Crossover: (Cassandra Kresnov Book 1)

Sandy stood head down in the shower, hands against the shower wall, leaning into the jets as the water coursed hotly over her head and down her body. The flowing water plastered hair to her face, clung thickly to her forehead, her closed eyelids, her ears and cheeks. She breathed deeply, thick, pleasant lungfuls of steamy air.

Her head felt unnaturally clear. The dim bathroom lights flooded her brain with white, artificial light. Water thundered and drummed against her skull. The heat against her skin was somehow both sharp and numb, a confusion of sensation. She tilted her head back, face up to the water jets. For the first time in days her system was free of drugs. It felt strange, to say the least. Perhaps, she pondered, this was what it felt like to be hung over. She didn’t like the sensation.

No drugs. No restraints. No guards … no, that wasn’t true, the security perimeter of the Presidential Quarters were crawling with guards. But no personal guards. No watchful armed presence hovering over her shoulder, alert for that one hostile movement. A movement that now, by all appearances, was no longer expected.

‘Christ,’ she murmured to herself tiredly, and dropped her head so water fell over her shoulders and down her back. Suddenly she was trusted. Trusted by President and Presidential security alike. It was too fast, far too fast. Her head was spinning from too much awareness, echoing like an empty room, and she was in no condition to process such political machinations. No condition at all.

Something twinged in her side, and she removed a hand from the wall, trailed light fingertips over the incision above her ribs … light penetration. Would have ripped the lung of an unprotected straight. The hand trailed down, over a flat, bare stomach, probed lightly at a second and third incision, already healing. Sighed deeply, eyes still closed beneath the cascade of water.

Bad fight. Bad situation. What the analysts at DS Intel would have called a defensive counter. Grunts called it a fuckup. That covered any situation where the enemy held more cards than you did. A big, big-time fuckup. Not quite the biggest in her experience. But close.

Dark Star they’d been, all of them. It was possible, she knew, that she might know the unit. GI 23s and 25s. She’d never liked the designations, personally. Had never really known why, until she’d lived among civilians. 23s and 25s were just people, really. Kind of. Different from herself, obviously, but then she’d never met a GI who wasn’t. And then, they were all different from each other too.

But they were predictable. She’d always found them so … and had known that Federation soldiers always said that their one advantage against Skins was creativity. Fixed mindsets could only improvise so far, however creative their tape training. Sandy had found them painfully obvious. And not just in their combat patterns, either — their personalities were just as bad. Sometimes she’d spent time wondering if that was the model designation or the environment, or the tape. Or all three combined. She’d never really figured that one out, but somehow she’d never got too upset when some group of mid-twenties walked into a Federation ambush and disappeared for good. God knew, it had happened often enough. Not like her guys. Her lips pursed reluctantly, suggesting a smile. Not like Tran. Not much, anyway.

She remembered Tran asking her why she bothered reading those old books. Reading a few pages herself, before losing interest and going off to clean her weapons. Tran asking her if all wars had been as boring as this, once when they’d been stuck in systems patrol and recon for the better part of a month without having seen a station, let alone a planet.

Tran wanting advice over weaponry interface adjustments, moments before she was due to go under the scalpel for an upgrade. And Tran once challenging her to explain what an orgasm was, interrupting her and Dobrov in the act on Sandy’s bunk to get an answer. They had not been alone to begin with — in ship berth you never were — and Dobrov hadn’t bothered stopping for her to deliver an answer. Her explanation had become more of a moment-by-moment demonstration than a technical answer. She and the half-dozen others in the berth had found that very amusing.

Tran had looked up to her. They all had, to one extent or another. She was the Captain. She had an unusual designation. She was, in their own personal opinions, by far the best Dark Star unit commander ever. Which she was. She kept them alive, where other commanders expected heavy losses. They appreciated that, very much so. Worship was too strong a word, and was too emotive anyway. But they obeyed her utterly and without question. The Captain was always right. Sandy knew best.

Tran had taken this very much to heart. Unlike her compatriots, Tran had a mind full of questions. The Captain was the holder of all truths, the knower of all answers to every question ever invented. She always asked Sandy first. It had been occasionally irritating. But it was character, a rare trait among her underlings, and she was loath to discourage it. Tran without questions would not have been Tran at all. And by God, did Tran have questions. Sandy smiled, finding it amusing even now.

And was surprised at herself, standing head down beneath a private shower in a Callayan Presidential Quarters bathroom, for even thinking of Tran. She hadn’t before, when things had been going well. Assuming that things had ever truly been going well… but that had all been an illusion, hadn’t it?

She had so little choice in any of it. Leaving had been her choice … but in the painful glare of hindsight, even that seemed perhaps inevitable. Certainly she could not have stayed, not feeling as she had felt, and knowing what she had known. Surely she could not have stayed and remained sane.

And perhaps, she considered further, she had no more choice now than she had back then, when things were as they were for no particular reason and there was no way to question any of it. She remembered lying on her bunk and thinking thoughts of other places, other things she might want to do … if one day, perhaps, the war would end.

Which was what Tran had thought. God. Had she ever been that naïve herself? As naïve as Tran? And she smiled faintly as she remembered what she had told the small, dark-haired GI — ‘The war will never end, Tran. Not for us.’

Tran had frowned. ‘But when we win, they won’t have any need for us any more, will they? We’ll get leave, maybe even a discharge … Don’t know what I’d do if I got discharged, but there’s gotta be something. You’re smart, Cap’n … tell me what I could do. Security maybe?’

It gave her a cold shiver, even now, beneath the pleasant wash of warm water. No, Tran. When the war ends, they won’t have any need for us at all. Not until the next one anyway.

Dammit. She squatted in the shower, suddenly unsure of her balance. Hamstrings and buttocks pulled tight as the water coursed down and she steadied herself against the water-soaked tiles. Beneath the warm water she felt suddenly cold, her stomach tightened with knotted dread.

