Killswitch: (Cassandra Kresnov Book 3)

The ride over to HQ was not a pleasant one. Vanessa fumed all the way, although precisely what she was upset at, Sandy couldn’t say.

Rhian simply sat in the backseat of the armoured government cruiser, and gazed out at the spectacular aerial view of passing towers on a carpet of green urbanity, gleaming bright in patches beneath the slanting rays of the morning sun. Here and there the sunlight flashed on the surface of one of the many tributaries of the Shoban Delta. The air seemed thick with morning haze, typical midsummer humidity rising off the wet trees and damp ground, darkening the sun to a deep, luxuriant orange in the eastern sky.

Sandy landed the cruiser on the exclusive pad atop the main CDF building of the broader CSA compound-facilities would be much better, they had been promised, when the CDF had its own compound, somewhere out in the brand new Herat district currently under construction beyond the outermost of the city’s existing inhabited zones. Herat was also the location for the new Grand Council buildings, centred about an enormous structure whose size, when completed, would dwarf even the Callayan Parliament building. There was a Fleet Command building under construction somewhere out there too. No doubt certain indignant Fleet admirals thought that highly presumptuous.

She was walking across the rooftop pad with Vanessa and Rhian when she received a call.

‘Hello, Commander,’ came a youthful, enthusiastic voice in her inner ear. ‘I’ve been arranging your itinerary for the day and prioritising departmental requests. Would you like an immediate rundown or would you prefer to wait until the office?’

‘I think that can wait, Private Zhang.’ Truthfully, she had her own automatic programs in place that sorted much of the scheduling and priorities for her. And she could access all of that remotely without any help. Her new secretary, however, was young, bright eyed and eager to be useful.

‘Yes, Commander. I’ve taken the liberty of redirecting your incoming calls and mail away from staff, which takes some load off them. I’ve also identified and return-contacted seventy per cent of those incoming calls and given them alternative channels to go through-most of them are interdepartmental, they’ve got no real business bothering you at all with their problems. ‘

Sandy blinked in surprise, walking to the door of the rooftop foyer, flashing ID from her uniform pocket to the invisible scanners. She hadn’t been aware she could tell half of her callers not to bother her. No doubt they hadn’t wanted her to know, least it remove their access to her office. Maybe young Private Zhang would have his uses after all.

‘Thank you, Private, I appreciate that. ‘ The decorative foyer beyond the glass doors was a mass of interlocking security systems, mostly invisible to the unaugmented eye. She, Vanessa and Rhian headed for the stairs. Two suited men engaged in conversation turned to starepartly in recognition of herself and Vanessa, Sandy reckoned, but also partly at the sight of three very attractive women, one of them wearing most un-martial attire, her stomach bare and slim curves exposed. Rhian flashed the two men a smile as they descended the stairs. Sandy repressed a smile of her own at the two men’s expressions, wondering if anyone, on first acquaintance, would guess correctly which of the three was not a GI. ‘Was there anything else?’

‘Ah, yes, Commander, five minutes ago you received an urgent request from Sergeant Rajan for assistance with the new slash four weapon pods in maintenance bay five. Apparently there’s a problem only you can solve. ‘

That didn’t surprise her-until she’d placed the order for them, no one else in the CDF had even heard of the new slash-fours.

‘Tell him I’ll be down immediately, put my paperwork on hold. First thing to know if you’re going to be my assistant, Mr Zhang fieldwork comes first.’

‘Yes, Commander.’ There was no mistaking the worship in the young man’s voice. She disconnected the link, with a faint sigh of disbelief.

‘Ricey,’ she said as they reached the bottom of the second flight of stairs, ‘could you take Rhi to medical and make sure she’s introduced properly?’

Vanessa frowned at her, walking fast and tense. ‘You’re not coming?’

‘Raj wants some help in bay five, I’ll be back before the scans are finished.’

Vanessa looked less than impressed. ‘Sandy, you’re going to get this checked out properly. I’m not going to let you just ignore it … they put a fucking kill mechanism in your head, Sandy, and you’re acting like it’s not a big problem.’

‘Vanessa, I’m not going to put my life and my job on hold every time some new panic arises.’

‘This isn’t just any fucking panic, Sandy!’

‘I said I’ll be there.’ Very firmly. Vanessa looked exasperated. Rhian watched on, curiously. ‘I’m a GI, this kind of crap just goes with the territory.’

‘I’m warning you, Sandy, you’re not half as invulnerable as you think you are.’

Sandy held up her hands. ‘Not now, Vanessa. Take care of Rhi, I’ll be there soon.’

She took the next right-hand turn, striding fast. Telling herself that she really didn’t need Vanessa’s kind of well-meaning hysteria right now. Vanessa worried far too much. The last time she’d caught a cold, Vanessa had called around frantically to various biomedical specialists and branches, asking after various expert opinions on synthetic immunology until finally convinced that it wouldn’t be fatal. Vanessa treated her artificial nature as if it was some kind of condition, one that needed to be fought and overcome at every opportunity. Sandy didn’t want to be treated like a sick child every time some inevitable complication arose. And it troubled her that Vanessa didn’t seem to understand that yet.

Bay five was dark and full of shadows. Sandy walked along a ferrocrete aisle, past tall, stacked crates and idle lifters, headed for the patch of bright fluorescence ahead. The din of activity faded behind her. To one side loomed the hulking shapes of combat landmates, humanoid arms hanging limply.

‘Raj!’ she called as she walked, looking for the sergeant’s usual spot, wedged in between crates, up to his elbows in hi-tech innards beneath the sole ceiling light. There was no reply. She reflexively uplinked to the building network, and found nothing, just static. The network seemed to be down. Not surprising; all of these lower maintenance bays had until recently served other purposes, and the hardware had only been recently rewired to the secure, interactive standards required for military-scale weapons. There had been glitches galore. She kept walking … and saw the laser tripwire activate a split second before her shin passed through it.

