Killswitch (40 page)

Then the third flyer arrived over Sandy's head with a blasting downdraft, engines howling as both security officers ducked and held onto their caps. The A-9 Trishul slid into a drifting hover five metres above the narrow cobbled road, nearby trees thrashing in protest, the cargo door descending at the rear to reveal the dim hold lights within. Sandy waited until it found the right position, then leaped, boots smacking upon the metal plates as she grasped an overhead handline and ran forward past the harness-locked cargo master. Immediately the door began closing, and the flyer nosed forward and climbed.

Sandy squeezed between the six armoured soldiers in the rear, and found Ari jammed in beside the command post behind the cockpit, peering at the display screens. The occupant of the command post cast a glance over his shoulder as she approached-it was Hiraki, Sandy noted with little surprise. He always seemed to get himself in the right place at the right time for a fight. He moved to get up.

"Stay there," Sandy told him, grabbing an overhead support and bracing. The display screens showed that the unidentified cruiser was now hurtling away from Canas, two CDF flyers in flanking pursuit. "Damn, she got on board?"

"Yes," said Hiraki, and flipped to speakers, considerate of Sandy's inability to uplink. One Trishul pilot was challenging the cruiser to stand down. Another was in terse communication with CSA HQ, who were trying to hack into its CPU with apparently little success. "If we let her have everything, there won't be enough left to hit the ground."

Sandy shook her head. "There's always enough left to hit the ground."

"We need her dead," Hiraki remarked, his businesslike tone as cool and calm as any GI's. "It's cost-versus-gain, I say we come out on top."

"If we kill civvies on the ground," Sandy replied, "the CDF loses its popular mandate. No popular mandate, no CDF. That's a loss, Hitoru."

"So wait until she's over a river," said Ari.

"Now you're talking," Sandy told him. "Get me an armscomp track plotted, a single STP at the rear field-generators."

"Copy. But I think she might be aware of that." Pointing at the display screen, which showed the cruiser staying low, zooming just above the treetops of suburban Tanusha, weaving between the larger buildings in utter disregard for mandatory Tanushan skylanes.

"Must have removed the navcomp controls," Ari muttered. "Who's flying that thing?"

Hiraki handed Sandy a headset, which she fitted, then connected to her insert socket ... and the data wall hit her with a rush far more intense than she'd been receiving through Ari's relay feed. The flyer's internal network was separate and secure-unhackable, at least in the short term, unlike the broader Tanushan network. Suddenly Sandy had full access to the airborne tac-net, a massively detailed threedimensional picture of Tanushan airspace and the evading cruiser's low-altitude trajectory.

"Can we get a telescopic visual from another angle?" she asked.

"Tried it," said Hiraki. "Too much window tint, we can't see inside."

Traffic Central was doing a good job of diverting local airtraffic out of the way, although most was well above the minimum ceiling that the cruiser was currently violating. They were headed east now, one flyer on each flank, holding back several hundred metres and slightly above, with Hiraki's command flyer in the middle, directly behind.

"Where the fuck does she think she's going?" Ari muttered incredulously. "Out to sea?" Lightning flashed, disrupting the visual. Then the cruiser's rear, side window shattered, and a large, tubular object appeared, held in the five hundred kilometre per hour slipstream with inhuman strength.

"Incoming!" Sandy announced at the same time as five other voices. "Countermeasures!" The starboard flanking Trishul broke away in a rush, transmission breaking up completely as massive countermeasures disrupted all neighbouring electrics ... the missile fired, streaking back from the cruiser, then flashed harmlessly past the flyer's main engine nacelle to detonate alongside.

"Provocative little bastards," Sandy heard the pilot of that flyer murmur, and realised it was young Gabone, who she'd flown to Parliament with the day of President Neiland's impromptu press conference upon the Parliament roof. Transmissions flicked back to normal with a crackle of dissipating static.

"Lieutenant," called the weapon's officer, "I have a river approaching, no visible boat traffic. "

"Commander?" said Hiraki. Anyone firing high explosive projectiles within Tanushan airspace made their removal from that airspace an immediate civic security requirement. Doing so while violating all traffic codes, having just launched an assassination attempt upon the Callayan Secretary of State, even more so.

"Go," said Sandy.

"If you get the shot," said Hiraki into his mike, "take it."