Only now was it setting in. The shock, and the fear. The things she hadn’t shown before the President. And Neiland had been understandably self-absorbed at the hospital, given recent events.

The firefight had been bad, but she could deal with that. Had dealt with countless others, though perhaps not under quite such drastic circumstances. What scared her was the organisation. The precision. The specific movements, some of which she’d practically pioneered herself, the timing moves, the coordination signals on the integrated assault network she’d been unable to hack effectively during the attack, what with the sensor plug still in place in the back of her skull, blocking selected transmissions. But she’d just known. Her Dark Star minders had frequently failed to understand the effectiveness of many of her assault techniques. Analysts often refused to believe in instinct in straight humans, let alone in GIs. But she hadn’t known what else to call it. She just knew.

And she knew that no straight human had planned that raid. No straight human knew those moves. No straight human could have planned and executed them in that fashion … straights never commanded GIs, they lacked the familiarity, the gut instinctual knowledge of a GI’s capabilities. Only GIs commanded GIs. She was the highest level GI in existence. But often other, mid-range levels would suffice.

She dropped her forehead into her hands and let the hot water course carelessly over her head. Feeling that her balance might go if she stood upright again. Some revelations were too big for even a sane, rational, stable GI like herself to handle calmly. And she knew, with an absolute certainty that shook her to her bones that a high-level GI had planned that raid, and was here, right now, in Tanusha. A very high-level GI. One who knew her moves. The number of possibilities was not high. They were frighteningly, terrifyingly small.

Oh God. She slumped to her knees on the tiles, and sat on her heels, gazing with helpless dread at the blank tile wall before her face. She’d thought they were all dead. She knew they were. And now, it seemed, at least one of them was not.

And she had no idea what she was going to do about that now.

She emerged from the bathroom in the dark blue bathrobe she’d been provided with. Clothes were available too, she’d been told — civilian clothes — but the shrapnel wounds would heal faster if unconstricted.

Even so, walking down the main corridor of the Presidential Quarters in a bathrobe felt decidedly strange. The polished wooden floorboards were cool beneath her feet. The portraits on the walls were of faces that Sandy felt she probably should have recognised but did not. Former Presidents, she guessed, pausing to examine one work, and then the next. There were no name tags on the works. Presumably visitors were expected to recognise the faces at first glance. Pity she hadn’t read up more on her Callayan history before coming here. But she hadn’t paid much attention to the past back then. That had been her intention, anyway.

She sighed, moving slowly on aching feet from one portrait to the next. She could hear footsteps and voices on the far side of a door further down the hallway … her hearing improving with the drugs now gone. She fancied one of them was Neiland’s, but too much concentration made her head hurt. From the other direction a TV could be heard, and the sounds of someone in a kitchen. And all about, on various unobtrusive frequencies, were the security channels, leaking vague, watchful emissions. It felt very solid, though. At least something was working properly today.

The TV channel sounded like the news, which aroused her interest. She walked unhurriedly down the broad, high-ceilinged hallway and emerged into a luxurious setting that could only be the President’s living room. Everything was old-fashioned. A pair of French doors led to a balcony beyond shrouded by gauze curtains. The wide, open floor was of polished wood, gleaming to a doubtless synthetic, mirror finish. Wood-carved and deep-cushioned furniture gathered about a large rug of intricate Indian design. There was even a real fireplace, with a real fire — doubtless the smoke was processed to harmless vapour somewhere up the ‘chimney’. Tanushan zero-emission standards would not abide unrestricted log fires.

Intrigued, Sandy strolled about the room. Intrigued further that it was empty. She had expected a guard … or a guide, at least. But it seemed she was free to wander, watched only from the usual closed-circuit TV.

Decorative ceiling, wall paintings (landscapes here). Christ, there was even a bar set into the right wall behind the furnishings. And, out of place amid this nostalgic pre-history, a broad, flat-screen TV in the far corner.

‘… no clues as to the whereabouts of the assault unit’s Command and Control element, or C-and-C, as the CSA investigating officers are calling it,’ the man on the TV was saying. ‘It now seems almost certain that the ‘brains’ behind the Dark Star suicide attack did not participate directly in the assault itself — indeed, when one considers all the covert, organisational activities required to position such a unit for an attack of this nature in the first place, it seems just… utterly incredible … that they got as far as they did.’

‘Kim, many of the experts we’ve heard from tonight have expressed similar disbelief not so much at the nature of the attack itself, but that it could have got as far as it did undetected. Many of them have been questioning the CSA’s effectiveness. What questions have you been hearing, and is there any truth to the rumours about an investigation into CSA and other regional and national security procedures in the wake of this unprecedented attack?’

‘Su-Li, it’s impossible to say at this time. Things are very confused down here …’ On the TV screen, red and blue lights were flashing behind the reporter’s position. Engines whined and nearby voices added to the confusion. It made for very good television, Sandy supposed, ignoring the reporter’s words as she had come to ignore much of Tanushan news reportage, what little experience she had had of it. But the TV package was much better than the direct net access that TV was always fighting with for viewers. TV packaged information for viewer convenience. Direct access required interactivity, and most viewers lacked the time, expertise or inclination to interact usefully, particularly when something like this was going on. The old medium was alive and well in Tanusha, and doing better by the minute, by all appearances.

Footsteps from the hallway … she turned, and saw a small, dark-haired woman swagger in, stride adjusted for the weight of the heavy canvas gearbag she had slung over one shoulder.

‘Hi-ya,’ said Lieutenant Rice with forced cheerfulness. Sandy wondered how the woman managed to operate outside of her armour — she was too small for heavy, unsupported armaments. Strength had never been a problem for GIs of any size. Rice dumped the gearbag onto the plush antique sofa. She wore operational gear, fatigue pants and jacket with unit patches. SWAT Four, a prominent shoulder patch read. Others denoting university and training school. A lieutenant’s shoulder pips. And a few more assorted patches. Rice appeared to have collected quite a few. She folded her arms and gave Sandy a wry once-over. ‘So y’ve been busy, huh?’

