Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield (14 page)

Sandy was back, coming through a side door. Her left arm limp but the hand still worked, holding her rifle as the right arm hauled something else across the floor, something human sized and unmoving. A person, Danya saw. A man, full armour, leaving a smear of blood on the floor behind.

“Where's his friends?” Poole asked, voice cold.

“Pick your religion,” said Sandy. Her helmet was off, wires and connections severed, the left side of her face a mess, multiple cuts and more blood than skin. It matted her hair and dripped. Danya's joy and tears died to look at her. She'd been shot up. She never got shot up…or he couldn't imagine she did. She slammed the man she was dragging up against a wall, and he struggled to sit, still conscious, still breathing.

“I want a witness,” said Sandy. Danya didn't think she meant him and Svetlana.

“Sure,” said Poole.

“Commander Mustafa Ramoja,” said Sandy coldly. “I can't charge you with treason; you were never ours. But you pretended to be. Then you betrayed us all, and a bunch of my friends died. But that's not why you're dead. You're dead because you played this game, with me, and crossed me. You crossed the FSA. You crossed Director Ibrahim. You crossed Callay. You crossed the Federation. In this game, with these stakes, you don't do that and live.”

“I know,” said the man, looking up at her from his wall. Quietly. Sadly. “I'd do the same. And Cassandra, please know that…”

Sandy shot him, repeatedly, point blank, heavy caliber. Danya grabbed Svetlana and turned her away.

“No,” said Sandy, trembling. “You don't get to kill my friends, abduct my kids, and have a sympathetic final word. Fuck you. Fuck you all.”

She threw the pistol at the body and started walking back. And fell to one knee halfway there. Svetlana tore herself away and ran to her. Danya followed. Sandy embraced them both, sobbing, and they clung together, armoured synthetic and human child, an embrace of blood and hot metal and tears.

Return to Callay took three weeks, a succession of jumps through various systems, a few inhabited but most not, and one a blob of dark matter Fed Fleet Intel was pretty sure only they knew about and League did not. The freighter was Fleet registered, employed on this occasion primarily as a messenger, the simple movement of information back and forth across such distances was a task worth employing entire ships for.

Normally Sandy would have found three weeks of nothing a drag, but not this time. Danya, Svetlana, and Kiril found the ship incredible, especially the weightless core, where they'd go for at least an hour every day to float around and play various games they'd devised…and what a joy to see them playing. Or more correctly, Kiril would play, and Svetlana would play with him, while Danya supervised, all the while glancing around at various ship systems, or reading off some latest technical manual or a history of Callay or something for adults on the Federal Security Agency, since Sandy worked for them and Danya figured he needed to become an expert overnight.

And Sandy would go up with them, her arm bound in a tight cast and sling, side and leg tightly bandaged, and strange not to have any hair to float around in zero-G, it had all been shaved to accommodate the nano-environment bandage against the left side of her head and face. She'd been real close to losing an ear, which might not have transplanted and healed back very well, so she was glad. The doc said a few of the scars would be permanent, though very light, from up in the hairline to down the jaw. A small price to pay, by any measure. She had worse, elsewhere about her person.

Better yet, everyone got the chance to get to know one another. Sandy had never had the chance to learn all of the kids’ stories, nor they hers, so they spent long hours around various games, lessons, or just looking at the observation screens, talking about things. And Sandy learned that as fun as they were, Danya could be too stubborn, and Svetlana could whine a lot, and Kiril could go off in his own little dreamworld and not listen to anything he was told, at which his siblings would roll their eyes…and it didn't matter. She'd known flawed adults too. And was one herself, for sure.

They got to know Vanessa, Rhian, Ari, and Poole as well. That pleased Sandy a lot, because as she told them, these were the people in Tanusha, aside from herself, that they could trust implicitly and who would always help them if they were in trouble. Vanessa struck up a particular rapport with Svetlana and told her stories about growing up in Tanusha, and parties, and getting in trouble, and boys, that had Svetlana in giggling hysterics. Rhian of course got on wonderfully with Kiril, having that way with younger children, and played games with him for hours. And Ari graciously took time away from various tech review manuals and construct design to talk with Danya about the way things worked in Tanusha from Ari's uniquely cynical perspective…and actually seemed to enjoy it.

“Kid's got potential,” he admitted to Sandy one ship “evening” over a meal. “He's got a particularly brutal understanding of human relations. I like it.”

“Yeah,” Sandy said quietly. “He's learned that.”