She leaped as the explosion hit her, blasting her into the crates on her left in a spray of metal debris, the blurring crash of heavy impact, the rush of heat on skin. Through the swirl of flames, she sensed movement, and sprang into an explosive roll as high-velocity fire shredded the spot where she’d been, scrambling into an accelerating sprint as the fire tracked her from point-blank range. And saw, in that time-dilated rush of motion, a squat, menacing shape upon a pair of birdlike legs, twin rotary cannon for wings, each spinning with a roar of flames and fury. An AMAPS-12.

Sandy leaped to her right as fire clipped at the tail of her uniform, sailing upward over the row of crates and equipment … and felt/saw the second targeting system acquire her from the bay’s far wall. She twisted in midair, a desperate contortion as a second burst of fire snarled, echoes yammering off ceiling and walls, fire ripping past … she reached and caught the trailing edge of a cargo crate as it sailed past below, snap-tumbling her trajectory downward just as the second burst thundered, and fire ripped the space where she would have been. Something hit her shin hard and she tumbled to the ferrocrete floor with a barely controlled crash. Flattened herself against the crate, pulling the automatic pistol from her thigh holster, for what little good it would do, and considered her options.

She was now crouched in the next aisle along the maintenance bay floor, between stacked rows of crates and equipment. From the aisle she’d just left, low-toned and dull in the lingering time-stretch of combat-sense, she could hear the first AMAPS stepping from its hiding place within an empty crate, with heavy, rhythmic thuds of metal-shod feet. From against the far wall to her left, similar sounds, as the second AMAPS stalked along the wall to a firing position down this aisle. Her pistol would cause little damage against an Auxiliary Mobile Anti-Personnel System-that armour did not come with weak spots that a mere handweapon could exploit. Barehanded she was far more confident … but clearly the entire bay was rigged, even now she could hear the main entry doors grinding closed. Clearly the plan was to trap her in here, with these two mobile killing machines. Assuming there were only two. Likely there would be more smart-triggered explosives planted at strategic locations. Probably the maintenance bay’s entire sensor grid was now tracking her … all of the receptors were down, and she received no feedback on her own uplinks. The implants in her skull were not powerful enough to penetrate the thick ferrocrete without a booster. It was a good plan all right. She was alone in here.

The footsteps to her far left came suddenly louder. The second AMAPS appeared with an elegant brace of weight-bearing leg-joints, and swivelled its smooth-nosed torso with alarming speed to point down the aisle. Sandy dashed through a gap between crates opposite as fire shrieked and clanged down the aisle, ripping a four-wheeled cargo loader to pieces, forklift, tires and leather driver’s seat pinwheeling down the aisle like pebbles. At the end of the gap between the stacked crates, Sandy realised that there was no way out, and that whatever was in the crate stacked above, it was heavy enough that it didn’t move when she pushed full-force.

Jump-jets roared over the advancing clang of the second AMAPS’s footsteps, then a heavy thud-the first metal monster had landed on top of the row of crates over which she herself had jumped. Sandy sensed tightbeam communication, and knew the second machine was telling the first where she was.

Machine-gun fire tore into the crate above her head with an unholy racket, Sandy scrambling backward as the occasional round tore through the crate, and hit the underside above her head. She put both hands against the crate blocking the far end and pushed, artificial muscles straining at maximum intensity, her feet scrabbling for grip. The crate remained unmoved. Something exploded and crashed inside the crate above-if its contents were high explosive and detonated at this range, Sandy knew she was dead, GI or not.

She gave up trying to move the container, and instead holstered her pistol and sledgehammered a fist straight through the metal. She got her hands into the hole, and pulled with everything she had. Metal bent and tore with a rupturing shriek, as the skin of her hands also tore, painlessly … she kicked and made a lower foot-hole as well, which gave her more leverage. The hole became wide enough for her shoulders, and she got her arms through and pulled the rest of her body after with more brute power than acrobatic grace, and found herself wedged into a narrow space between the container wall and stacked boxes of ammunition. Heavy footsteps thudded closer. If the AMAPS fired into this crate, the explosion could take out half the bay.

She scrambled up, over the ammo boxes, wriggling through the cramped, blind space beneath the top of the storage crate, sending boxes crashing and clanging aside in her haste. Reached the far end of the container, slithered down into the narrow gap between ammo boxes and the crate side, and braced her feet and back as best she could. She pushed, maximum exertion, straining tension … the piled ammo boxes at her back could move no further, and the crate side was as hard and solid as one would expect of an interstellar shipping container.

Sandy’s entire body contorted, legs forcing inexorably outward, muscles condensing to a consistency far beyond that of most combat alloys. The container side shrieked, then clanged loudly, as the entire top and left side welding burst free, and light poured in. She leaped for that gap, grabbed the jagged edge and threw herself out, falling to half-roll on the ferrocrete floor.