‘Could say,’ Sandy replied. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I’ve been dragged.’ With glum exasperation. ‘Ought to be sleeping with the rest of my guys … they just pulled me out of the debrief and said they’d like me to give you a rundown …’ A baffled shrug. ‘So I say ‘hey, I’m SWAT, not security’, and they say ‘tough luck lady’, and they give me this bloody great bag of crap, don’t even offer to lend me some strapping young hunk to carry the damn thing for me, and here I am.’

Sandy’s brain remained fixed on ‘debriefing’. ‘You were at the Parliament?’

Rice let out a long, hard sigh.

‘That’s my job. And a great, wonderful fucking job it is too.’ Looked her hard in the eye. There was an energy about Rice, Sandy saw. Lively most times. Darkly unhappy right then, and forcing wry humour to cover it. ‘Lovely mess your friends made.’

‘They’re not my friends.’

Rice cocked an eyebrow and nodded acknowledgment.

‘I know. Lovely mess you made of them, too.’

‘Is your team okay?’ Sandy asked. If Rice was a good SWAT lieutenant, it would be the only question she truly cared about, at that moment.

‘My guys are fine,’ Rice replied with a hard stare, ‘but a friend of mine lost three in three seconds, all dead. I knew them all.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Sandy said quietly.

‘And it really fucking shits me,’ Rice continued, barely controlling the anger that suddenly writhed to the surface, ‘because I saw the space on the debrief, I went through about three just like it when we came down on the roof. There were only about fifteen damn GIs left by then … it could have been me or anyone but now this friend of mine’s banging his damn head against the wall thinking how he could have avoided it …’ She caught herself, and exhaled hard. Shrugged. ‘Anyway.’ Again fixed Sandy with a firm stare. ‘We would have lost a hell of a lot more if you hadn’t been there. Including the President. They said you got twenty.’

Sandy shrugged. ‘Roughly.’

Rice snorted. ‘So Dr-fucking-Djohan was right, you are a dangerous wench.’

‘I never claimed otherwise.’

‘No. No, you didn’t, did you. Well fuck it, you’re not drugged now, you’re not restrained, I’m standing five metres away and I’m still alive. It’ll do me.’

Her dark eyes were intent with the lingering fire of the day’s events. Sandy knew that different people dealt with it in different ways. Rice, it appeared, went into energy overload and had trouble calming down. Only she did so now, just a little, as her brain appeared to catch up with what she’d just said. Her eyes narrowed further, looking Sandy up and down. As if only now realising the significance of standing in a room alone with an undrugged, unsecured GI. And realising that only yesterday she’d not have thought it at all prudent.

‘So here you are,’ she stated, recovering some lightness with an effort. ‘Upright.’

‘Bother you?’ Sandy asked her.

Rice met her gaze. And did not flinch when she held it, unblinking. Which was rare, among straights. And rarer still in these circumstances.

‘Not after today,’ Rice replied.

‘And that’s why they sent you,’ Sandy guessed. Having just added that piece for herself. ‘Because they think I might need a chaperone.’

‘Oh no,’ said Rice, ‘it’s far, far worse than that, I’m afraid.’ She turned and unzipped the canvas bag on the sofa. Pulled out a black, angular firearm — a Chesu PK-7, Sandy saw — and presented it to her, held crosswise in her hands. ‘You’ve been appropriated.’

Sandy just looked at her. And at the Chesu. The PK-7 was a close quarters model — low on firepower compared to what she was used to, but concealable, compact and efficient. A non-military weapon. The grip was angled towards her invitingly. Circumstances as they were, she wanted to take it. It was logical that she should be armed, after all that had happened. But she did not move.

‘What’s the deal?’ she asked quietly.

‘Congress just passed emergency powers,’ Rice said, folding the weapon to a comfortable hold at her side. ‘CSA has overriding jurisdiction on just about every security issue going. Priority being on finding who did this and stopping it from happening again. So this is your lucky break, populist politics just went down the disposal and you just got yourself declared a security asset.’

‘And that means arming me?’ She was not at all sure of the implications. The logic made sense. But it was freedom-through-desperation. It was the CSA cutting her restraints with a gun to their head. It was not by their own free will, and she distrusted that entirely. Evidently her suspicion was showing.

‘They’re trusting you, Cassandra,’ Vanessa said earnestly. ‘They know they’re not going to get cooperation out of you until you feel accepted. They’re putting you on the team. So yes, that logically means arming you. I mean hell, you’re dangerous enough without weapons. They’d drawn a line on just releasing you before. Now they’re crossing that line, they reckon they might as well go all the way.’

‘No more politicians leaning on the CSA to block me out?’

‘They’ve been overriden.’ With evident pleasure, a gleam in her eyes. ‘It’s no longer a matter for politicians. This is where the professionals come in. On emergency legislation, we can tell the politicians to go jump.’

Sandy sighed, a short, reluctant heave of robed shoulders. They felt stiff, aching with unreleased tension. Vanessa waited for a reply.

‘What’ll I do?’ she asked eventually. Reluctantly.

Vanessa shrugged. ‘Help. Anyway you can. Who knows? Cassandra … this city just fell to pieces. Psychologically. It’s chaos out there, the media’s going completely crazy, there are lunatics on all fringes preaching war and insanity … This is the party town, Cassandra. This isn’t a political hotspot, people aren’t political here. No one realised there was a problem …’

‘What is the problem?’ Sandy asked. Wondering if they knew yet. Or if they’d guessed.

‘Well, Ibrahim’s guessing it’s your precious ‘escape clause’. Only it doesn’t appear to make any sense … unless they were after you, but post-analysis doesn’t indicate that at all. He’ll be along to talk to you about it shortly. He thought he’d give you a chance to rest for a half hour first.’