Poole remained Poole, engaging sometimes, other times withdrawing to listen to music, or to play virtual piano, or whatever else held Poole's attention for extended periods. But he seemed to like having the kids around and sometimes hung out with them as though just to hear them talk. Because kids didn't talk like adults talked, Sandy guessed, and Poole seemed to enjoy their non sequiturs and surprising conclusions. It gave Sandy ideas about what might be done to get Poole to engage more.

Arrival was at Hanuman Station, one of Callay's five stations, recently completed for Fleet Ops in high geostationary. FSA and Fleet Intel were waiting, debrief was an immediate requirement, and Sandy didn't resent it too much, so long as they cleared up any concerns about the asylum paperwork for the kids, to say nothing of guardianship. But the Intels waved it away, no problem, all fixed as they'd been informed in advance. Sandy didn't quite believe it but was happy the first debrief was a group one, Danya, Svetlana, Kiril, and her all together in a well-appointed lounge, real fruit juice for the kids, orders taken for dinner in a few hours (they'd been synched with Tanushan time the past two weeks to save the kids time lag), and an explanation for everyone of what debriefing was, and how long it would take, and were there any questions?

The kids were all adamant that Sandy should be at their own debriefing, at which the Intels just nodded, and said that Sandy was their legal guardian
now, which meant that no one on Callay was actually
allowed
to interview them without Sandy present.

“No one?” Danya asked suspiciously.

“No one at all,” the Intel lady named Togana confirmed with a smile. “Not us, not the police, not even your school teachers. A child's guardian must be present if the child is formally interviewed. That's the law.”

“What can they do?” Svetlana asked, wide-eyed. “Can they get beaten?”

Togana blinked.

“Svet, the law doesn't beat people,” said Sandy. “People can get arrested, then there's an investigation, and if they've done something bad they'll be either fined money, or put in prison. No beating.”

Svetlana looked mistrustful. In her experience, bad people were only put off with the threat of a good beating, or worse.

The kids’ briefing was after dinner and quite long at nearly two hours. Kiril got bored and did some drawing while Danya and Svetlana talked, but they seemed to enjoy it somewhat, telling all their tales of Droze and the things they'd done. The Intels just recorded, asking questions, keeping the stories flowing. They only wanted information, partly for what it could tell them of Droze and Pantala, and partly so they'd know just what kind of kids the infamous Commander Kresnov was bringing down to the surface. And Svetlana talked more than Danya, as Danya looked wary of talking too much, lest some revelations make someone here think badly of them. Perhaps he didn't quite believe they'd just let him and his siblings move in so easily. It had to be an enormous reality shock for him most of all; Svetlana and Kiril just accepted it as younger kids would, but Danya had that wary look of someone who thought he might be dreaming and kept expecting to wake up. Or was perhaps waiting, from hard experience, for that awful moment when the dream inevitably became a nightmare.

After the debrief it was late, and Sandy saw them all to bed. The Intels had a good room for all four of them together, with a reassurance that Sandy would be in later and would be just down the corridor talking with the Intels.

“The psychologist will be mandatory,” Agent Gupta informed her as they sat in the same room the kids had been interviewed in. Sandy nodded, sipping a big mug of coffee. Good coffee, hard to get on spaceships and impossible on Droze. Small pleasures. The taste made her realise how much she'd missed
her home. “I don't wish to be impolite about them; they seem like great kids, amazingly resilient. But they're also pretty messed up. You know that, right?”

“I know,” Sandy agreed. “But I know what it's like to be messed up like that. And I think I can help.”

“So why do it?” Gupta pressed. “Adoption is your right, like any Federation citizen. But three at once is a big task for someone who's never been a parent before.”

Sandy shrugged. “Fell in love,” she said. She wasn't going to explain it any more than that, because she didn't think there was any more to it. Except for all that deep, psycho-analytical crap that she sure as hell wasn't going to get into here. Leave that for some other asshole to make her life difficult with. “Different kind of love, but that's about it. Couldn't part with them, sure as hell wasn't going to stay on Droze, so they had to come here. And it's not such a big task with three. These three have been looking after each other in conditions that would have driven lots of adults to suicide. It would be the height of arrogance for me to think I can show them how to survive in the world.”

“Then what do you see as your role, being their guardian?”

“To introduce them to civilisation and civilised attitudes. To show them how to make civilisation work for them. And to teach them how to be happy. God knows they deserve it.”

There were the usual questions about Droze, about events, about strategic choices she'd made. But like with the kids, no real analysis, just an initial retelling of events in moderate detail. This would be analysed by all the relevant agencies (meaning just about everyone with a high enough clearance; she thought with a grimace at how many people that entailed), and once analysed, the follow-up questions would start. Those were the ones that worried her. This was just procedure.

