Poor Man's Fight (7 page)

“It’s not always like that.”

“You don’t get much say in things when it
is
, though. I’m not worried about Archangel going on some imperialist rampage or something, but it’s still a lot to think about.” He turned to face her. “I’m not trying to talk you out of anything.”

“I’ve thought all this through for myself,” Allison shrugged. “I’ve got faith in how all this works. I know how far I’ll go and what I won’t do. If you’re gonna enlist, you have to have that in mind, too. You don’t get to quit if you don’t like the job.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “You seem like she talked you out of it.”

“I’m still thinking. There are reasons to go. There are reasons not to go. I don’t exactly have a lot of great alternatives.” He fought with whether or not to say the rest. “I don’t want to do it to impress you. I know that’s not even on your mind,” he added when he saw her blink. “I’m just saying… y’know?”

She let out another sigh, gripping the top of the balcony rail with frustration. “Yeah, I know.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “How many guys have given you last-minute heartfelt confessions?”

“In the last week? Three. Four, now.”

“Oh, please, I don’t count. You’ve known I’ve had a thing for you for a couple years now. I’ve asked you out plenty of times. Hey, I’m not bitter. We’re fine,” he smirked. “But I have to recognize that it could mess with my judgment.”

Allison nodded. “You’ve put other people first as long as I’ve known you,” she said, “including your parents, and your friends—including me. This one is all about you, Tanner.”

“I know,” he nodded. He gestured to the party behind them. “All this is over now, one way or the other. That’s how I have to think about it.”

“Maybe I
should’ve
spent more time with you,” she frowned. “But yeah. All going away now. And I’m not going to do anything to make myself regret my decisions.”

“That’ll disappoint a lot of guys,” grinned Tanner.

“Allison!” cried out a young woman behind them. “Come on! You can talk to him later!”

“I can’t help being amazing,” Allison deadpanned. “It’s a burden.” She put her hand on his back. “Don’t leave the party without seeing me again. I head out for Earth in a couple days and I want to make sure we stay in touch.”

She walked away, calling back happily to her other friends. He wondered if he would ever be able to shift emotional gears like that.

The party carried on. He had other people to talk to. For the moment, though, he felt better alone. He keyed the cheap holocom on his wrist again, calling up a much smaller holographic projection this time and returning to the media broadcast he had been watching before.

Icons at the bottom of the projection indicated that this was a live broadcast. With the distance between planets across the star system, that still meant for a delay of a few minutes, but Tanner had hoped to catch this particular news conference as it went out. He was a faithful fan of the woman at its center.

Andrea Bennet stood amid a throng of reporters, apparently still somewhere at Michelangelo Academy given their surroundings. Little media gear was evident; journalists typically had their tiny cameras and microphones woven into their clothes. With the audio off, a viewer could have taken the president’s press secretary for a tour guide showing off the Academy’s artwork collection. Instead, she conveyed grim, tragic news.

“Seven hours ago, elements of the Archangel Navy located three Argent Mark VI Lifeboats containing over six hundred survivors of the luxury liner
Aphrodite
not far outside the legal FTL line near Augustine. Responding units have also discovered the bodies of many others drifting in space. The liner itself has not been located and is believed to have left the system.

“Again, we don’t have an accurate listing of names of survivors yet. What I can tell you is that the survivors were largely made up of the ship’s crew. Recovery is still underway, so I don’t have an accurate number for the deceased, but I am told it is in the hundreds.”

“Are you saying these people were just spaced?” blurted one journalist.

Andrea swallowed as she nodded. Though calm and collected, no one would mistake her demeanor for indifference. “Many were clearly assaulted or killed beforehand, but it appears that most died from exposure to the void.

“Details currently indicate that
Aphrodite
was the victim of open piracy. Investigations are still ongoing and that conclusion is not final, of course. Unfortunately, I have no details on the suspects or their vessel or vessels at this time. Once we’ve cared for the survivors and interviewed them we’ll share as much detail as possible.”

“Do you know when you will have that information?” asked one reporter.

“What about reports that there were children among the dead?” called another. Andrea blinked, but let that one go.

“Is there any explanation of how a liner could be tracked and taken in open space?”

“Which units of the Archangel navy are on site? Why weren’t they present in time to intervene?”

“The navy corvette
St. Jude
was the first on scene, and was joined within hours by the corvette
St. Patrick
and later the destroyer
Resolute.
The Archangel Independent Shipping Guild has three freighters en route, something that the Guild volunteered of its own initiative and for which they have the thanks of the administration and the people of Archangel.

“All this adds up to diminished safety for our people and visitors,” she continued. “The efforts of our men and women in uniform under these circumstances are exemplary, but all of this clearly underscores the need for an expanded home defense capability.”

“What about the Union fleet?” asked Herman Deng of the always-hostile Uriel Media Service. “Corporate security forces?”

“That would be a great question to ask the Union fleet and our friends in corporate security, Herman,” Andrea frowned, “because I seem to recall a significant portion of our defense budget going to contracts for NorthStar and CDC patrols. Yet they’re nowhere to be found on this one. As this appears to be standard operating procedure for our alleged partners—“

“Andrea,” interrupted Deng, “the president just wrapped up a speech attacking Archangel’s corporate partners for their performance in the educational field. Now you’re calling them out for their security measures, too?”

