Cassandra Kresnov 04: 23 Years on Fire (10 page)

“Sandy,” she said determinedly, attending to the barbeque in her bikini top and sarong, “have some food and come for a swim. Let Chandrasekar catch the damn GI. That’s what he’s good for.”

They were in the backyard of Vanessa and Phillippe’s house. Kids splashed in the pool while adults ate and talked on the grass, or on the verandah. Mostly Vanessa and Phillippe’s extended family; they hadn’t gotten around to kids of their own yet. Soon, Vanessa said airily, whenever the question came up.

Rhian was here too—in the pool of course, with the kids, playing games. One of those was her stepson Salman, who was six. The twins were with Rakesh, a big, handsome guy who worked at a construction firm, was a talented minor league footballer, and loved kids as much as Rhian did. Salman was Rakesh’s from a previous marriage. The twins had been adopted from some struggling League system with too many orphans. They were girls, just recently walking and quite adorable, now fetching their father various playthings on the grass, and looking pleased with his delight at their generosity.

Perhaps this was why she was feeling a bit morose, Sandy thought wryly. Her two best friends, both women, were recently married, and displaying alarming signs of impending domesticity. While she herself seemed to move in the opposite direction. She wasn’t even sure that she wanted domesticity, it was just that watching Vanessa and Rhian slowly slide into it made her feel . . . well, left out.

There was another reason for feeling morose, of course. “You heard about Radha?”

“Yeah. Horrible. And,” Vanessa added, with emphasis, “absolutely nothing we can do about it by feeling miserable.”

“I’m not miserable.”

“Crap, you’ve been miserable since Anjula. The happiest I’ve seen you in months was just before the fight.”

Sandy frowned. “That’s not true.”

“Well okay, that’s unfair. You weren’t happy, just . . . alive. Buzzing. You had that spark in your eyes, the one that scares journalists and gives real men erections.” Sandy restrained a grin. “Yeah, that one.” Vanessa pointed tongs at her, knowingly. “You’ve got down time. Take it.”

“Down time is when I feel worst,” Sandy admitted. “I like being busy.”

“Me too, just not always with work.” One of the kids said something very rude to her playmates in the pool. “Isabelle! Auntie Rhian may not mind you using that word, but I do! Use it again and there’ll be trouble!”

“But I learned it from you!” came the retort. Sandy smothered another smile.

“You fucking didn’t!” said Vanessa.

Phillippe emerged from the house with a bowl of potato salad in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other. “How’s that looking?” he asked Vanessa, his cheek on her head to peer at the barbeque.

“Pretty good, I reckon.”

“Don’t burn the chicken. Those ones are for the kids, they don’t like it too crispy . . .”

Vanessa swatted away his attempt to take her tongs. “My barbeque,” she told him. “Go and give advice on something you’re actually good at.”

Phillippe grinned, and kissed her, and departed with the salad. It was Vanessa’s bossiness that he liked so much, Sandy reckoned. Phillippe was one of Callay’s three leading classical violinists, and moved in a world of elegant, feminine ladies who felt no urge to take command of the barbeque and arrange lunch dishes like a military operation. Small and pretty, with short, dark curls and an elegant jaw line, Vanessa could have passed for one of those women if she’d wished. But Vanessa was deadly strong, foul mouthed, bitingly funny, and went through life with the energy of a bouncing rubber ball.

Phillippe had met her at a concert function, and been instantly smitten. Sandy had been there too—they’d had tickets courtesy of some very wealthy friends—and she’d seen it happen. In their first two minutes of conversation, Vanessa had managed to insult him, challenge him, make scathing fun of several fellow attendees, all in the happiest of good humours, all flashing teeth and sparkling eyes. Sandy had never seen a man melt so quickly, and had excused herself with a wink. And Phillippe was dashing, handsome, talented, and more than a handful for most merely mortal women . . . save for Vanessa, with whom he could suddenly barely keep up. Obviously he loved it, and her, and Sandy couldn’t have been happier for them.

She watched him leave. “I haven’t the heart to tell him you’re a lesbian.”