Sandy ran both hands hard through her hair, trying to clear the lingering fog from her brain. She did not yet feel entirely steady on her feet. She felt disoriented. Being asked to make commitments … She wasn’t entirely sure what she felt. Or where her loyalties lay. Or if she had any loyalties at all. The deal sounded like progress. Technically. She’d told them about the escape clause, and now, unhappily, something appeared to have come of it… and that, she guessed, had done her credibility no end of good. No more drugs, no more restraints … trust. Or something like it, if only motivated by panicked desperation. But she wanted … hell, she didn’t know what she wanted.

Perhaps it would be enough, she thought, to know that these people were worth helping. The CSA, Tanusha and Callay more broadly. They had yet to do anything for her. She was uncertain if they ever would, unless their own immediate concerns were at stake. She looked at the angular, snubbed weapon in the lieutenant’s hand, and wondered if she would ever feel whatever it was that one needed to feel in order to commit oneself to such obligations. Service was her habit — was, perhaps, her truest nature. It was certainly the reason she existed. But she wanted more. More than the unthought reflex, in the Parliament ambush, to protect those obviously in the right from those obviously in the wrong. Then, she hadn’t had time to think it through before acting. She wanted to know she could think, and still act, aware of all implications. She wanted to know it was worth it.

‘What?’ Rice asked, watching with dark, sombre eyes.

‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head wearily. ‘I don’t know why this is happening. I don’t know if it’s my fault, I don’t know if I owe anyone here anything, I don’t know what I ought to do about it. I don’t know, Vanessa. I just… don’t know anything.’

Vanessa considered her for a moment. Turned and placed the Chesu back on the sofa. ‘Look,’ she said, folding her arms tiredly, ‘we’ve got some clothes for you in the other room … and some other things. Why don’t you get dressed, we’ll have something to eat and we can talk for a while. About Tanusha. And other things.’

Sandy blinked, wondering, as she gazed at Vanessa, just how much she understood of what she was feeling. Vanessa raised an eyebrow, waiting.

‘Fine.’ She managed a small smile. ‘Food would be good.’

The food, in fact, was excellent. The Presidential Quarters had its own staff, divided into housekeeping and catering — Alpha Team took care of all security regarding the President, including household security. One staff member brought them dinner on laptop trays, with the same careful presentation afforded genuine VIP guests. Outfitted in her new, comfortable jeans and CSA regulation heavy leather jacket, Sandy marvelled at the tray setting, with silverware, separate little magnetically adhesive bowls for sauce and spices, and a main meal of steaming Thai curry, one of her many favourites. And crisp, steaming spring rolls with soy sauce dip … she loved spring rolls.

‘I could get used to this,’ Vanessa commented on the sofa opposite, devouring a mouthful of her spaghetti. ‘Ever since I met you, I’ve been moving up in the world. I haven’t been waited on since my honeymoon.’

‘You haven’t been here before?’ Sandy asked.

‘Here?’ Incredulously. ‘Hell no. SWAT-rats don’t get found in places like this. The closest I’ve got to political power before was when the Vice President gave me my university degree … but that was Abdul Hussein, he was several administrations ago.’

‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty-six.’ Winding up another spaghetti mouthful around her fork. One of the household staff put another log on the open fire, sparks showering up the ‘chimney’. ‘Graduated fifteen years ago. Want to know what I studied?’

‘Mmm.’ Sandy nodded past her mouthful.

Vanessa smirked. ‘I did an MBA.’ And popped the full fork into her mouth.

‘You wanted to get into business?’ Sandy asked with amazement. Vanessa nodded, chewing heartily. ‘How well did you score?’

‘Uh-uh,’ Vanessa waved a finger at her reproachfully, ‘don’t cast aspersions upon my academic achievements, young lady, I was third in my year … that’s at Jayasankaran University too, that’s prestige for you. I had about twenty headhunters chasing me then, big firms too. I’d be rich if I’d stuck with it.’

‘Why didn’t you?’ With fascination, her meal temporarily forgotten. Even the shock of recent ground-shaking events faded, in such surroundings, in company she was admittedly beginning to find of increasing interest. Not forgotten. Just postponed. If she hadn’t learned that skill early, in Dark Star, she would have gone insane long, long ago.

‘I did, for two years. One of the least emotionally satisfying things I’ve ever done. They’re a pack of self-centred bastards, I’m telling you … it’s this city, they have their corporate ladders, their damn expensive dinner parties, trophy girlfriends and boytoys … they don’t talk about anything but work. They’ve got their own little egocentric world. They spend their entire lives immersed in this trivial bullshit and nothing touches them. After two years I was climbing the walls.’

‘But why SWAT?’

Vanessa rolled her eyes. ‘You know,’ she said, jabbing her fork for emphasis, ‘that’s the really weird thing … When I was young and stupid, I just thought I wanted independence and power. You know, I reckoned I’d make a stack of money, buy my own stuff, sleep with whoever I wanted … y’see I’d always been over-independent if there’s such a thing, had screaming rows with my parents since before puberty even, that kind of thing. If you’d suggested SWAT or even CSA to me when I was in school, I’d have laughed in your face — I thought authority only existed to give decent people the shits.

‘Then I saw the alternative. There’s a broad section of people in this city that just don’t give a shit. War with the League? That’s lightyears away, doesn’t affect anyone here, who cares? Spreading underworld activity? Natural side effect of liberal-market policies, just grin and bear it. I mean, it’s not like I thought business circles would be full of humanistic enlightenment or anything, I just didn’t realise they’d be that hollow. And I didn’t realise how activist I actually was until I went somewhere where I was starved of it … it drove me mad. So I started looking around for ways to get involved in things that actually interested me …’ Pause for a sip of her drink. ‘… and I soon discovered that the only major organisation that has any real influence over issues I thought were important was the CSA. So I joined.’