Heavy cannon fire tore into the container from the end she’d entered, a shrill roar of disintegrating metal. Sandy was up and running at full speed along the aisle, finding that it ended abruptly to the right where that row of CDF shipping containers suddenly ceased, and there were instead a number of newly acquired light armour vehicles awaiting integration into CDF ranks, and, oh holy shit, she hoped whoever was behind this mess hadn’t rigged one of the tanks as they’d rigged the AMAPS …

A massive explosion shook the bay, Sandy riding the impact into a forward dive and roll as debris ricocheted at deadly velocity, followed by secondary explosions cracking like firecrackers at Chinese New Year … Sandy raised her head beside the last of the right-side storage crates, her brain in overdrive, and surveyed the row of light tanks on the open square of floor in the maintenance bay’s far corner. The damn AMAPS were powerful enough for limited operations, but they weren’t incredibly bright-Federation legislation prevented the installation of any sentient Al in a military unit’s CPU, even the League hadn’t been keen on the idea of city-levelling hovertanks with sentient free will. Like any non-sentient computer, the AMAPS were very bad at guessing. After all, the cargo crate probably contained ammunition, that would possibly explode if fired upon at close range … but then if there was also the very high possibility that the crate also contained the AMAPS’ target, and the AMAPS’ entire existence revolved around the elimination of that target, then surely the risk of an explosion was justified? League software programmers Sandy knew had been very impressed with their risk-analysis and awareness simulations, the usual set of amorphous calculations that she entirely failed to trust … how could one mathematically calculate ‘risk’ as an objective concept, after all, in a mostly random universe? Her own brain, or that of any sentient, was vastly superior to any nonsentient computer at calculating such vague, abstract concepts, but still she struggled. The AMAPS, now no doubt flat on its back and badly singed in the continuing explosions, was now possibly reflecting (if AMAPS could reflect) that the bright-eyed little techno-geek who’d programmed its CPU hadn’t known half as much about the universe as he’d thought he had.

All of this and more passed through Sandy’s mind in the fraction of a second following her recovery from the explosion, which was fading now as the secondary explosions trailed away, and the crates stacked on top of the exploding one smothered the blasts. And in that continuing, drawn out time-dilation, Sandy found further time to be impressed with the design standards of that particular batch of ammunition, that only perhaps five percent had detonated, and a critical mass of explosive detonations had not led to a total chain reaction … which would not have taken out the entire bay, because any fool knew to disperse ammunition crates at even distances throughout any storage facility, but even so, she could well have been dodging large pieces of falling ceiling right about then. Ahead of her, her various sensory receptors registered one of the armoured vehicles activating full systems-engines, weapons and all. Please God, she thought, don’t let it be one of the Ge-Vo hovertanks.

But of course it was.

With a throbbing din of repulsorlift engines, the Ge-Vo lifted slowly into a low hover. The turret made its characteristic vis-field acquisition wobble, protruding quadruple cannon levering up and down … Sandy had seen enough, rolled to her feet and ran back the way she’d come, through the choking smoke of the ammunition explosion. All her sending frequencies were tuned to full, but still she received nothing-the maintenance bay was too solid, and she was totally cut off from the outside network. The main doors had been secured. Doubtless those outside would break through in a few minutes, but those were minutes she did not have. The one saving grace, she reckoned, was that she was trapped in a warehouse stacked with weapons. Time to find one.

Sandy accelerated down the aisle between five-metre-high stacks of crates, hearing the Ge-Vo manoeuvring for a clear shot through smoke that would not bother its sensors. She leaped high and to the right where a gap between shipping crates presented itself, and smacked into the metal wall and clung. The gap between crates was narrow, and if she extended both arms out to the sides, she could hold her own weight with ease as her feet sought toe-holds on the rim of the lower crates … the slim gap descended four metres to the floor below and if she fell, she knew she could get wedged. She inched forward, awk wardly, hearing the Ge-Vo now accelerating cautiously down the aisle, sensors sweeping … but she knew the tank’s own engines would interfere with its sensors’ reception enough to hide any small noises or signatures she might make.

An automatic scan of her own memory files revealed that she did not possess an inventory list of the bay’s current equipment. There could be anything in the crates around her, from armour suits to AP grenades to new uniforms. The odds of finding something useful by tearing crates open at random were not great, and the noise would draw fire.

A burst of fire ripped through the metal walls behind her and she simply dropped, catching her weight again two metres down the crevice as elecro-mag fire tore through crates and their contents. She wondered as she accelerated her awkward, spread-eagled progress, if the Ge-Vo pilot was also automated … or not. A rush of jump jets, and the second AMAPS landed with a heavy crash, legs straddling the divide, twin weapon pods angling downward at its trapped quarry. Sandy let go and fell to the floor, taking the impact, then exploding full-power off the floor. She shot five metres up and slammed into the AMAPS’s underside just as the gun muzzles began to spin. The AMAPS staggered awkwardly, gyros readjusting for the new weight that clung to its belly. Sandy didn’t waste time with a punch, but rather grabbed one weapon pod arm with both arms, got her feet against the AMAPS’s leg, and twisted its torso sideways. The AMAPS’s servos whined and cranked in protest, the machine’s bird legs shuffling to retain balance as it lost its centre of gravity … one more shuffle and Sandy timed a hard kick at its leg, that landed with a crunch that might have broken heavy-duty hip suspension, and the metal foot came down on the gap rather than solid metal.

The AMAPS fell sideways, its right pod slamming into the lip of the gap as the right leg fought and kicked in empty air. Sandy maintained her steely grip despite the impact, and dangling from the AMAPS’s shoulder joint, got one hand onto the lip of the gap, and thrust hard upward with the other. Alloy-myomer muscles and perfect technique propelled all three tons of AMAPS up and backwards, then off the edge of the row of crates entirely. It fell, gracelessly, and Sandy propelled herself after it, catching the rim of the crate overlooking the open aisle as the AMAPS completed a three-quarter somersault and landed face first with a booming crash. Down the aisle, a visual adjustment allowed her to see the first AMAPS picking itself up from within the smoke from the ammunition explosion. Surely its sensors and CPU function had been jarred by the blasts.

