Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield (38 page)

And she apologised for getting them into a situation where they could have been hurt. Or worse. Only her brain just wouldn't accept “worse” when she tried to confront it rationally.

“Oh, that was
nothing
,” said Svetlana, curled against Sandy's side in her pyjamas. “This one time, this real scary guy followed me through some deserted buildings. I was alone. I tried every sneaky trick I knew, but I took nearly an hour to lose him.
That
was scary, today was fun compared to that.”

“She's right,” said Danya. “The two months we've been here have been by far the least dangerous two months we've had. Since the last five years, anyway.”

“It's still not right,” Sandy insisted. Danya was sitting in the next chair across. He didn't do pyjamas, wouldn't take to them like Svetlana had, and wore tracksuit pants instead. Sandy wished he'd come and snuggle up like Svetlana but knew better than to suggest it. “Kids shouldn't be put in danger at all. I was wrong to do it, and I'm going to kick Ari's butt when I see him.”

“Not for real, right?” said Svetlana.

Sandy smiled down at her. Concern for someone outside of her immediate little circle. That was good. “No, Svet, of course not for real. I love Ari. But he still needs to be told when I'm pissed, because Ari doesn't always look at things from other people's perspectives. Sometimes he needs it shoved in his face.”

“I don't know,” said Danya, sitting sideways in the chair, knees up. Looking thoughtful. “I mean, what are we going to be doing once we're grown adults anyway? I can't see myself sitting in some peaceful office job.”

“Yet I kind of wish you would,” said Sandy sadly.

“I don't know what I'll do, but I'm so caught up in this security stuff anyway, I figure I may as well do it for a profession. It's not like I could leave it alone now even if I wanted to.”

“I know.”

“Which means it wasn't the first time I've been shot at and won't be the last,” Danya reasoned. “Think of today as work experience.” Sandy gave him an unimpressed look. Danya looked almost amused. Which both alarmed and pleased her. Having kids seemed to do that to her a lot—scared and happy, all at once.

“Well, I'm going to be a supermodel,” said Svetlana. “In the daytime, that is.”

“And at night?” Sandy wondered.

“An assassin!”

Sandy sighed. “Of course you will.”

An uplink registered. Local Canas services, a delivery. Sandy frowned. “There's a delivery coming, did either of you order anything?”

Head shakes. It was very late, but the house was probably registering that she was still up and informing the delivery service. Uplinks showed a car arrive out front, then the gate opened, and a delivery bot entered, holding a box. Danya was right, it
did
look a little creepy, she thought, with its projecting
eyes and awkward gait. Or maybe she was just learning to see things from a child's perspective.

She went to the door and took the box—uplinks showed it was an outside delivery, checked by hand at Canas gate two, and passed through so many sensors she had no concerns of danger. Besides, she could faintly smell the contents, and they smelled delicious. She put the box on the kitchen cabinet and opened it. It was a cheesecake, with berries and a dusting of chocolate.

“Cheesecake!” Svetlana exclaimed. “I'm suddenly hungry, can I have a midnight snack?”

“Me too,” said Danya. “We got shot at today, I think we deserve some cheesecake. Who's it from?”

There was a card, hand written. “For the kids,” it said. “Hope their well. AR.” She knew two ARs, but only one of them liked cheesecake.

“Arron Reichardt,” said Sandy. “It's from the Captain. He must have sent an order electronically, and they laser copied this card and his signature.” She'd learned from Vanessa and Rhian's weddings that some cake shops worked late in Tanusha. Wedding orders could rush in and keep them working all night, the deliveries could come any hour if you let them.

“And he misspelled ‘they're,’” said Svetlana, peering at it. “Don't they teach spelling to fleet captains?”

“That's odd,” Sandy agreed. “It's his handwriting; it's not possible the machine made an error, it's a facsimile not a translation.”

“Actually that's grammar, Svet, not spelling,” said Danya, taking a knife from the drawer and cutting. “He hasn't spelt it wrong, he's just used the wrong form. He's in the middle of those negotiations out at Pantala, he's probably under some stress.”

“No, not there, here!” Svetlana demanded, seeing his next cut and pointing to where she thought it should be.

“It's eighths, Svet,” Danya retorted. “Four people, two slices each, this is eighths.”