‘Just like that?’ Sandy was still gazing, chewing slowly on her food.

Vanessa smiled crookedly. ‘Just like that. That’s my motto. I’m not much on deliberation.’

‘They wanted people with MBAs?’

‘Sure, financial crime’s the ten-headed monster here, not to mention someone has to figure out their own budgets. Only I’d listed martial arts, scuba diving and general sports among my proficiencies, so they gave me the full physical and found reflexes and coordination in the top two percentile, so they sat me down and politely asked me if I’d ever thought of SWAT. So I thought, heck, accountancy, tax evasion, special weapons and tactics, what’s the difference?’

Sandy actually managed a grin, much to her surprise. ‘You ever regretted it?’

‘Sure, heaps of times. Like today. But the day after, I always find myself feeling kind of proud that I’d been there, however horrible it’d been at the time. I need that … I need to feel I actually matter, that I’m doing something useful, whatever it is. I didn’t really realise that until I went into corporate business. I didn’t realise just how useless ordinary people can get. And … God, there are times I just feel so superior to all of them.’ She grinned at Sandy, an abrupt flash of lively energy. ‘It’s a huge ego thing but I love it. We have these public open days sometimes. You get all these suited wonders coming and gaping when we show ’em armour drills and demos. I ran into an old business acquaintance there once, real popular bigshot, queen of the in-crowd … we spent fifteen minutes chatting about all the things I’d done since then, and all the things she’d done, and Christ — she walked away from there feeling absolutely, totally inadequate, it was wonderful.’

Sandy took another mouthful, still smiling. And sighed. ‘I wish we’d had a few open days. We rarely got to see civilians.’

Vanessa frowned. ‘You got leave, didn’t you?’

‘Sometimes. My team didn’t think much of civilians. Never understood my fascination certainly. And there wasn’t anyone else to go with … GIs needed monitors, too.’

‘Even you?’ Vanessa asked with a deeper frown.

‘I don’t officially exist, Vanessa. Regular GIs needed it — officials said they might get confused, it was for their own good. And no one wanted to admit how different I was, so I got treated like the others. With apologies, of course.’

‘Must have been tough.’

‘I suppose.’ She swallowed another, thoughtful mouthful, and washed it down with some hot tea. ‘I didn’t think about it much until the last few years. It was just life, I hadn’t known anything else. And my team was more important than anything straights might do. I was with them mostly.’

‘Where are they now?’ Vanessa asked. Sandy’s eyes flicked up briefly. Met Vanessa’s curious gaze for a moment. She didn’t want to tell Vanessa now. It was the wrong moment, and Vanessa was not an analyst. She would leave it for Ibrahim. And besides, it didn’t answer Vanessa’s question. She turned her attention back to her meal.

‘Dead,’ she said softly. ‘All dead.’ There was a silence, filled only by the crackling of flames in the fireplace, where the new log was burning nicely. The warmth was pleasant on her face, even at this range.

‘How?’ Vanessa asked. Not ‘I’m sorry’ or ‘how tragic’, Sandy noted. Vanessa was not certain if such comments were fitting. Vanessa would not bullshit her. She appreciated that, as much as she had appreciated anything since she’d been in Tanusha. She sipped at her tea, and released a deep breath. And told Vanessa something that she had not been willing to divulge to any investigator up to this point.

‘My superiors had them killed,’ she said quietly. ‘All but me.’ She looked up, in that silence that followed. Vanessa looked shocked. And she was the wrong personality, Sandy guessed, to make a good actor.

‘What happened?’

‘The war was winding down,’ Sandy said quietly. ‘My commanders separated me from my team — put me under the knife for an upgrade while my team was sent on a new mission under a different captain. It was the first time in five years any of them had been on a mission without me. They never came back.’

She closed her eyes. Memories assailed her. Arguments with Colonel Dravid, a ferocious shouting-match. She’d broken his desk, smashed it clean into two pieces. Never before in her life had she snapped like that. It had been a revelation to her … and to Colonel Dravid too, she had no doubt.

Dravid, who had always been civil enough, in a distant kind of way. A Fleet Man to the soles of his shiny black shoes. No way had Dravid volunteered for administrative duty over a bunch of steely-eyed killer-skins. With the others, he was cool, direct and totally devoid of emotion. With Captain Kresnov … the same, only tentative.

Sometimes, Sandy could have sworn he was frightened of her. But then, every officer behaved differently around her. With some it was simple curiosity. With others it was sidelong looks and nervous, unthinking finger-tapping. Dravid hid it well. But after so long, and so many administrators, guardians, commanders and seniors-in-general, she could always tell.

She remembered Dravid’s face, white and trembling with anger and fear, threatening her with court martial. Which would have been funny if she hadn’t been so furious. Try explaining a court martial to her minders. To the platoon of navy psychs who analysed her debriefing reports. To the biomeds who tested her reflexes and upgraded her functions. To Captain Teig, who sometimes invited her up to bridge level for dinner and conversation — often politics, or books, or music, or of places Teig had visited in her long navy career.

They couldn’t court martial their multi-billion-dollar test subject. They had far too much riding on her. But they were evidently concerned by her sudden lack of emotional restraint. Her outburst earned her a fast trip to Lieutenant-JG Ghano’s couch.

‘How does this make you feel?’ he’d asked when she’d explained the reasons for her fury. For a psychologist, Ghano was not at all bad. He did not patronise … much, anyway. He was direct. He even had a sense of humour. And he was Sandy’s personal shrink, since she found all the others so annoying.

‘How the fuck do you think I feel?’ she’d retorted. ‘It’s a fucking light metals ore-refinery, Sevi. Why do they need my team to hit a damn ore-refinery? Do they think the Federation will collapse because they suddenly don’t have enough foil covers for their microwave dinners? The target selection doesn’t make sense!’