"We should kill her," Ari warned. Sandy saw the river approaching, one of the numerous branches on the forested Tanushan delta. The cruiser's trajectory appeared to be cutting directly across, not leaving much margin for error. Full sensor scans compiled upon tac-net from all three flyers plus river traffic central told that there were no rivercraft on the water that would be put in danger.

"We need evidence," Sandy replied simply.

"She'll survive and we'll regret it," said Ari, staring hard at her from his cramped corner. "Blow her apart." Tac-net showed the cruiser making a wide, banking course between midsized apartments that loomed thicker as the river approached, the tall, blazing lights of central Asad district ahead. Sandy met Ari's stare. He was, she knew, watching exactly the same feed as her, on his own uplinks. The cruiser passed the point of no return, and he exhaled hard with disgust.

Gabone's weapons officer fired, a single, high-velocity, selfterminating projectile from one of the unfolding underside racks. It closed the three hundred metres range in slightly less than two seconds, and blew the rear of the cruiser into thousands of flaming pieces. The cruiser appeared to buck forwards, frozen momentarily against the gleaming vista of city lights, then tumbled and rolled through an arcing, shallow dive ... cleared the riverside trees and hit the precise centre of the river with an enormous explosion of water, showered seconds later by flaming wreckage from the explosion.

"Gold six," said Hiraki, "maintain a covering position. "Gold four, dismount on the east bank, gold one, dismount upon the west."

Affirmatives came back, Hiraki's pilot pulling them up into a wide, howling turn as the river approached, engine nacelles angling forward in a broad flare that pressed all occupants hard to the deck. Sandy stood firmly braced, secured only by her cast-bound left hand, rifle braced in the right, staring at the displays on command screens and her own tac-net link. The spray was dissipating, waves from the impact rushing toward the far bank, and crashing against the retaining wall. Flames burned upon the heaving surface of the dark water, and along the east shore of the riverbank, several stunned pedestrians were pausing on a walkway, staring and pointing in disbelief.

Air rushed and swirled through the flyer's hold as the rear doors opened, the pilot losing speed fast as he came in over the river, sliding sideways toward a green space of private property around an apartment building, where a break in the trees provided an available landing zone. The six soldiers in the rear unhooked their restraints, doublechecking weapons and gear.

"This is the Commander," Sandy spoke into her headset mike, "take me directly over the crash site, I'm going in immediately."

Hiraki deactivated his mike. "There's no visibility in that water, you could be ambushed."

"GIs aren't invulnerable, Hitoru," Sandy replied, deactivating her own. "That impact must have hurt. I'm betting she's trapped and probably unconscious." On the other side of Hiraki's seat, Ari was unhooking himself. "You're not armoured, Ari, you stay here."

"Bullshit," said Ari. But reconnected his harness, with dark frustration. The flyer sank with a final, fast slide to a hard landing, soldiers leaping from the rear as Hiraki cleared his seat and went to join them. No sooner had he cleared the hold than the grass, trees and apartment buildings fell away once more, replaced by dark river waters, and the rippling flames on the surface. Ari gave Sandy a final tense, worried look before she turned and made her way along the short hold aisle, then paused at the exit.

"That's the spot, Commander," said the pilot. Below, bubbles and froth stained the dark surface white amidst the flickering, rain-doused flames and floating wreckage. Sandy removed the safety from her rifle, and dove off the edge.

She hit the water head first and with rifle poised, lashing out with left arm and both legs as soon as the water closed on her, driving herself downward with great, propulsive thrusts. The silty dark overwhelmed even a GI's vision, and she could make out nothing beyond several metres down. But the river could not be more than eight metres deep, and the current was not strong ... suddenly she could see the cruiser's roof, torn and mangled at the rear. She twisted and dolphin-kicked toward a firing position through what remained of the front windshield, but could see nothing within the cabin but crumpled seats. The entire front of the aircar had caved in on impact, forward field gens smashed back toward the passenger compartment. Sandy kicked downward, twisting upside down for a firing angle straight through the compartment. Nothing was visible, and the entire rear of the cruiser was missing. Ari easy escape route, for any survivor.

