Killswitch (43 page)

"Rhian," she said then. "Let's go."

"Cassandra," Ramoja said mildly, "I am warning you." Ramoja fancied himself a hotshot soldier. Which he was. He'd disarmed her once, on their first meeting, in the attic of an organised-crime gambling den-she'd been overenthusiastic and underprepared, and he'd been waiting. Given what she was, he'd been very pleased with himself. She walked up to him now, slowly, and stopped alongside.

"You're not holding any cards here," she told him, very calmly. "You know there's only one way to stop us from leaving."

"I know," he said. And from there, further words were pointless.

It happened almost too fast for even a GI's brain to register, except that one moment everyone was standing dead still, and the next everything was a blur, Ramoja and Sandy grappling through a series of rapid holds, reverses and counterreverses, balance shifting through an uncontrolled spin as each sought the advantage. They crashed into a wall, Ramoja using the impact to shift grips, which Sandy anticipated with an angled slide of forearm to forearm as her foot slid and body weight shifted ... and suddenly she had the leverage. She swung, crashed Ramoja headfirst into the wall, the grip sliding easily to a momentarily uncontrolled arm which she brought down across her knee with enough explosive force to snap anything.

Following the loud crack! she spun to confront the rest of the entrance hall ... and found Rhian dropping the last, unconscious reg with a spin-kick to the head. Four other bodies lay sprawled across the floor, two still conscious but with fractured limbs. Wall plaster was cracked and holed in places, and the wooden table at the hall's end was upended and broken, the porcelain vase smashed on the floor in shattered pieces about the peacock feathers. Somehow, that sight, more than anything, filled Sandy with an overwhelming sense of regret.

One of the injured regs was reaching for a fallen weapon. "No shooting!" shouted Ambassador Yao desperately, from the safety of his corner, having wisely backed well away. "You heard the Major, no shooting!"

The reg relented, forestalling Sandy's reach for her own pistol. She looked at Rhian. Rhian now did look dizzy, her right hand rigid with discomfort-no doubt from Jane's other bullet wound. But her friend's gaze held steady enough when their eyes met.

"Flamboyant," Sandy remarked, meaning that last spin-kick.

Rhian shrugged. "I never knew where all that combat drill had come from until I came here." Kung fu, she meant. Rhian had discovered it shortly after her arrival on Callay, and quickly become fascinated. "So that's where it comes from," she'd said with amazement, meaning her basic, strictly practical Dark Star training. And Sandy recalled her own amazement, upon first becoming a civilian, that food could be "cuisine," and clothes could be "fashion," and sex could be "love making." That's where it comes from, she recalled realising, with similar amazement.

And she smiled. "Let's go," she said. But Rhian paused, moving on soft, bare feet to where Ambassador Yao stood stunned and helpless. To his credit, he did not flinch when Rhian stood before him, regardless of the display of inhuman power that had preceded. Whatever his faults, Callayan-style GI-phobia did not number among them.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Yao," said Rhian. "I didn't want to do it this way. You deserve better." And she kissed him on the cheek, then padded to Sandy's side. Ramoja was levering himself upright, moving to block the way. He held his right arm with the left hand. The elbow was badly hyperextended, and the entire forearm flopped uncontrollably, the fingers dangling. From the look on his face, Sandy reckoned the pain had not yet penetrated the combat-reflex.

"Don't be stupid," Sandy told him. "You couldn't beat me with two arms."

"You won't get past the yard," Ramoja said impassively. "The defences will stop you."

Sandy ignored him, walking past without bothering to guard her back-with her and Rhian, and Ramoja's one arm, he'd never touch her if he tried. She opened the door, and went to the top of the short steps that led down to the driveway parking, beneath the Embassy's front pillars before the door. Behind those pillars and across the gardens, she was not surprised to see the dark shapes of more GI security, automatic weapons levelled at the doors.

Some of those guards turned, then, as the sound of flyer engines grew louder above the usual background airtraffic hum. And then, emerging above the roof of an opposing, low building, there appeared an A-9 flyer. Another appeared further to the right, hovering low past the beautiful spire of a Hindu temple, its intricate carvings alive in a wash of light from below. A few early-morning pedestrians stared upward at the menacing shapes overhead, engines howling, unfolded weapons bays and underslung cannon directed with obvious intent toward the Embassy grounds.