“Yeah, but you'll mess it up! Do quarters first, then you can judge eighths better between the quarters!”

Because if they'd ever been so lucky as to encounter a cheesecake on Droze, the precise sharing of every last millimeter would have become a matter of monumental concern.

Danya's knife hit something. He frowned. “There's something in here.” He cut over it, carefully pulled out a slice onto the plate Svetlana provided, then pulled out the metal object inside. It was as long as Danya's hand, and slim. He cleaned the cake off one side with a finger.

“Hey!” said Svetlana before he could clean off the other side, and did that herself, then sucked her finger. And looked at the thing in Danya's hand. “What is it?”

“It's a handfile,” said Sandy, taking it from Danya. “An antique, though I imagine some old-style woodworkers might still use them.”

“Why would Captain Reichardt put an old woodwork tool in a cake?” Danya wondered, not sufficiently preoccupied with the mystery to keep him from eating. “I suppose Canas security saw it wasn't dangerous and let it through. Maybe the cake maker lets people do that for a joke or something.”

It gave Sandy a very odd feeling. And she suddenly remembered a story Vanessa told her, five years ago, in the conclusion of the Battle of Nehru Station. She and Reichardt had finally secured the Nehru Station bridge against Fifth Fleet marines. Reichardt had suggested he'd probably end up in prison for the rest of his life, at the least. Vanessa had joked that she'd send him a cake with a GI baked inside, and had had to explain to Sandy what that meant—in the old days, when prisons had been made out of concrete, iron and other things that crumbled, prisoners had tried to smuggle things into prison, in gifts and the like, that would allow them to tunnel walls or break bars over a long period and escape. The oldest cliché was something baked in a cake, Vanessa had said. Something like a file.

Reichardt sent her a cake with a file in it, from negotiations into the future of Federation-League relations. A warning, perhaps, that someone was going to prison. After the Battle of Nehru Station, Reichardt had been concerned it would be him, for fighting against elements of the Fleet, and never mind that that Fleet element had started it by violating basic Federation law about the rights of worlds. If there was trouble again in Fleet over negotiations out in New Torah, Reichardt would be the one who'd know.

But he sent this warning to her. With a misspelled card—Reichardt was a well-read man, and like all captains a stickler for detail. “They're watching us,” he said. “I can't tell you what's going on. But one of us is in trouble.” And the card expressed concern for her kids.

“Danya,” she said quietly. “Go and wake Kiril. Then all of you pack a bag of things you think you might need.”

Silence as they stared at her, but only for a moment. “For how long?” asked Danya.

“I don't know. Probably I'm just being paranoid and we'll be back tomorrow. Probably. But take more, just in case.”

Danya took his and Svetlana's half-eaten cake to the fridge. Svetlana just stood, looking upset.

“Svet?” Sandy asked. “What's wrong?”

“I like it here!” she said, lip trembling. “I like living here with you; I don't want to leave!”

Sandy put hands on her shoulders. “Svet, it's just a precaution. You know if we live this life, we all have to take precautions sometimes. No one's going to make you leave. If we ever leave, it will be because we've chosen to leave for somewhere even better. If someone tries to
make
us leave, they'll have to come through me first. You understand?” Svetlana nodded. “Now go with Danya and get ready.”

She went, following Danya up the stairs. Canas security would see them leaving. That could be accessed. It no longer felt safe, not after Detective Sinta's run-in with anonymous Feds today. If there were enemies in the Grand Council, then there weren't very many places that were safe. Nowhere on the official network anyway.

Click. “
Sandy, what's up?
” Vanessa's voice.

“Reichardt just sent me a warning, something's not right. I think Fleet trouble.”

“
The negotiations. Fuck.
” Waking up fast. “
What did he say?
”

“Nothing, he can't risk it, that's the point. We know there's Feds in town we can't account for. We know an internal push within the GC could tip us all out. Too many variables, I'm shifting house with the kids. Say we're visiting with friends if anyone asks.”