Sandy swung from her perch and fell five metres to the ferrocrete floor, taking the impact with a comfortable jolt through her legs. The fallen AMAPS was kicking now, struggling to climb to its feet … and seemed, in that extended fraction of a second, to be somewhat confused between which action had priority-getting up, or acquiring its target, which was now standing an infuriating two metres to its side. It then appeared to realise that its weapon pods were not articulated enough to acquire its target from a prone position. The legs folded almost flat, seeking to get its broad, padded feet beneath it and rise. Further down the aisle, within clouds of drifting smoke, the second AMAPS was already upright, and turning to face its target. Sandy watched, calmly unmoving, and wondering if all the machines were quite as target-fixated as these two appeared to be.

The first AMAPS raised both weapon pods just as the second began to rise at Sandy’s side. Sandy leaped for the top of the opposing wall of crates, as low and flat as she could calculate. The first AMAPS’s fire tracked her up the wall of metal, but not before first riddling its companion with high-velocity fire. The second AMAPS, already bent and dented from its fall, staggered and wavered on unsteady legs, one weapon pod crashing to the ground trailing a long ammo-feed, thin trails of smoke rising from multiple precise holes drilled across its angular torso and limb assembly.

Sandy sailed over the rim and rolled comfortably … and was promptly fired on by a third AMAPS standing eighty metres away on an adjoining line of crates. Sandy rolled desperately as rounds whizzed and cracked around her, then fell into a narrow gap between crates, bracing her arms against the sides and nearly slipping as the left hand failed to brace properly … a glance showed her the reason-her left thumb was missing, and a further round had gone straight through her wrist, severing some of the nerves and tendons to her fingers. GIs were built tough, but not that tough. If she caught a burst from one of these things directly, or even took a freak round to the head, she was dead. Her limp, uncooperative hand left a smear of red plasma upon the metal wall as she pressed.

Jump jets roared as she reflexively tried to analyse the sound and figure which AMAPS was airborne, and where it was headed. Then a heavy burst of fire that could only have been from the tank … except that from the sound, they were not aimed anywhere near her vicinity. Even an automated gunner would not miss by so much, nor fire needlessly in an evidently dangerous environment. Surely someone else was …

‘Hi, Cap,’ came a familiar voice in her inner ear. `Just like old times, huh?’

There was a crash from nearby as an AMAPS landed with a roar of jets.

‘Hi, Rhi,’ she replied, experiencing a sensation that was difficult to identify past the combat-reflex, but she consciously reckoned must be relief. ‘There’s an AMAPS walking just about on top of me, could you please distract him?’

She made a reflex transmission before she even realised she’d done it-a GI-specific tac-net that unfolded across her inner consciousness. The new, graphical vision of the maintenance bay flickered and buzzed as their antagonists tried to jam transmission between the two GIs, but GI frequencies operated on modulating sonic variations that were almost unjammable, at least with Federation technology. Rhian’s presence interfaced with the tac-net, and suddenly Sandy knew everything Rhian knew-saw with her vision, pinpointed her position, and registered her physical condition and armament (two electro-mag assault rifles, she was relieved to see).

Running down an adjoining aisle between crates, Rhian simply leaped, took a booted kick off one wall of crates three metres off the ground that corrected her trajectory so that she just cleared the upper rim, and fired a short burst in midair, which smacked cleanly into one of the AMAPS’s weapon pods. She fell back to the ferrocrete, and continued to make up ground along what the tac-net visual now insisted was the left flank. The third AMAPS, across the bay, turned to fire at Rhian, but was too late. The second, finding its left-pod abruptly damaged, also turned, stupidly, to meet the new threat. Sandy leaped from her cover, got both feet planted and sprang for the adjoining aisle, flying low as the third AMAPS fired long range and again too late. Sandy hit the opposite metal wall, and fell gracelessly to thud onto her backside upon the ferrocrete. Then she was up and sprinting toward Rhian, who was likewise sprinting directly toward her. And, despite the deadening combat-reflex, she could have sworn she saw Rhian give her a brief grin as she came.

Rhian tossed the assault rifle in the air as they closed, and Sandy took it with a one-handed snap as they passed, neither decelerating, headed now in opposite directions. The Ge-Vo that had been chasing Rhian appeared directly in front of Sandy, its quad-barrelled turret swinging rapidly into line. Both GIs sprang abruptly into gaps in the metal wall on Sandy’s left, and Rhian’s right, and the hovertank’s fire tore through empty air, ripping the jagged ends from transport crates, metallic debris scattering down the aisle with a thundering, echoing roar.

‘They all machines?’ Rhian asked as they ran, reflexively coordinating. The second AMAPS was between them on top of the stacked crates. It was next, Sandy didn’t even need to transmit for Rhian to know it.

‘Yep,’ said Sandy. Rhian leaped straight up a vertical five-metre space between crates, caught the rim with one hand and fired a short burst into the second AMAPS’s right-hand weapons pod … and Sandy saw the two-legged weapon platform stagger, trying to turn and meet the new threat, but Rhian dropped from sight immediately. Then Sandy stopped by the next aisle space, and also leaped vertically. She caught a grip on the rim with her left arm, not daring to trust the left hand for anything, and found the bewildered AMAPS’s back turned directly to her. Her trigger finger vibrated-a burst of five into the right hip, another into the left and the same for each knee, all in less than a second. The AMAPS staggered-electro-mag fire was not a match for AMAPS main armour, but if you knew where to put it … Another staggered step and it fell. Sandy put another single-fire burst through the holes Rhian had made in the right weapon pod, her index finger blurring, then released and dropped to the ferrocrete fractionally before the third AMAPS shredded the spot where she’d been. The AMAPS crashed against metal as she fell, then something exploded (ammo, to Sandy’s hearing) and blasted small pieces of AMAPS all over the maintenance bay, embedding many jagged shards in the ceiling and walls over a hundred metres away.