‘Sandy, Sandy …’ Sevi Ghano had held up his hands, as if to fend her off. ‘I’m not a strategist, Sandy. I don’t know what to say about that…’

‘Oh come one, since when am I wrong? They fucking designed me. They should damn well know what I’m capable of, and I’m telling them they’re wrong!’

‘They designed me?’ Ghano had looked pained. ‘Sandy, that sounds like seriously retrograde thinking to me. You know perfectly well that no one designed your thought processes, you’re as much an individual as me or anyone else on this ship.’ Deathly silence from his patient. ‘Now I’m a smart guy, I can see you’re upset. You don’t usually get upset like this. It’s more than just the target selection, isn’t it?’

‘Of course it’s more than the target selection.’ Shortly. ‘Intra-orbital insertions are dangerous, whatever the pinheads say.’ Pinheads were the intelligence number-crunchers. Mission planners — mathematicians, mostly. And every grunt’s favourite target for derision and contempt. Algebra warriors. Armchair generals. Pinheads. ‘My team hasn’t operated without me for five years. I need to be with them.’

‘Sandy, do you or do you not need that surgical upgrade?’

‘It can wait!’

‘The meds don’t think so.’

‘When they start leading the assaults,’ she snapped, ‘then they can tell me about it.’

‘These are some of the most experienced, decorated, well-trained special ops soldiers in the League, Sandy,’ Ghano had implored her. ‘And most of that quality is because of you, and what they’ve done with you, and what you’ve taught them. You better than anyone should know how good they are. Do you really think that they’re so vulnerable without you?’

‘It’s my call, dammit!’ Harshly. ‘It doesn’t matter what the fuck the stupid mission objective is — it’s my team, and it’s my call! They’ve got no business interfering like this.’

‘Sandy.’ Gently. ‘This isn’t like you. You’re usually so full of praise for your guys. You talk about them like they can walk on water.’ Was that what he thought? Was that really what he thought? ‘What’s troubling you? For the last year you’ve been tense, you’ve been moody… is it because of the way the war’s going? It’s not the end of the world, you know — we’re not going to have to surrender anything. And no one blames you for anything at all. You’ve done magnificently. The League couldn’t have achieved anything like it has without you and your guys …’ Sevi Ghano was a nice guy all right, but sometimes, like all the others, he mistook her for a child.

‘You’re way off target, Sevi.’ Blandly, and utterly unhelpful. Ghano had sat on the couch beside her. Brushed affectionately at her hair, smoothing her brow.

‘Tell me what’s the matter, Sandy.’ His hand rested upon her cheek, smooth and warm. ‘You’ll feel better if you tell me, I promise. I want to help you, I hate seeing you this upset.’ And he’d leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.

‘Blatant manipulation,’ she’d murmured. Ghano had grinned at her, leaning close.

‘Of course.’ Another kiss, this time upon the lips. Rarely one to refuse an invitation, Sandy had responded.

They’d made love, first on the couch and then moving to Ghano’s bunk, as they had numerous times before. It was hardly a regular patient/psychologist relationship, Sandy knew. And she further knew that with Ghano it was mostly because he and the entire psych department dedicated to her study knew that she — and most GIs, come to that — had precious little compunction about whom she screwed, never having been socialised in the art of being picky. Nor taught a common-sense reason to say no. And GIs were nothing if not logical… and in that sense, she was just like the others. Which was not to say that Ghano didn’t like her — he did. And obviously he enjoyed having sex with her … everyone else did, and she had a reputation to uphold. But mostly, he did it because it was the best way to get information from her. She knew this, and in those comfortable, lingering minutes that followed, she usually didn’t disappoint him.

Except this time.

‘We’ll be okay, Cap’n,’ Tran had told her later that alter-day, after the main-day shift had ended. Seated on the neighbouring bunk, looking puzzled at Sandy’s concern. ‘It’s just another damn orbital insertion … we were in Tyuz system last month. There’s nothing there, even the pinheads say so.’

‘That’s no recommendation,’ said Mahud from alongside. Shifted an arm more firmly about Sandy’s bare shoulders, a casual, affectionate companionship.

‘You just be careful,’ Sandy had told them. Looked across at Raju, sitting at the end of her bunk. Nudged at him with her foot, bare beneath the covering sheet. ‘Don’t trust the pinheads, don’t trust command, don’t trust anybody except yourselves. I don’t like this mission. I don’t like it at all.’

‘Why not?’ Raju had asked, as puzzled as Tran. ‘It looks like a cakewalk.’ Sandy had stared at the overhead, her jaw tight. How could she tell them? They wouldn’t understand. They’d think she was being paranoid. They trusted her in just about everything, but this … this was asking too much. And it would distract them from what they needed to do.

‘Just be careful,’ she’d said at last. ‘Trust me, I have my reasons.’

‘Sure,’ Tran had said, casting surreptitious, frowning looks first at Mahud, then at Raju. ‘Sure Cap’n.’ Another look at Mahud, when she thought Sandy wasn’t looking. Mahud had taken the hint and rolled over, pressing against her body, trailing a curious hand across her flat, bare stomach beneath the sheets. Sandy had sighed, staring up at the overhead again.

‘Cap,’ Mahud had chuckled in her ear, a hand caressing her breast. ‘You’re all tense, Cap. Just relax a bit, huh?’

In time she’d surrendered, that being all she could do. Tran and Raju had moved over several bunks, speaking in mild tones about operational preparations and readiness drills, all the while casting glances over at their sacred Captain, and hoping worriedly that Mahud was doing at least a passable job of taking her mind off things for a while. Everyone knew the Captain had been acting a little strange for some time now. Everyone speculated on what it might be — out of her hearing, of course. Or so they thought. It worried them that she was worried, but for some reason she was incapable or unwilling to share with them her concerns.