It was two in the morning, Tanusha time, when she returned to her room. The kids were all up and waiting for her, looking worried. Even Kiril, struggling to stay awake.

“Is it okay?” Danya asked, sitting on his bed still in his clothes. Sandy was suspicious he might even have a bag packed, hidden under the bed. Like he might have to make a break for it any moment. His eyes showed that much.

“Danya,” she said, and sat beside him. “It was just a long interview, it's
just procedure. I'm important here, and these people won't mess with me. That means they won't mess with you either. Okay?”

Danya nodded, looking relieved but still not entirely convinced. Sandy kissed him on the forehead.

“Now,” she said, “I'm tired, and I'm going to sleep. Our shuttle's tomorrow, 15:00…quick, what's 15:00, Svetlana?”

“Three o'clock!” said Svetlana. She was sitting with Kiril, who was falling asleep against her shoulder, awkwardly.

Sandy smiled. “Poor Kiril, did your dumb brother and sister keep you awake worrying for no reason?”

“Yes!” said Svetlana, glaring at Danya. “I told him he shouldn't worry, I told him you were important here.”

It wasn't the only reason the system would work for them. But Sandy didn't know how to explain to them that some parts of this system were actually pretty good and would have treated them well regardless of how much of a bigshot their new guardian was. It was too much of a leap to get them to understand that some systems didn't just brutalise the weak for the benefit of the strong. And again, maybe such skepticism would have its advantages too, in the long run.

Danya said nothing and got back into bed. Sandy wished she could tell him to just let go, for a little while at least. But truthfully, given what she was, and what her lifestyle would inevitably expose them to, she didn't know if she dared.

Vanessa, Ari, Rhian, and Poole all went down in the morning. All offered to stay, but Sandy firmly told them no. Rhian had a family to return to, Vanessa a husband, Ari his unendingly crazy life, and Poole…well, she didn't want Poole feeling he had to hang around with her out of some sense of obligation. Though she was damn well going to make another push to get him working full time somewhere, CSA probably. As soon as she was down.

For the kids there were medical checks, injections, micros and nanos, scans to make sure they wouldn't infect the Callayan population with some terrible offworld disease. Danya didn't like the shots either, so Sandy got the medicos to give him lots of reading material and took him through it step by step, vouching for each thing in turn.

“But you're synthetic,” he told her. “How can you vouch for biological treatments?”

“’Cause I'm old and I'm smart and I've read a lot,” said Sandy. “And if you don't take them, they won't let you go down.”

More debrief questions for her, apparently someone downworld had responded with immediate follow-ups. This time the kids worried less and allowed someone from Fleet to take them down to loading, where massive inbuilt mechanisms loaded and unloaded huge cargo palates from newly docked warships. When she rejoined them, even Danya seemed impressed.

Then at 15:00, they went up to the zero-G hub where the scheduled shuttle was waiting. After three weeks in transit the kids were quite proficient weightless, and settled themselves in up at the front of the shuttle, while the usual Fleet personnel, including senior officers, strapped in elsewhere. Then a several-hour wait as the shuttle's deceleration brought it down from geostationary, and a particularly noisy and alarming reentry.

“I wasn't scared!” Kiril insisted, all wide-eyed and gorgeous, strapped into his big chair at Sandy's side. “Sandy, were you scared? Because I wasn't!”

“Sandy doesn't get scared, Kiri,” called Svetlana from across the aisle at her window seat. Then stared out the window as the heat shields retracted, and the view showed ground and clouds.

Callay was green. Svetlana talked about it all the way down. Her world had been yellow and brown and mostly dead. This world was alive. At lower altitude, the setting sun glowed yellow and pink against the towering clouds. The shuttle bumped and jolted through the turbulence as the kids all stared out their windows and made exclamations to be flying between giant pink towers of cloud. Sandy smiled all the way down.

Sandy had half expected more procedures and delays at the Balaji Spaceport, but there were none—Hanuman Station had been the gateway, and they were clear from that departure. There was even a flyer waiting, an FSA courtesy, and Sandy took the kids across a rooftop pad in the last light of day, breathing in air that smelt like rain and flowers, and listening to chirping and shrilling insects, flitting batwings, and somewhere, a croaking amphibian. She carried Kiril, who was very sleepy but determined to stay awake, as Danya and Svetlana held onto their little bags containing all their worldly possessions.