‘It’s not fain, is it?’ said Rhian. And Sandy somehow found time to wonder at the irony of two artificially constructed humans, gloating at their superiority over inferior machine-intelligence. One GI, unarmed, had been in difficulty. Two GIs, sufficiently armed, was another story entirely.

The remaining AMAPS realised its predicament, perched on top of the cargo containers with no view of the ground and little support, and jump jetted down. The Ge-Vo continued its blind charge along the adjoining aisle, like a giant, lumbering predator enraged and frustrated by a pair of small, darting rodents. The machine’s limited tactical coordination appeared to arrive at a basic plan-the tank would charge, and flush its prey into the AMAPS’s field of fire. Except that Rhian and Sandy simply ran down the adjoining aisle, then darted once more into the gaps between cargo crates as the Ge-Vo reached the end wall and made a slow, idling turn in the cramped space. Rhian leaped high, and Sandy moved to the corner of a crate, back pressed to the metal.

Rhian aimed fast over her rim, put several holes in the AMAPS’s forward sensory armourplate, ducking back as the AMAPS twisted back and sideways to fire upwards … and Sandy immediately ducked around, aiming with the weapon muzzle braced upon her left forearm, and put thirty rounds through the same two-centimetre space in the AMAPS’s right weapon pod, directly above the ammunition feed. In a fractional second, the spinning machine-gun jammed, fragmented pieces of ammunition belt crushed inwards as the weapon’s chain-feed drove them together, and one of the cartridges exploded. The rest followed, and the AMAPS disintegrated with a deafening roar of firecracker explosions that hurtled pieces of debris from one end of the cavernous bay to the other.

‘That’s a weak spot,’ Rhian observed.

‘Once upon a time, people thought machines like that would take over the battlefield,’ Sandy replied, checking her weapon for heat stress. ‘But now the most effective machines have ended up imitating people.’

‘You’re so philosophical, Cap.’

‘And AMAPS aren’t. That’s why we win. ‘

The Ge-Vo came shrilling back down the aisle the two GIs had come from. Sandy and Rhian leaped into the adjoining aisle and ran with it for a while, giving it enough signature of their running footsteps to draw it down to that end of the bay, and up against the wall where its options would be further limited. Plans changed, however, when the massive armoured entry door abruptly exploded inwards, showering torn fragments, and leaving behind the distinctive twometre peeled hole of a shaped charge. Sandy and Rhian stopped and reversed, but the Ge-Vo continued to the end wall, decelerating to make the U-turn back up the next aisle.

No sooner had it exposed itself to the new hole in the entry door than a projectile-contrail whooshed across the end wall, staining the air across the end of Sandy and Rhian’s aisle, followed by a loud metal crash and a deeper, echoing thud! The tank’s shrilling engine whine slowly wound down from its high pitch, to a long, slow grating sound that seemed to Sandy’s ears to be armourplate against a wall. She and Rhian exchanged glances. They jogged down their aisle, Rhian deferring to Sandy by long habit.

Sandy peered about the corner of the last crate in that row. The GeVo was idling crookedly against the bay’s end wall, smoke pouring from turret seams. A small, circular hole had been drilled just above the rotation ring of its turret armour, from which more smoke was pouring. Sandy turned around and looked at the hole in the entrance door. She was little surprised to see a small, female figure stepping through, hefting a massive electro-mag anti-armour launcher over one shoulder, eyes shielded behind a heavy, dark visor to guard against muzzle flash. Ge-Vo armour was damn tough, but as was always the way with military technology, the only technological field to have outpaced the tremendous advances in armour and protection was the physics of electromagnetic projection weaponry. If you fired a projectile at a high enough velocity, even the best military-grade armour was as useless as tissue paper.

Vanessa saw Sandy, and made a face.

‘Well, what d’you know,’ she drawled, with a gesture of the heavy launcher, ‘the damn thing works. That’s the lot?’ Evidently knowing it was, for the lack of noise elsewhere in the bay.

‘Seems to be,’ Sandy replied. ‘We’ll do a sweep.’

‘I’ll get it organised,’ said a wide-eyed lieutenant entering behind Vanessa. Beyond the hole in the entry door, Sandy sensed a mass of ready confusion, many soldiers poised with whatever weapons they could acquire. Shouts echoed behind as orders were given, scanning equipment organised … better to scan from range than sweep by hand, there was no need to risk lives unnecessarily.

‘Oh,’ Sandy thought to add, ‘and while you’re at it, could you get someone to look for my thumb?’

The med-bay was more spacious, clean and white than any Sandy could remember from her service League-side. It made her wonder if the CDF were truly a real army, and not the self-deluded, soft, undisciplined civilians most of the Fleet seemed to think they were. She sat by the side of an operating table, her left arm extended beneath an obscuring green curtain. On opposite sides of the table, two surgeons in full masks and gowns gathered over her arm. There were various implements in their hands, and various more on a side table-some that they used on normal human patients, and others utterly different. A multimode scanner suspended from the ceiling hovered above her hand.

On a screen to the surgeons’ side, if she cared to look, was an intricate high definition image of her hand and forearm. A bio-alloy sheath now encased the bone of her lower thumb where it had been severed at midlength. That was the easy bit-GI bones regenerated just like regular human bones, with some encouragement from introduced nano- tech solutions within the bio-sheath. More difficult was the hole through her wrist, which had severed the tendons to her index and middle fingers, as well as removing a piece of wrist bone and causing other structural misalignments. Full mobility could be limited for a while, the surgeons told her, and she wasn’t going to be her usual ambidextrous self for at least a month. She’d also been clipped along the front of her shin, but that had done nothing but remove a centimetre of skin.