Probably, they’d thought, it was yet another strange Kresnov-ism. The Captain had so many strange tastes. Like her books, and her music. And sometimes … sometimes she’d spoken to one or another of things, issues and politics and strange, foreign concepts that none of them pretended to understand. They spoke to each, other of the Captain’s periodic attempts at otherworldly conversation. They agreed that if the Captain thought it was important, then it probably was. But none of them were the Captain, and none of them possessed anything like her designation, so they left it largely alone. Tran alone had expressed a hope that the Captain might find some people among the straights with whom she could speak of such things. And the others had agreed that that would be good but could hardly be considered a priority … there was a war on, after all. There always had been.

The Captain’s one compulsion that they readily understood was sex — her libidinous reputation was nearly the equal of her martial one, and everyone knew that Captain Cassandra Kresnov was the best fighting soldier in the history of the human race. In bed, that translated into one very big rap, and as such, she could have had her pick of the ship, and chosen at will. But strangely, she preferred to roam mainly within her own small circle of comrades, acquaintances and the occasional passer-by — GIs or straights, she had little observable preference. But, make no mistake about it, not only was the Captain talented, but she was prolific, too. Which, to her companions, had made a certain amount of sense — everything else in her brain appeared to work in overdrive mode, so it was little wonder that her libido should follow the same path. The Captain liked sex when she was happy, and sex when she was sad and, most particularly, sex when she was uptight or frustrated.

This particular alter-day, she had worn Mahud out. Tran, ever conscientious where the Captain was concerned, had insisted Raju do his duty, scowling at him when he looked like he might protest. And so Mahud had departed Sandy’s bunk, sparing a brief, friendly ruffle of her hair as she rolled onto the newly arrived Raju, and went to work.

‘Three in one day, Cap,’ he’d told her, ‘you’re not working on your record, are you?’

‘Not unless you’ve got all the men in D platoon lined up outside the hatch,’ she had replied, humour returned and breathing hard. Raju had found that funny, and laughed. Sandy rested her forehead against his broad shoulder, and chuckled with him, the length of him pressed warm and strong against her naked body, his arms about her in a comfortable embrace.

A nice moment, as she recalled it. She’d always liked that feeling, as much as the actual sex itself. Warmth and affection. A close embrace, body to body, sharing a laugh with a man she might have called her friend. Or comrade, at the very least. And then, she recalled further, Raju had nailed her so hard and so well from behind that her grasping, straining hands had nearly bent the bed frame. A nice moment indeed.

… And looked up to find Vanessa still watching her, with the disconcerted recognition of a moment passed, left forgotten. Her time-sense told her that it had only been a few seconds. But she was alarmed to find herself wandering like this, revisiting a time, and a space, and a life that was for her long dead.

And now she was here, dreams of a peaceful civilian existence shattered. Perhaps she’d been stupid to think she could ever leave it all behind so easily. For what would she be without war and conflict? It was the first, last and only reason that she existed. To think that she could abandon it all for so distant a dream as peaceful domesticity now seemed, in the glare of hindsight, slightly absurd.

But she had always had dreams. Had lain on her bunk, with or without company, and stared at the overhead, wondering at the existence of other people and other lives. It had seemed so magical, by contrast to her own bland, grey world. And the stories she had read, and the music she had listened to, had only stirred her passion for more. Ideology, culture, debate, artistry, ethnicity … she had grown fascinated by it all, and the more she had discovered, the more she had wanted to learn.

Sex may have been her favourite recreation, but learning was her passion. It filled her head with wonderful things, and gave rise to thoughts and ideas of which she had not previously thought herself capable. After a time she would wander the cramped corridors in the carrier’s gut, squeezing past the constant traffic, barely even aware of her surroundings. In her mind, she was far, far away. And it was wonderful.

‘Why were they killed?’ Vanessa asked. Eyes wide with lingering horror. ‘How do you know?’

‘I saw it coming.’ Softly. Gazing at the dancing life in the fireplace. ‘They weren’t the first to go mysteriously missing. No documentation … I broke in a few times, nearly got caught. I think they suspected. But it was politics.’

‘What politics?’

‘Vanessa …’ She exhaled wearily. ‘It’s too long. I can’t. Not now.’ Her head was swimming with politics. She needed … something else. Humanity. Conversation. The less harmful kind. Vanessa shrugged.

‘Hey, sure … that’s good thinking, I won’t ask.’ And blinked rapidly, still gazing at her. ‘Were your team anything like you?’ Sandy smiled faintly. Repressed a short laugh.

‘No. Not at all like me. But they weren’t bad people. Mostly. Some were nice — you’d have liked them.’ To her surprise, Vanessa did not even look doubtful.

‘Did you love them?’ she asked instead.

The question surprised Sandy. She took several moments before answering.

‘I suppose I did,’ she said then. With faintly pained, distant memory. ‘Not all of them. We had a turnover ratio … they came and went. But I had my closer friends. They were only GIs, but… yeah,’ she nodded, sadness in her eyes, ‘you could say I loved them.’

Vanessa, she saw, was intrigued, wanting to know more, for reasons other than strategic. For what reasons, Sandy could only guess … but it felt nice, to be the attention of such innocent interest. She had not spoken to anyone of her past life, not since they’d left her. She felt a sudden, tired, emotional urge to talk to someone. She had not really talked to someone, meaningfully, in … she could not remember how long. That told her something in itself.

‘They’re basically good people, Vanessa,’ she said. ‘Different designations from mine, lower numbers … you can’t tell a GI by the designation, not really, it’s just a rough guide. But my guys were smarter than your average GI. More flexible. Their personalities varied more, they had nuances, traits … character, I suppose. They were real people, only limited. And they tried, they really did. Like in Goan. You heard about Goan?’

‘Course. The first time the League tried to turn it into a proper ground war.’ A frown. ‘You were there?’

‘I was.’ She gazed back into the fire, conjuring memories she had not tried to recall for a year at least. Had not wanted to recall. ‘You remember the fuss about Federation civvie casualties?’