She stayed down for a full two minutes, her headset continuing to feed flickering, distorted data from the hovering Trishul overhead, stretching that short-range subnetwork to its limit and considerably impressed at the headset design that somehow managed to continue functioning underwater. There were troops now spread right along the riverbank, weapons trained upon the rainswept, brown surface, looking for any sign of movement. A flicker of tac-net voices revealed even that some of the late-night pedestrian wanderers were volunteering to keep watch, spreading up and down the banks even as another two flyers arrived on scene, and disgorged more troops onto the banks, and more flyers began moving up- and down-river. And Ari's voice, then, telling several questioners that a GI could hold breath for better than ten minutes if needed, thanks to a variable bloodstream chemistry that was highly self-contained when needed, and thus able to withstand all kinds of unfavourable environments.

Sandy went several hundred metres up and downstream herself, exhaling most of the air from her lungs as she went to reduce buoyancy, but found nothing. No lost weapons, personal items or articles of clothing, no recent impression on the bottom to disturb the soft, weedridden mud, no faint trace of GI plasma staining the uniform brown of the water. And when she finally, despairingly informed all along the riverbank on the tac-net that she was about to surface, it was with the dark, sinking feeling that she'd made a great and terrible mistake.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

andy stood amidst the blasting jets of water and rising steam, and fumed. Further along the soft-floored shower berths, fellow soldiers gave her looks that were filled with caution, beyond the usual intrigue at seeing the Federation's most famous GI naked. Sandy dialed the touchpad up to maximum heat and force, and let herself practically disappear from view.

It was six thirty in the morning, and she hadn't slept. Reports had been flooding into CSA HQ endlessly, piecing together the events of that night. It all seemed to go back to the State Department-the codes that brought down the Canas security grid, the registration of Jane's getaway aircar, everything. Agents had the entire department wing shut down indefinitely, by order of Director Ibrahim. Benjamin Grey was under investigation, and no one seemed to be giving him the benefit of the doubt any more. A breach of that magnitude either had to be incompetence on a massive scale, or complicity. And Ari, being Ari, had pieced together numerous personal and technical details no one else had thought connected, and was now leading an investigation into the possibility that Grey had somehow been placed under hypnotrance. The media knew it as "brainjacking," and the more modern techniques drew the effects out indefinitely by infiltrating the target's uplinks with code that echoed modern VR enhancements in design. Advanced network uplinks and even VR entertainment worked by inducing a hallucination. Ari said the hypno-trance was based on a similar concept ... except that the target wasn't aware the "reality" wasn't real. Technologically induced schizophrenia, he'd called it. And was rounding up the relevant experts, among other things, to interview staff, and review briefing tapes, to search for symptoms.

In the meantime, there was no sign of Jane. Krishnaswali was furious, and had chewed her out for a solid half hour. Had accused her of pursuing her personal, interventionist, militaristic agenda at the expense of local security. She'd been so busy looking for evidence with which to persuade Captain Reichardt of her cause, that she'd allowed Callay's single greatest security threat to escape when she should have shot to kill. Even Ibrahim had not been happy. They'd have had evidence enough from her corpse, he'd suggested. They'd have raided her uplinks, removed information, data connections ... all likely to have survived the body's death. Proof of who Jane had talked to, and where she'd been.

Sandy turned her face into a jet blast that would have been painful to a straight. Trying to blast the frustration from her skull, perhaps. Jane had proven herself every bit as immoral and callous as she'd feared and Takawashi had suggested. She'd nearly killed Rhian. She'd nearly killed Vanessa. Sandy couldn't believe that she herself, with the cold, steely hatred she felt toward everything that Jane represented ... a hatred that penetrated well into the depths of her soul ... had subconsciously made a decision to spare Jane's life, for no apparent good reason. She'd evolved a lot as a person of late, both during her last years in the League, and particularly during her last two years on Callay. She was wiser, smarter, and more appreciative of all life's vast complexities. But still, as she'd acknowledged herself on numerous occasions, she was no pacifist.

She'd killed so many people during her early years of life, whom hindsight informed her hadn't deserved it. And now, she'd been given the chance to take the life of one who clearly did deserve it, and refrained. She didn't understand why she'd done what she'd done. And now, she had trouble looking her comrades, who had lost friends at Jane's hands, in the eye.