And she was alone, save the surgeons, who were utterly absorbed in this rare opportunity to study the inner workings of technology’s most advanced synthetic human, and weren’t much on idle chit-chat. Her solitude made her feel … well, glum, she supposed. Abandoned was too strong a word. But her troops were busy sweeping for further security breaches, the admin were busy cleaning up and counting the cost, and any spare friends she had in CSA Intel had now just found themselves with one more large issue dumped on their plate. The sudden storm of activity included Vanessa, of course, who on top of it all was now giving her the silent treatment, now that she’d gotten over the initial relief that her synthetic friend was still alive. Sandy couldn’t see how she’d deserved that. Best friend or not, Vanessa’s emotional swings remained a source of occasional confusion, and worse.

Movement down the corridor beyond the broad wall windows … Sandy recognised both Director Ibrahim and Ari easily, despite the sanitised gowns, hair nets and face masks. They took turns at moving through the airlock door, each subjected to a rush of further decontaminating fumes, then the red light above the doors turned green, and first Ari was admitted, then Ibrahim. That much concession Ibrahim granted for their ‘relationship,’ Sandy pondered with a raised eyebrow, as An came cautiously across the shiny white floor, a relieved smile evident beneath the mask.

‘Hi,’ he said, a more subdued greeting than usual, and put a hand on her shoulder. And she was mildly surprised that he paid the surgeons so little attention. All of his attention was instead focused upon her. ‘Are you okay?’ Behind the concern, tension. Frustration, even. That wasn’t good.

‘I’m okay,’ she said, forcing a faint smile as she looked up at him. An brushed hair back from her forehead, gazing at her. Ibrahim came over, and Ari stood to Sandy’s side, a hand still on her shoulder. Sandy rested her head gently against his arm, and smiled at the sight of Ibrahim in a spotless green gown. The mask did not fit him well. His large nose seemed to be protesting its imprisonment, struggling to make a break for freedom.

‘Not a word,’ said Ibrahim. Sandy’s smile grew broader.

‘No, sir. This is going to blow out our budget.’

‘The budget, Commander, is the least of our worries. We have an infiltration.’

‘Obviously,’ said Sandy.

‘Ari thinks it’s rather a bad one.’

‘Just last night Ari was warning me that someone would try to go after me through this … damn killswitch thing. That didn’t happen.’

‘It’s not good, Sandy,’ An cut in. The frustration was plain in his voice now. His hand vanished from her shoulder to rub the front of the gown, seeking their usual deep pockets as he paced several steps, dark boots squeaking upon the shiny floor. ‘They got into the maintenance bays, for godsake. It had to be someone inside the CDF. But considering the security protocols we put in place, that shouldn’t be possible.’

‘I wouldn’t be rushing to conclusions,’ Ibrahim told An pointedly. An didn’t look impressed. ‘Cassandra, I need you to be extra careful. We’ll find who did this, but in the meantime, I want you to limit your movements and keep away from equipment bays, or any place where accidents or ambushes can be rigged in such a fashion.’

‘You want me to be a desk jockey?’ Sandy asked, in mild disbelief.

‘Sandy, your safety is important to the CDF. It’s important to me. If you need to become a desk jockey to maintain your personal security, then that is what you’ll do.’

‘What if I’m mortally wounded in a catastrophic chair-leg failure?’

‘Sit on the floor.’

Sandy sighed, and glanced up at Ari. Ari’s expression was dark. And he was fidgeting absently, as if his attention were elsewhere. Which, given Ari’s uplinks were nearly as advanced as hers, was definitely possible. That was definitely not good.

‘Sandy,’ Ibrahim continued firmly, ‘we really can’t begin to guess who might have done it. Certainly it looks like some pro-Earth conservative faction, but we should not assume anything … there are radical proLeague elements, after all, who see your presence as contributing to antiLeague xenophobia and therefore an obstacle toward ultra-progressive politics on Callay. Or it could be a CDF soldier with a grudge from some history your checks did not detect … we don’t know.’

‘What does Krishnaswali think?’ Sandy asked.

‘He’s keeping an open mind,’ Ibrahim replied cautiously.

The senior CDF commander had not been to visit her, nor made direct contact of any kind since the ambush. She hadn’t thought their relations had been that bad, personally. Maybe she’d been wrong.

She took a deep breath. ‘Sir,’ she began, and paused, annoyed at the plaintive note she heard in her voice. ‘I am second-in-command of the CDF. I have a job to do, and I take that very seriously. We have operational concerns that need to be ironed out, Vanessa’s supervising the training of a whole new combat squad even now and if I don’t have functioning vehicles and weaponry ready for them to use, there’s not much point to anything.’

‘You’ll have to try supervising from a greater distance,’ Ibrahim said firmly.

‘Sir, I don’t know if that’s going to …’

‘CSA Investigations will be assisting the inquiry,’ Ibrahim cut her off. ‘Krishnaswali wanted to keep it in-house, but the CDF simply does not have the manpower or skills for a major internal investigation at this point.’

Sandy turned her gaze on Ari. Ari said nothing, standing dark and sombre at her side, fingernails drumming upon his chin as if he wanted to bite them, but was prevented by the surgical mask. Usually it was at this point in a discussion that he would jump in with some flippant, pointed observation or remark. Now, nothing.

‘Surgeons,’ said Ibrahim, ‘what’s your prognosis?’

‘The hand will be fully functional in perhaps two weeks,’ came the reply. ‘The wrist won’t have quite the same degree of articulation for months, though-we’ll need to synthesise and graft some new bone, ferrous alloy of this kind doesn’t regenerate fast or well enough to replace the piece of wrist bone that’s missing. It might take a while to procure.’