Vanessa laughed, and shoved her tongs under Sandy’s nose, threateningly. “You’ll find that in a fit of rage I become so powerful I can take even you down.”

“Sure. If I were a pork chop.”

“I haven’t thought that way about women in years,” said Vanessa, returning to her meat.

“Hmm,” Sandy agreed, sipping her wine. “When I was with Ari, I’d think about other men at least six times a day. But sure, if that’s what you need to tell yourself . . .”

“Well okay, I think about it. But it’s just not that interesting any longer.” She seemed perfectly serious.

“Well observe,” said Sandy, smiling. “The magical vanishing homosexual.”

Vanessa grinned, then shot Sandy a hard look. “When did you become such a dry wit?” Sandy snorted. “I just found the right person, that’s all. If Phillippe was a girl, I’d probably be telling you I had no need for men anymore. It’s quite nice to know that the emotions can drive the sex drive, and not the other way around. Makes me feel in control.”

“Hmm,” said Sandy, amusement fading.

Vanessa looked at her, suddenly concerned. “Oh, hey, I didn’t mean that.”

“No, right,” Sandy brushed her off. “I wonder that myself. About myself.”

“You’ll find the right guy someday,” Vanessa said firmly. And added mischievously, “You’re too damn hot not to.”

“I don’t know if I want the right guy. I think for the next few years I’ll just settle for a wide assortment of penises, and give preference to none.”

“The thing with penises,” said Vanessa, “they have a habit of moving in and spending your money.”

“So long as they cook me breakfast, I don’t care.” Sandy frowned. “What’s the collective noun of penises anyway? Or is it peni? A gaggle of peni?”

“A flock?” Vanessa suggested. “Maybe a swarm.”

“A parliament,” said Phillippe in passing back up the stairs, and the girls doubled up laughing in his wake.

“He’s wonderful,” Vanessa said as she recovered, wiping her eyes. “Isn’t he wonderful?” Sandy just sighed. It was only funny because it struck too close to home. In the pool, kids were shouting. Then came that word again. “Right, Isabelle!” Vanessa shouted. “I warned you!”

She handed Sandy the tongs, then turned and sprinted to the pool, leaped a final five meters through the air and hit the water in a flying dive. There followed much splashing and squealing and protesting kids. Sandy wondered if Phillippe had entirely thought through the consequences of marrying an infantry grunt. Their own kids, when they arrived, would learn a lot of interesting vocabulary.

Sandy turned, and found Phillippe watching from the balcony, stars in his eyes. “She’s wonderful,” he beamed. “Isn’t she wonderful?”

Sandy smiled. “You’re a few years late to the fact,” she sighed. “But yes, she is.” And sculled the rest of her wine, wishing that some of its legendary effects on regular humans carried over to GIs.

Sandy was woken at three in the morning by an uplink alarm. It was the CSA, requesting her presence immediately. Sandy got up, dressed quickly, stuffed her usual two pistols into belt and jacket holster respectively, grabbed a makani juice drink from the fridge and went outside, allowing the house minder to lock up behind her.

A CSA cruiser was landing in the narrow, stone-paved street between high brick walls—when SWAT said immediately, that meant now. The howl would wake the neighbours and no doubt provoke some angry calls, but the CSA did have flight clearance even in no-fly security zones like Canas special protective district, in the event of emergencies.

Sandy got in and they took off immediately. She didn’t recognise the pilot, and sculled makani juice fast—caffeine only worked on GI physiology half as well as makani juice. They flew five minutes through the sprawling high-rise sky, then landed upon a high tower pad where a CSA flyer was waiting. Sandy switched vehicles and found herself in the back with SWAT Two, ten troopers in full armour, led by Captain Arvid Singh.

“Hey Arvid,” said Sandy, hanging on the overhead as they lifted off immediately. “What’s the deal?”

“Eduardo,” said Singh from his command chair. He hadn’t been on the FSA raid and was pissed about it, but he was senior SWAT team leader these days, Vanessa’s old job, and Tanusha couldn’t afford to have all of its senior SWAT officers offworld at once. Sandy hooked into the flyer’s network and found tacnet already up, coordinating with several other units about a park in Montoya. One of them had a visual.