‘They said the League basically targeted populated areas for no reason.’ Sombrely. ‘League said Federation troops were using populated areas for cover.’

‘Neither’s true,’ Sandy said. ‘Federation don’t want to admit their evac was all screwed up, that they had enough advanced warning to get nearly all the civvies out in time, but they screwed it. League never targeted civvies on purpose, but they didn’t make an effort to avoid it. I wasn’t real happy with the scope of what I saw. We were hunting out the last Fed units in the city … not real easy. There was plenty of cover, and they were smart. But there were loose pockets of civvies around, hiding in buildings, abandoned rooms, underground shelters …’

She sighed. Took a breath. ‘Anyway, League command told me that couldn’t be helped. I ignored them, told my guys we weren’t going to call in heavy strikes where civvies were present, we were going to use restraint where possible. They didn’t see the point, of course … but I said so, so they tried. It mostly worked, I was never sure how much they understood or agreed. They never argued with me. I think they knew when I was set on something.

‘But one time … we hit a Fed unit. They’d been hiding, I think using some civilians for eyes. We didn’t know the civvies were there … just saw the Fed outpost, guns and communications, watching the street, set to ambush the next League patrol that went through. So we hit them. A short firefight … but someone on their side panicked, started cutting loose with a rapid autocannon, only got off a few shots, but one of them hit a ground floor wall where their civvies had been hiding. Blew the floor out.’

Vanessa was staring, meal forgotten. Sandy was unsure where she was going with this. It wasn’t necessary to remember it. But it seemed important for some reason she could not, at that moment, entirely fathom. And very relevant to Vanessa’s question.

‘So we went in there …’ Memories struck, typically powerful past the faded suppression of tape, and she pressed on with concentrated focus. ‘There were several rooms they’d been using, had supplies, cooking equipment, a small generator, a whole living space there … mostly ripped up where the shell had hit. Ten civvies, mostly family, I think. Two were already dead. Another three injured … they’d been in the side room by the outer wall. The other five had been sleeping further away — they were protected. I think these five had been making a meal, there was kitchen stuff and food blasted about the place.

‘One of the injured ones was a little girl, about five, I think. She didn’t scream or anything. One of my GIs — Chu — was the medical specialist … I got her to work on the girl. There was lots of blood. Her mother was screaming. Her little brother was already dead, one of those two. Lots of crying. People thought we’d execute the rest of them, being GIs and all. It was bad.’

There was a lump growing painfully in her throat. Vanessa’s eyes were wide, fixed in a mute, unblinking stare in the orange flicker of firelight.

‘The girl lived for a while, then lost consciousness. Then nothing. And we were still busy. We had to keep a perimeter in case other Feds came along, there was other activity in the sector … I’d thought Chu would just go back to work when the girl died. But she just walked over to me, through all this household wreckage and sobbing relatives, and she just … she just kept saying, over and over. ‘She smiled at me. Cap, she smiled at me’, white faced and staring, like she’d seen a ghost. And I couldn’t get her to focus on anything for another half hour … I mean Chu had seen dead people before — civilians, children, everything. I hadn’t even known she’d had any idea what was special about children, why civvies placed such value on them. I still don’t know. But basic psychology says a 39 — that was Chu’s designation — generally isn’t going to have that kind of emotional response, in those circumstances. But I’d hardly seen a GI so affected.

‘I still wasn’t sure, after it was over. So I took Chu with me up to the ship Captain’s quarters the next time I went — I got invited sometimes. And I showed her the pictures of the Captain’s children, and some of the vid-messages they’d sent, and the things they’d got up to at school … and Chu just broke down crying. Ever since, I always noticed, the only time she took interest in straights was with people who had families … every time, she’d ask them about their children. Just little questions. I don’t think she understood half the answers. I just think she felt better to know that there were other children out there somewhere who weren’t in war zones, and were happy and uninjured.’

She paused. Wiped at her eyes, which were threatening to spill over with moisture, and swallowed hard.

‘All of which,’ she continued, ‘is a very round-about way of saying that yes, I did love Chu. And some of the others. I loved Chu when she cried. It made me feel less alone.’

‘Did you feel alone very often?’ Vanessa asked quietly.

‘Sometimes.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Yeah, sometimes I did. But never so alone as when they died. I couldn’t stay then. I just … couldn’t stay in the League. I had to get out.’

It had been that, or kill everyone associated with her team’s deaths … difficult, even for her. Technically and emotionally. She knew those people. She’d hated them for what they’d done, but had been unsure of the degree of complicity. It was all a part of the system. Everything was. And whatever she did, the system would remain intact, making any violence meaningless.

Besides which, she’d wanted to live.

‘So now you know something about me,’ she said, looking across at Vanessa. Feeling suddenly tired as the events of the day came crashing down on her. She wanted to rest. She wanted to sit here by the fire, and talk of interesting, pleasant, harmless things. Like Vanessa’s university course and lifestyle decisions. Like music. Like Vanessa’s husband, and what married life was like. Like children. It was possible, she realised with interest, that Vanessa had some of her own. ‘What happens now?’

‘Well …’ Vanessa stretched slightly, as if suffering her own stiffness, post armour. ‘I think the Director wanted to have a word with you, once the initial chaos had settled down. Tonight.’

Sandy raised an eyebrow. ‘Naidu’s been bumped?’

‘Ibrahim’s a hands-on kind of guy. I’m surprised you haven’t met him earlier. And Naidu’s kind of busy right now.’

‘Suppose he would be.’ She remembered her meal and wearily set about finishing it before it got cold. The thought of food that good going to waste seemed yet another small tragedy on a night of too many tragedies. She was sick of tragedies. ‘I’m surprised the city’s still functioning.’

‘Yeah.’ Vanessa managed a small, wry smile. ‘Me too.’