They'd talked about this, her, Vanessa, Ari, Rhian, and some of their FSA/CSA comrades, people who'd had each other's back under fire and could be trusted absolutely. FSA spec ops only existed on the GC Security Committee approval, and their other employer, the CSA, was run by a Callayan government administration that currently disliked everything Federal. If the squeeze
came, they'd agreed, it would be political, aimed at shutting down the perpetrators of the Pyeongwha action. If it happened, Sandy wanted herself and, most importantly, her kids to be on ground that couldn't be pulled out from under them by any administration. Canas security barriers were Callayan government–controlled and could turn from a shield to a noose.

“
Dammit, we didn't figure on Fleet. You've checked who's in town?
”

“Yeah, they'll never tell us, not even Ibrahim knows ship movements if Fleet doesn't want them known. Only Shin might know.”

“
Who carried that message back from Reichardt, do you think?
”

“More likely some freighter, so Fleet couldn't touch it. Hasn't the best relationship with his fellow captains, Reichardt.”

“
Well, thanks for the heads up, I'll spread the word with the others, you just look after the kids.
”

“Thanks, I appreciate it. What about you?”

“
I'll stay here. I understand you wanting to get out of Canas, but this is a more normal neighbourhood. They couldn't detain me without detaining Phillippe, he's a public figure, it's awkward for them. No political stunt they might pull will work if they start upsetting the general public, and Phillippe's friends are all on their side right now. They piss the Tanushan arts community off, next thing all the actors and singers turn on them, etc.
”

“That's a nice theory Phillippe's been peddling,” Sandy warned. “Don't rely on it.”

“
I won't. Talk to Ibrahim, huh? You're the only person he'll listen to more than Ari.
”

They drove out the Canas gate in the replacement cruiser, the old one in an FSA shop getting repairs to dents and two bullet holes. Canas security scanned them leaving, but once they were airbourne Sandy activated her self-designed functions and disappeared from the grid. It wasn't strictly legal even for an FSA agent, because she'd disappeared from their grid too, and HQ liked to know where all its vehicles were. She landed at a deserted TZ in a quiet neighbourhood, then lifted off once more with a false ID on the traffic net, and no one would know without a closer look.

She explained the situation to Ibrahim as they flew.

“
I've not heard anything myself
,” he said. “
But as you suggest, if there were moves afoot in the Grand Council they'd be careful not to let me know. Mr Shin is another question.
”

“Director, if they decide to shut down FSA spec ops, that's one thing. They'll find an excuse, like League did six months ago with the war crimes charges. My main worry is the CSA, because most of us FSA spec ops are also CSA SWAT. If the Callayan government goes after SWAT as well, not only are all we agents in some difficulty, but Callay is left relatively defenceless.”

“
I'm not certain President Singh is quite that pig-headed…
”

“I myself have no doubt of it,” Sandy cut in.

“
…but I'm keeping an eye on him. Or Chandi is.
”

“And who keeps an eye on Chandi? If you were still CSA Director, I'd have no doubts of your support. Chandi remains very vague on this.”

“
Cassandra, Director Chandrasekar answers directly to the President of Callay. Should Singh give him an order, he'll follow it.
”

“Yes, but you see how precarious this whole thing becomes. We rely upon one person who relies on another and so on. 2389 is struggling for the majority in the GC to make constitutional amendments, and people like me, like FSA spec ops, we get in the way. There's a lot of desperate people who seriously think we're headed for another war, or Federal disintegration, if they don't pass those amendments. And now Detective Sinta has evidence they've already killed one person who got in their way.”

“
We should not taint an entire groundswell movement because of the actions of a few extreme operatives
,” Ibrahim reminded her. “
We've no evidence so far that it's anything else. But your concerns are justified, and the FSA will stand by its own people.
”

“Some elements of the FSA will be happier to hear that than others,” Sandy replied. FedInt, she meant. The broad remains of the old FIA, before it had been disbanded. Or rather, central command had been disbanded, back on Earth, but the tentacles lived on, though somewhat reformed, as Federal Intelligence. When the FSA had been constituted under Director Diez, FedInt had been folded back into the structure—suddenly the FSA, previously just some fancy offices in Tanusha, had a body that spanned the Federation. But there were many who speculated that the body had never entirely accepted its new brain.

“
I'm onto it, Cassandra
,” said Ibrahim. “
I cannot put the FSA on alert without our potential enemies being aware of it, but I'll do what I can off the grid.
”