‘I have a friend who might help,’ Sandy said. Ibrahim raised an eyebrow at her. Sandy saw the expression and shrugged.

‘Quietly,’ Ibrahim warned her.

‘Yes, sir.’

An disappeared for a while, but returned just as she was exiting the sterile airlock and into the med-bay corridor. Striding briskly toward her, dark and handsome, hands thrust deeply into the pockets of a long-tailed black coat that swirled at his calves, having thrown the unfashionable lime green medical gear away as quickly as possible. His hand came out as he stopped before her, and placed it upon her chest, keeping her there. His voice, when he spoke, was low, his eyes sharp and earnest.

‘Sandy, I’ve done some checks … Intel have nothing. No barriers violated, no traces left, nothing. Not even on the AMAPS’ CPUs, nor the Ge-Vo. Whoever reprogrammed them wasn’t just an insider with all the right codes, he had enough foresight to stall an investigation and cover his tracks. No outsider knows that software that well.’

His dark eyes bore into hers, seeking her comprehension. Sandy thought about it for a moment. Then, ‘Ari. Why are you whispering? If you have something to tell me that you don’t want anyone to hear, there are these things called uplinks …’

An rolled his eyes, but refocused quickly with tense frustration. ‘Because I want you to hear the tone of my voice, for one thing, because I damn well knew you wouldn’t take this seriously.’

‘You’ve always had a very sexy tone of voice, An, but …’

‘And also because I don’t trust the networks here.’

Sandy frowned at him. ‘This is the CDF, An … the Callayan Defence Force, not just anyone can hack into the networks and eavesdrop.’

‘And the Callayan Defence Force was established by the Neiland Administration to serve the Neiland Administration’s own political goals …’

‘Oh Jesus, not this again?’ Staring up at him with genuine incredulity. ‘For the last time, An, Katia Neiland is …’

She broke off as the airlock hissed behind her, one of the surgeons exiting, pulling the surgical mask away from his face.

‘I realise I may be talking to a bulkhead,’ the surgeon told her cheerfully, indicating the large, synthetic cast that moulded about her wrist, hand and thumb, ‘but please try not to move it very much.’ It felt warm. Sandy knew it maintained an ideal environment for the nano-solutions they’d injected into the wrist and bone-sheath to breed and repair, involving low doses of radiation that they fed off. Or so the doctors said. ‘Aside from that, if it gives you any trouble, please don’t hesitate to call me personally. You have my details?’

‘Cybernetic memory, Mr. Pan, I have everyone’s details.’

Mr. Pan smiled. ‘Of course. Well, take care and keep up the good work, Commander.’ He strolled off, looking very pleased indeed. All the medicos in med-bay seemed to enjoy themselves when she got injured a lot more than she did. Sandy turned her attention back to An.

‘Katia Neiland is not trying to get me killed!’ she said in a firm whisper.

An took a deep breath. And fixed her with a flat, wise gaze. ‘Sandy, do you trust me?’

‘Trust you?’ She gazed at him. Trying desperately to think how to answer.

‘I mean …’ and An took a deep breath. ‘I know I’m not always entirely … there, with the truth.’ Sandy refrained from comment with difficulty. ‘But you know I have my reasons. Don’t you?’

‘I trust who you are, An,’ she told him. ‘I trust that I know you … well, at least well enough. I trust that you’d never purposely do anything to hurt me. Is that enough?’

An shrugged, and glanced at the floor. Looking suddenly a little awkward. ‘I’d like it to be something more.’ And lifted his gaze, earnestly.

Sandy sighed. ‘Ari, why ask me now?’

‘Because things are different now. Dangerous.’ With a glance at the cast on her left hand. ‘Because I think I sort of fell into the trap of thinking you were invincible, and … and that was pretty scary, just now. For me at least, I can’t speak for supergirl …’

‘I was scared,’ she told him. Not entirely certain that it was true, even as she said it. Not in the way he meant it. The implications scared her, after the fact. While it was happening … well, very few superfluous emotions survived past the combat-reflex.

‘Not scared enough, I think,’ said An, pointedly. And he took a deep breath. ‘Sandy, this is just … so dangerous, this situation. The politics. Look, at least …’

‘Ari, I’ll be careful.’ Firmly. ‘But I don’t believe in conspiracy theories. You know that.’

‘Something caused it, Sandy. Whatever you think just happened here, something caused it. Don’t go about ignoring that because you’re suddenly too scared to contemplate what happens if it turns out your nice, comfortable little life is suddenly ..

Sandy put her good hand hard against his chest, and shoved him backwards into a wall. Pinned him there, with a firm pressure to his chest, and a hard look in the eye. ‘Ari, I’m really tired of your constant psychoanalysing. You’re not a shrink, in fact you could make a damn sight better use of one than I ever could.’

Rather than resisting the hard pressure of her arm, An grabbed her by the collar and pulled. She could have resisted. But somehow, his lips had found hers before she could decide what to do, and her good arm braced her instead against the wall. His hands found her face, running through her hair, his lips warm, his closeness suddenly intoxicating. Someone could have come along the corridor at any moment, and senior officers were not supposed to indulge in such things upon the premises, particularly not where just anyone would see them.

His hands found the tight spots of her new uniform-the old one now largely in tatters-and she felt her temperature rise several more degrees. She kissed back even harder, struggling for air and getting her good hand behind his back, wanting to plunge it under his clothes and feel the warmth of his skin against her … and he pulled away, holding her in place with a physical confidence no other straight besides Vanessa ever dared. He knew how to hold her, and how to move her, if necessary. He knew when she wouldn’t push back.

