.”

He paused, leaning forward a little, with great seriousness. A square faced man, heavy browed, humourless. “It gives the corporation no pleasure to do this.”

“Bullshit,” said Danya.

“But corporate policy is clear and unwavering—security is paramount, and we will accept no alternative but total security. Should any attack be received, civilian casualties from our response shall be enormous. I appeal to the common sense of the ordinary citizens of Droze, do not allow this folly. Stop them, or alert us to their location. Rewards shall be high, we’ve proven that in the past. Penalties shall be final.

“Furthermore, I would finally address the leader of last night’s unprovoked attack. Chancelry Corporation has in custody someone dear to those close to you. Remember that. I’ll say no more.”

The screen flickered, and then the message began to repeat. Gunter silenced it.

Sandy made a face. “Well, he’s dead,” she said sourly. “He’s made my list.”

Danya looked terrified. “Kiril,” he breathed.

“We’ll get him out, Danya.”

“Sandy you can’t!” Danya exclaimed. “They’ll kill Kiril!”

“Danya, listen for a moment . . .”

“No! No more listening . . .” he made to get up, but Sandy grabbed him, pulled him back down.

“No sudden movements,” she reminded him.

There was no use struggling in that grip, but Danya gritted his teeth, pressing against it. “Danya. Danya, stop.” He stopped, breathing hard. Sandy put her forehead against his. “Look, kid. I know you’re scared. But Tarasan just made a huge mistake. Relations with the other corporations are shaky, and he just dropped his bundle. I don’t know how much the other corporations know about Chancelry’s GI experiments. I’m betting a lot of them don’t like it but have gone along with it until now . . . but it makes Chancelry the most powerful of the bunch. They won’t like that, and now Chancelry’s causing them trouble, too.

“I can get my message out. I have enough intel now to get the Federation coming down on this world pretty hard, and they’ll all be neck deep then. I can stop that. I just want Chancelry to stop, that’s all, and one of those other corporations can give them to me.”

“You’re playing games with Kiril’s life!” Danya shouted, fighting away from her. Sandy let him, and he knelt by her side. “That’s my brother you’re playing with!”

“Danya. I didn’t take you for a naive boy. Don’t be naive now. What do you think I am?” Danya said nothing, staring at her. “This is what I do, Danya. Whatever you might want me to be, and whatever I’ve come to feel for you, Svet and Kiril, this is what I am. Now, I can save Kiril’s life. But there are GIs dying in there, in all sorts of horrible ways, and I just can’t allow it. I can’t allow this to be all that my people are, in human society. Objects to be experimented on. Our lives must have value, Danya. Do you think I should just live with that?”

“I don’t care!” Danya retorted, his voice trembling. “That’s my brother’s life! My family’s all I’ve got, and it’s not the same!”

“So when you say you care about me, is that the only reason why? Because I might protect you, Svet and Kiril? Because I might do something for you? Is that really affection, or is that just selfishness?”

Danya didn’t know what to say, his eyes darting. Hell of a tough question to ask the kid, in his circumstance. Sandy nearly hated herself for asking it. But she was asking him to consider the difference between being a boy and being a man. That was what parent-type figures were supposed to do. Wasn’t it?

Danya got up. Sandy caught his arm. “Let me go,” Danya muttered.

“It’s not safe out there, Danya.”

“It’s never been safe out there. I survived five years on my own before you got here, then you got Kiril kidnapped and now you’re going to get him killed. I can do without your help.”

His stare was cold, his manner abruptly less childish by the second. It hurt about as badly as anything anyone had ever said to her. Sandy let him go. He moved quickly to the door and disappeared.

Sandy squeezed her eyes shut and leaned her head against the wall. When she opened her eyes, Gunter was before her on one knee, awaiting her response. “What are you going to do?” he asked.

Mother or soldier? Whatever Danya thought, she could see only one way to get Kiril back and shut down Chancelry. Abandon her goal, just to save Kiril? Ridiculous to even think it. How many civilians had already died in this mess? Who was she to decide that one was more important than all the others?

No, that path was impossible. She was a soldier. Pain was in the job description, and this pain was just one more she would bear.

“I want a secure com line to Dhamsel Corporation,” she said. “We’ll route it remotely, directional link on a micro-UAV. They can torch it, won’t cost us anything, but I think they’ll want to listen. And I want that uplink to Antibe Station. My team should have arrived by now. We need to get the latest report back to Callay ASAP.”