Imagery blurred before her eyes as she changed resolutions and zoomed. Then resolved upon a man, in plain shirt and cargo pants, sitting on a park bench. At three-fifteen in the morning, in the dim glow of a park light, with no one else around. Sandy checked the visual match, but there was no mistaking it—the man’s face was the same as Mustafa had shown her in the data package. He wasn’t active on the net, so they couldn’t check his uplink patterns . . . likely they’d be impenetrable anyway, League GIs normally were. But it could only be him.

“Not exactly inconspicuous, is he?” Sandy observed. “How was he acquired?”

Singh shrugged. “Montoya’s a high security zone. You sit alone on a park bench at three a.m. long enough, someone will scan you and see if you match a database. He did.”

“Hmm,” said Sandy. SWAT Two were still looking bleary-eyed, a few yawning, so they’d all been woken and assembled—SWAT worked on a roster, so squads knew if it was their turn to be on call, but still it took some time. Maybe a half hour to get everyone here. She’d taken ten minutes, so they’d waited twenty before calling her. Once Eduardo had been IDed, SWAT would have been called immediately. “So he can’t have been there more than . . . forty-five minutes?”

“I was thinking a trap,” said Singh. In monotone, because it was that obvious, but procedures said you had to be absolutely clear in prep.

“Hmm,” said Sandy. Navcomp said they’d be there in three minutes. “Have we got a sniper scan?”

Vision flashed up, a full graphic of the park and neighbouring buildings. The only possible sniper vantages were covered and cleared—there were enough cameras around to do that thoroughly. It was possible Eduardo had support hidden in the buildings, but if they made a sudden move there’d be warning. Warning for someone who moved as fast as she did, at least.

“Not much of a trap,” Singh admitted. “I suppose you want to take this?” With resignation.

“Sorry, Arvid. I really think I should.”

They landed on a tower a kilometer away, and a police car was waiting to speed her to the park. She got out at a secluded corner and walked. Tanushan parks were lush and green, fragrant with tropical vegetation. Trees dripped with recent rain as she walked a main path. Puddles reflected dim city light. Insects fluttered around park lights. Bunbuns and native possums crawled in the trees. On combat reflex, it was a lot of distraction, sharp motions that made her eyes jump from one potential target to the next. GIs weren’t really designed for natural environments. On combat exercise in Callay’s wild forests she was forever within milliseconds of assassinating cute and furry animals left and right. The little buggers kept surprising her.

Eduardo saw her coming. He couldn’t miss her, since they were the only two people in the park. His hands were visible, elbows hooked over the seatback. Sandy’s belt holster was closer. He’d know what she was, watching her approach. GIs could usually recognise each other just by walk or stance, sometimes right down to the designation.

Sandy walked to the bench by Eduardo’s side. The bench was wet, so she touched the evaporator on the seatback, and watched the moisture steam and vanish. Then she sat.

“I’ve been told your name’s Eduardo,” she said. “I’m Commander Kresnov.” Eduardo wasn’t really looking at her. What he was looking at, she couldn’t tell. He was good looking, like most GIs. Tanned skin, dark hair with a short cut, military style. God knew how these cosmetics were decided, the ethnicity of appearance and names. GIs had to fit in to the regular population, and the regular population of nearly all colonial worlds, League and Federation alike, was racially diverse.

But it was always amusing when Federation media assumed she could speak Russian, or could name more European classical composers than Indian ones.

“How did you find me?” Eduardo asked finally.

“You’re about a kilometer from the Grand Council Congress,” she told him. “This whole neighbourhood is new—this park, the buildings, streets, everything, less than a year since it was all opened. And of course, it’s all wired with surveillance.” She paused, peering at him more closely. “But I think you knew that.”

He moved, and with a twitch a pistol was in her hand, down in her lap, angled up at his neck. Eduardo kept moving, slowly, and stretched an awkward kink.

“I like the moonlight,” Eduardo explained. Sandy frowned. There was no silver light from the moon tonight. She didn’t want to look up to see, and take her eyes off Eduardo, but a quick uplink calendar check confirmed her observation. The moon had set two hours ago.