Sandy turned to confront Ramoja, as he emerged from the doorway behind, eyes sweeping the scene. "We've got camera feeds recording all of this," Sandy told him, above the howl of engines. "It'll go straight to the news networks if you fire or stop us. Rhian is now claiming asylum. Under the Federation security Act, any League military figure claiming asylum will immediately come under Federal forces protection. Even GIs." Since very recently, anyhow. Her case had achieved that much amendment to the regulations, at least.

"You're standing on League territory," Ramoja replied impassively, clutching tightly at his useless arm.

"Attempting to keep Rhian in custody against her will effectively makes her a political prisoner. We don't tolerate the holding of political prisoners in League embassies." The look on Ramoja's face told her the obvious-he knew it was bullshit. But the overriding security imperatives had to be justified somehow, even through acts of clear hypocrisy. So long as it got the job done where required, Sandy didn't care. "If you restrain us, we'll shut down the Embassy. If you shoot us, we'll flatten it. Callay's grown up, Major. Bureaucratic protocols don't stop us any more. We do what we need to. You get in our way, we'll crush you, protocols or no protocols. And you know I don't bluff."

Ramoja gazed at the hovering, deadly Trishuls beyond the perimeter fence. No doubt his vision was attuned enough to see the underslung cannon centred precisely upon his chest. Preprogrammed and accurate to GI-standards, it alone could take out half the GIs in the yard in a matter of seconds. His partner, no doubt, would take out the other half, coordinating via tac-net to avoid wasteful overlap. Each was too heavily armoured to worry much about small arms, and the Embassy's defensive personnel were not allowed anything heavier.

Sandy turned, and walked down the stairs. Rhian kept to her side. Together they walked across the driveway parking, beneath the Embassy's front pillars, and then along the central path across the front lawn, beneath the beautiful, shadowing branches of native trees.

"You think he'll shoot us?" Sandy asked Rhian, casually as they walked.

"The League needs this embassy," Rhian said thoughtfully, her bare feet soundless upon the wet gravel beside the soft crunch of Sandy's boots. Still the rain was falling. And she'd forgotten her raincoat. That was stunning ... or would have been, in any other mental state. Probably it was right to leave it behind, it would have gotten in the way-but still, she could not recall having actually outright for gotten anything before in her life. Ari, no doubt, would be intrigued. Takawashi too. "Would Callay really shut down the Embassy?"

Sandy nodded. "For a few years at least. No League access to the Federation capital."

"He won't shoot us then," Rhian said confidently. And sure enough, at the end of the path, the GI guarding the gate actually opened it for them manually. "Thank you, Cristophe," Rhian told the reg, pleasantly. "And good luck to you."

Cristophe's return gaze was uncomprehending.

"They're not that bad, you know," Rhian said to Sandy as one of the Trishuls manoeuvred above the road, and began to lower itself down, the rear bay door slowly opening. Traffic along the road fronting the Embassy had mysteriously ceased, but given the CDF's integration into central Tanushan networks, a simple traffic reroute was hardly difficult to perform. "The regs there. They're smarter than regs I've known. Cristophe actually laughed, once."

"I wish they'd made him so he could laugh all the time," Sandy replied.

"Me too." They walked along the centre of the wet road, becoming steadily damper in the falling rain. The growing howl of engines drowned regular conversation, but a basic tone-filter adjustment allowed them to hear each other, at least. Upon the sidewalk to the left, a couple of elderly women, with transparent raincoats over colourful saris, stood staring at the Trishul, hands over their ears. Despite all Tanusha's noise regulations, no one had yet figured out how to make a hovering Trishul quiet. Sandy waved to the two women, in the vain hope they wouldn't file a complaint. Tanusha being Tanusha, she doubted it would work.

"Did you mean what you said back there?" Rhian said as they walked up the ramp at the rear, wet hair blasted with the instant blowdry of the rear stabilising thrusters.

"Which bit?"

"About Callay crushing anyone who got in its way."

Sandy signalled to the crew chief within the cramped hold, who said something into his helmet mike. Sandy and Rhian took overhead holds, braced for familiar movement. "Did I say that?" Sandy asked with a frown.

"Yes, you did."

Sandy made a glum half shrug. "Maybe I did."