"Commander." Vanessa's voice, to one side of the shower row. Sandy glanced sideways through the blasting water and steam. Vanessa was in casual fatigues, her beret tucked into a thigh pocket, looking somewhat less tired than she ought-after the State Department raid, she'd returned to sleep on the fold-down bed in her office, and no one had had the heart to wake her. Last Sandy had heard, just an hour ago, she'd still been asleep. "I've some news."

Sandy refrained from a wry remark, in the presence of underlings, and keyed off the shower with a sigh. Took a towel from the wall dispenser and towelled down her hair as she walked on the puddled floor, down a row of lockers to her own. It was an egalitarian arrangement, by Sandy and Vanessa's own design, just a simple metal locker amidst the others, with no preference for rank. They, and Krishnaswali, all had private showers in the bathrooms adjoining their offices. Krishnaswali, spending more time at his desk than his two next-most senior underlings combined, showered there, when needed. The men's and women's general locker rooms were down on the ground floor, alongside the weapons and PT sections for convenient access. Sandy had heard her guys talking, when they thought no one could hear, making sarcastic remarks about Krishnaswali not even knowing where his general locker was. Which wasn't fair on Krishnaswali; it really wasn't convenient for him, given the different nature of his job ... but still, Sandy knew that soldiers would say what soldiers would say, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

"What's up?" Sandy said when they were far enough away from company. Stopped before her locker, letting the red light scan her iris. A click as it opened, and she reached for her clothes. There was no immediate reply, and she glanced at Vanessa. Vanessa stood, arms folded, contemplating her naked form. One characteristically arched eyebrow said more than any words could. "Oh," said Sandy, sheepishly. And quickly began towelling herself down. "Sorry."

Vanessa seemed to be biting back some great amusement, lips pursed with effort. Rushing to get into her clothes, Sandy was pulling her cps jumpsuit to her waist before she finally noticed. And frowned at her. Vanessa's amusement broke in a stifled laugh. Sandy smiled in puzzlement.

"What?" she said. Vanessa shook her head, a hand raised in apology, still unwilling or unable to speak. "What?" With mounting indignation.

Vanessa sighed. "Oh come on, like this isn't the most absurd thing you've ever seen." Sandy pulled on her T-shirt, still smiling uncertainly, and zipped the jumpsuit over it. Sat down to begin pulling on socks and boots.

"What's absurd?" she ventured after a moment. Uncertain whether she'd misunderstood, and not wanting to make another mistake.

"Us!" Vanessa laughed. "You, suddenly nervous about being naked in front of me. I bet you've never been nervous about nudity before in your life. You looked like a ten-year-old, scrambling for a towel when her brother's friends burst into the bathroom."

"You're exaggerating," Sandy retorted, pulling on a boot. "And besides, it's not my fault I'm suddenly concerned about the effect my bare arse might be having on you."

"It is your fault," Vanessa retorted. "You're gorgeous."

"That's not my fault, it's the League's fault. Fuck, it's probably Takawashi's fault. I'm probably the spitting image of some old girlfriend of his, the one he still thinks about when he jerks off. If he still can jerk off."

"Well thanks, that's spoiled my mental image entirely."

Sandy half-grinned. "Good." She finished with the other boot, strapping the fasteners with typical lightning speed. Then stood, and looked Vanessa directly in the eyes. "Ricey. Are we okay?"

"We're okay," Vanessa said firmly, her gaze unwavering. "I don't make a good drama queen, Sandy. I'm not going to go storming off because I can't get my way on something. I just ... haven't been single for a while, and it's been two years since the divorce, and I didn't think I'd still be single. And it just ... started getting to me. With all this stuff going on. I started wondering about my future. Our future."

"You want kids?" Sandy asked, with a flash of insight.

Vanessa shrugged. A little evasively, Sandy thought. "Maybe," Vanessa conceded. "But not on my own. With this job, I couldn't handle it. I'd need some long-term help."

"And who's the lucky sperm?"

"I'd thought ... I'd thought maybe a donor bank. I mean, my taste in men is terrible. I can't imagine sharing a kid with someone like Sav, it's a complication I really don't need in my life. My taste in women is far better." With a faint smile.

Sandy rolled her eyes, and brushed damp fringe from her eyes. "That's debatable. Never thought of adopting?"