‘I’m glad you’re okay,’ he murmured, resting his forehead momentarily against hers. ‘Now stop ignoring me when I’m trying to tell you things that could save your life, or I’ll get really mad with you.’ And he turned on his heel, and left her leaning against the wall, breathless and now slightly dishevelled.

‘That’s not fair,’ she complained. ‘You can’t leave me like this.’

‘Promise me you’ll listen,’ came the reply as he swept away down the corridor.

‘Look, there’s a bed just in there!’ she suggested, trying to be reasonable about it. ‘We can polarise the windows, lock the door with a vacant sign, no one will know. Come back here and fuck me for a while, and I’ll think about it.’

‘I’m not hearing the answer I want.’ He paused at the glass doors at the end, looking back at her, his expression glum. ‘No listening, no Mr. Pinky.’

Sandy fought back a traitorous grin. ‘Please?’ she said plaintively.

‘First accept that my advice is sage and just.’

‘I’d rather just take the orgasm, thanks.’

And An gave a tired shrug. ‘I tried.’ And continued looking at her, for a longer moment. Humour faded, as the implications slowly sank in. Suddenly, it wasn’t very funny at all. And he shook his head in disbelief, opened the doors, and strode into the medical ward beyond. Sandy slumped her back against the wall, ran a hand through her hair, and sighed.

Rhian was standing by Doctor Obago’s side in the private office at the far end of med-bay, gazing at a high definition display. She turned to look through the windows as Sandy approached between med-bay beds.

‘Is An angry at you too?’ Rhian asked as Sandy entered, and shut the glass door behind her.

‘Ari and I have a difference of opinion about recent events.’ Rhian kept looking, a quizzical eyebrow raised. She had expressed curious scepticism ever since hearing of Sandy’s new monogamous relationship. Not that she disapproved of An. On the contrary, she’d several times expressed irritation with civilian rules of sexual etiquette that prevented her from inviting An to bed herself. But she’d served with Sandy back in the League, in a small, separate, GI-dominated society where jealousy was alien and monogamy unheard of. And she’d seen Sandy’s sexual appetite in action. Now, she wondered how Ari could find time to keep up.

‘Ari and you seem to have different opinions about a lot of things,’ Rhian observed.

Sandy came over to stand by the monitor where it sat upon a side table-facing the glass wall that opened onto the med-bay. Medical privacy, another of those things she’d never had in the League. The back of the office was a minor lab, with glass dishes and various analyser equipment, and chairs where several junior medical personnel were working on various medical-type things … Sandy consciously limited her knowledge of medical procedures. Her experience of most such things in her life had not been pleasant. And she’d seen enough blood and human insides in her life to last her another five Hindu reincarnations, at least. Ten, maybe. The office smelt like antiseptic detergent, and she didn’t like that either.

‘Ari and I made a decision not to let our relationship cramp our professional style,’ Sandy replied, gazing at the display screen. It was clearly a three-dimensional, colour-coded map of a GI’s skull. Rhian’s, she reckoned, recognising the outlines and shapes of the implants about the ears and lower back of the skull. ‘What’s the story, Doc?’

‘There is no apparent mechanism,’ said Obago, hands folded in front of his white coat. He studied the graphic for a moment with pursed lips. ‘It should be here.’ He touched the screen at a point that Sandy reckoned would be about the hypothalamus. Obago pressed a button, and a new display appeared, this one of another GI’s skull. Her own, Sandy recognised. ‘I obtained this from one of your earlier checkups,’ said Obago. ‘I apologise for not asking permission first, but time seemed of the essence.’

‘Of course,’ Sandy said blandly. The doctor’s forefinger now rested upon precisely the same spot on the new display. Again his other hand manipulated a control, and the screen image zoomed in prodigiously, approaching microscopic detail without losing much apparent clarity or detail. Now the image appeared as a mass of cojoined, overgrown fibres, like a tangle of jungle vines.

‘There,’ said Obago. ‘Can you see that?’

‘I can see a lot of things,’ Sandy replied. ‘I just don’t know what any of them are.’

‘Well, technically speaking, neither do I,’ said the doctor. ‘League synthetic technology is simply on another dimension from Federation capabilities. We don’t even have the exact name for the microfilament substance from which both of your brains are grown. Except that it replicates human brain synapse activity almost precisely, as well as various chemical responses, and can integrate with synaptic implants almost seamlessly. Exactly how this particular implant works, I could not say … although maybe elsewhere on Callay or in the Federation there are experts who may know more, especially now that contacts between League and Federation are accelerating, at least a little. What it does, however, is clear enough.’

He pressed another few buttons on the hand control, and suddenly one large, long filament among many turned red. It seemed almost organic, branching out at various points like a creeper sprouting leaves, integrating into the synaptic fibres around it. But now that Sandy looked at it, it seemed too big, too long and too thick compared to the other shorter, less organised strands.

‘From what I can see from the readings,’ Obago continued, ‘it seems to be made from a material variant of something called ceta- velar-alloy, which is related to …’

‘I don’t need to know what it is, Doc, just what it does.’

‘Well, simply speaking, once activated by an external trigger, it turns white hot and explodes. There’s a little organic battery charge up one end, enough for a boost that activates a chain reaction. It will kill you more or less immediately, give or take a few seconds.’

‘Can you remove it?’ Sandy asked quietly.

‘No.’ Obago shook his head, with absolute certainty. ‘I sincerely doubt even the best League people could remove it, it’s too tightly embedded. Doing so would certainly cause irreversible brain damage. At the very least it would leave you paralysed.’

Sandy took a deep breath. And looked at Rhian. Rhian looked back. And gave a small, wry twist of her lips.

‘I guess they were more scared of you than me,’ Rhian offered.

‘Can’t imagine why,’ Sandy murmured. ‘I’m harmless.’