"Did you mean it?"

"Why do you ask?"

Rhian thought for a moment. The flyer's engines thrummed with power, more of a roar than a howl, here within the relatively soundproofed interior. Clouds of blasting water vapour swirled past the open hold door. "I suppose it just sounds very military," Rhian replied. "I hadn't thought civilian societies worked like that."

"Some think they shouldn't," Sandy replied. "Some think people shouldn't. They say that we should turn the other cheek." The flyer lifted from the street, then banked gently to the left, picking up speed. For a long moment, they had a perfect view of the Embassy gardens, and the steps behind the front Corinthian pillars. Atop the steps, holding a limp right arm with the left hand, a dark figure stood in silhouette against the bright doorway behind, and watched them leave.

"One time, back in the League," said Rhian, eyes fixed upon that lonely, receding shape. "When I learned you'd left. I thought you might have agreed with them. About turning the other cheek."

"Maybe for a little while I did," said Sandy. The flyer nosed down, picking up speed and altitude, and the cargo door whined upward to close. "Ultimately, I think it's a balance. There are many paths. We have to choose which to take, and every choice is different."

"Choosing is hard," said Rhian. More quietly, and more sombrely, than Sandy could ever remember her speaking. "I'm so used to being sure. Now, sometimes ... I just don't know."

Sandy smiled, sadly. Reached with her cast-bound left hand, and tipped Rhian's gaze her way with a touch at her jaw. "And that's what makes us human," she said.

President Katia Neiland stood before the broad windows of her Parliament office, and surveyed the grounds. Ground lights illuminated paths across the vast, grassy surface, and lit trees into beautiful, ghostly outlines. A typical summer lightning storm danced and flickered across the horizon, brightening the sharp silhouette of towers. The drink in her glass was strong-an off-world whisky, sharp and angry upon her tongue. A present from one of the foreign ministers, although she forgot which. Upon the signing of a deal, to join his world to the pact that would overwhelm the old powers of Earth, and force the relocation of the Grand Council on the terms of the Federation majority, not just the homeworld minority.

She took another sip, watching a convoy of cruisers departing overhead, running lights blinking, some important VIP or other heading home for the night ... wherever home was. She thought of her son, Reese, now living in the Canas hacienda where the security was tighter. It was a serious inconvenience for an independent twenty-year-old. He'd always supported his mother's political ambitions. Had enjoyed having the President for a mother, in fact, having inherited from her a similarsized ego, as well as the dark red hair. Well, it wasn't so convenient now. It interrupted his social life, his studies, and his penchant for arriving home at four in the morning. And having twelve special security operatives hanging off one's elbows only impressed the chicks for so long.

He'd wanted her home, this evening. He'd been cooking. So that was one good thing to come of this present, dangerous mess. Two good things, in fact, as Kacey was helping him. Kacey the steady girlfriend. Both the cooking and the girlfriend had been features of the hacienda for the past few months. The food was surprisingly good, and the girlfriend surprisingly smart and agreeable. Reese had known her for some time, apparently, but merely as a friend. She'd been interested (of course) but he'd been too preoccupied with the chase to bother about the possession. Now, chasing girls in crowded, popular nightclubs had become somewhat hazardous for the President's only child. Security forbade it, for the most part. And so, stuck at home, he'd sat still long enough to discover his buddy Kacey.

Katia shook her head, smiling faintly, and took another sip. She didn't even want to think about how closely that entire behavioural pattern fitted her own, at his age. It was uncanny. And more than a little worrying. Maybe Kacey would be a feature long enough to iron him out a little. Kacey had blonde hair, worn shortish, but with style. The inspiration, she freely admitted, was Commander Kresnov of the CDF. She positively gushed about Sandy. How brave, and how courageous, to have overcome the odds of her creation, and become something special. Somehow Katia doubted that Sandy would appreciate being regarded like a handicapped child who'd only recently learned to walk ... but then, as she'd said, appreciation of any kind beat the hell out of the alternative.

She was pleased Sandy was okay. Truly relieved, when she admitted to the plaintive demands of her conscience, during weaker, quieter moments like this. Of course, Sandy being Sandy, it was always unwise to bet against her. But then, as Ibrahim had reminded her on several occasions, even Sandy was not immortal.