"Call me selfish," Vanessa replied with a shrug, "I want a kid who's at least half me. The gene-screens are pretty thorough, I could make out the father to look like anything I wanted." Sandy shook her head with faint disbelief. Vanessa frowned. "What? You don't think that's a good idea?"

"No no, nothing like that. It's just more Federation hypocrisy. Every time you see photos or footage from a few hundred years ago, you notice there's much more variety of facial features and body shapes. I'd say there were far more ugly people, if that weren't such a subjective judgement. And an unfair one. But despite all the Federation's bitching about the League technology taking over the species, we've still managed to weed out a huge range of genetic variety over the last few centuries. Just with gene screening, which is supposed to only select for disease and health purposes, but of course it doesn't."

Vanessa shrugged. "Every living, organic creature is battling against its own genes from the day it's born. Why should we be any different?"

"I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just hypocritical. There's something more ... I don't know ... romantic, about a random selection, don't you think? Guessing what the kid's going to look like?"

"There's nothing romantic about cystic fibrosis," Vanessa said flatly. Sandy grimaced, remembering having read about that, from before it was eliminated more than three centuries ago. "Or getting abused all through school because your nose looks like a vegetable. What about you?" With a curious smile. "Has Rhian's decision rubbed off on you yet?"

Sandy shook her head, calmly. "No."

Vanessa's smile faded. "No? But someday, surely?"

"Only if I change my mind. Maybe one day I'll want a kid. But right now, I think never."

Vanessa looked genuinely dismayed. "Seriously? But that's so sad!"

"I know," said Sandy, with a faint smile. "It'd be tragic, for the kid. Rhian might get away with it, she's low profile. But me, with my job, and all the attention ..."

"You could manage!" Vanessa insisted. "Hell, Krishnaswali's got three! "

"I don't want to be the mother of the child of a killing machine," Sandy said sadly. "I don't have the right to inflict the fears and dangers of my life upon anyone so innocent. I don't want him or her to have to live the rest of their life in the shadow of my legacy. And I won't put all this guilt on anyone else's shoulders."

Vanessa just stared at her, in great dismay. Looking like she wanted to argue, but somehow, couldn't think of any counterargument. Sandy smiled, and put a hand on Vanessa's slim, uniformed shoulder. "But if you have a child one day, I'd love to be friendly Auntie Sandy, who calls in frequently to corrupt its innocent little mind."

Vanessa's eyes gleamed. "I'd like that," she said. And took Sandy's hand off her shoulder, giving it a tight squeeze.

"Now, you said there was news?" Sandy prompted, thinking that this particular encounter had gone about as well as she could possibly have hoped, and wanting to end it before things could degenerate again.

"Yeah," Vanessa said with a sigh, releasing her hand. "Takawashi left. He went on an attached shuttle, registered to the League freighter Corona. There was a security lapse-remember the customs report last month saying there was too much emphasis on entry, and not enough on departures? Well someone got a visual on Takawashi's party after they'd gone through the checks, just before boarding. One of that party, Intel's pretty sure, was Jane."

Sandy waited patiently outside the League Embassy front gate, the raincoat hood pulled over her head, hands in pockets. At her back, cars hissed upon the wet street, gleaming beneath the streetlights. Simple concrete blocks lined the street edge, an age-old precaution against car bombs. Two years ago, there had been requests to block off the entire road, but local residents had protested. Nowadays, violent Callayan activist groups were more angry at Earth than the League, and the Embassy security no longer had quite so many reasons to be nervous. But still, a simple, enhanced visual sweep through the metal rails of the fence showed the crouched, dark shadows of snipers upon the roof, and scanner grids overlaid across the broad, grassy garden.

The Embassy itself was pleasant on the eye-a two-storey white building with Corinthian pillars, very much in the style of eighteenth century English colonialism. An instantly recognisable style, in Tanusha, with its prominent Indian influence that recalled such architectural influences readily. A long driveway curved in a U, meeting the Embassy's main doors beneath the front pillars. There was little decorative lighting to advertise the building's existence to the outside, and no sign on the fence. Everyone who was interested in such things knew what the building was, of course, but no one inside found a need to announce the fact to casual passersby.

After twenty seconds of waiting, a police officer climbed from the van at one end of the street barricades, and walked toward her. His raincoat was transparent, clearly displaying his blue uniform beneath. He arrived at Sandy's side.