Though she never lost her composure, an attentive observer might have seen her eyes briefly flare. Tanner caught it as he viewed the conference. He couldn’t blame her.

“Yes, Herman,” she said, “that’s exactly what I’m doing. They can answer for themselves all they want, but once again I imagine it’ll just be empty rhetoric. Words are cheap, so we’ll undoubtedly get plenty of them.”

“Does the president believe an expanded Archangel militia will be effective in solving this problem?” asked another journalist.

“We’re talking about hardened criminals and mass murderers,” Andrea replied. “They aren’t going to give up piracy if someone asks them nicely.”

With that, the press conference came to an end. Tanner turned off his holocom, leaning backward on the balcony railing. He looked up into the dark skies above, and thought about what lay out there.

*   *   *

Predictably, Andrea heard a cacophony of shouted questions as she turned away. Her stride and poise held firm until she turned a corner; then her shoulders sagged, her eyes looked skyward and a long sigh escaped her throat.

She found the president’s chief of staff waiting for her. Victor Hickman stood amid passing staffers and bureaucrats looking at his own holocom’s media screens. A pair of “aides” accompanied him, both with serious, off-putting scowls on their faces and eyes constantly scanning their surroundings.

“You handled that well,” he said.

“I just want to go hide in a closet or under a blanket somewhere.”

Victor nodded in understanding. “I know what you mean. You did well, though. Pretty good jab at the end, too,” he observed. “You’re good when you improvise.”

Andrea huffed. “Sincerity sells. Victor, there were children?”

“Yes,” Victor nodded evenly. “At least twenty-three, maybe more. They aren’t done collecting yet.”

“Oh my god.”

“I know,” shrugged the older man. “So, what are we going to say when we’re inevitably accused of trying to score political points from this?”

Ghoulish though it seemed, Andrea knew she could ward off tears by keeping her head in the game. She took a deep breath. “We say there’s no place for politics in the middle of an atrocity like this. Then we point out that if the Union and our corporate ‘partners’ were holding up their end of our security bargains, our people in uniform would be able to do more than pick up innocent children floating in space.” Anger crept into her voice as she spoke.

“Sounds like politics.”

“So what? Sometimes politics is also the right thing. We’ve got the political
and
moral high ground and we’re certainly going to have the public behind us, and probably support from other systems, too. This story is certainly going to go interstellar if it hasn’t already.”

Victor gave a nod. “I agree. So does the president.”

“Good,” Andrea said. She folded her arms and looked down the hallway for a moment. “They just spaced a bunch of kids? Why would they do that?”

“People like this aren’t really interested in sorting out child care arrangements for their hostages, Andrea.”

“They couldn’t spare another lifeboat?”

“Those are worth money.”

“But they left the crew in lifeboats. That just seems bizarre.”

“What’s the baseline for normalcy with people like this?” He frowned for a moment, then touched his tiny, transparent earbud and looked back to Andrea. “What do you have on your plate right now?”

“Before this blew up I thought I’d be spending my day following up on the education speech,” Andrea shrugged. “Now I’m in a holding pattern just like the media out there. It’d be helpful if I could have more details as they come in so I can pass them along. Better than leaving everyone to speculate.”

“I know,” Victor said. “Come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“System security briefing in the president’s transport on our way out of here. You just got cleared to be present on this one.”

“Really?” Victor’s thinly disguised bodyguards accompanied them as they walked.

“Senior staff,” he shrugged, then grinned at her. “I’ll grant you look more ‘freshman’ than ‘senior,’ but you’ve still got the security clearance.”

Andrea swatted his arm. “I wasn’t sure you could remember that, gramps.”

“Well, don’t let me catch you playing ball with the other kids on my lawn or anything. My wife already thinks we spend too much time together as it is.”

“Yours and everyone else’s,” she grumbled.

“I know. Beauty’s a curse. I get it all the time. Oh, wait, were we talking about you?”

“Where’s the president right now?”

“Private meeting with some university chancellor types. Should be out soon. I heard you wrote most of this speech.”

“It’s fluff. I’d feel better if there were concrete initiatives to push,” Andrea shrugged. “Right now we’re just trying to deepen the wedge.”

“It’s a good wedge. We keep the pressure up like this, the bastards will have to start making further concessions.”

“Or not,” Andrea said. “It’s been tried before.” She turned to thank the marine opening the door to the bright, sunny day outside as they continued on. The president’s transport sat right outside the auditorium along with several escort flyers. It was noticeably larger than most atmospheric transports, mostly to account for extra armor and flight capacity.

“Yeah, well. If they don’t want to play ball, we’ve got a plan for that, too.”

“That sounds ominous.” His lack of a reply seemed even more foreboding. “Victor, what aren’t you telling me?”

“All that stuff I’m not supposed to tell you yet,” he shrugged.

The interior of the president’s transport played to the expectations of taxpayers. Its décor and furnishings, comfortable yet conservative, were more suited to a small lounge than an aerial transport. Internal gravity generators and inertial wells kept everything stable and safe in flight.

Holo projections lined the walls depicting star charts, communications links and ships’ statistics. The
Aphrodite
featured prominently on more than a few of them. Andrea surmised that the other ships were those involved in rescue and recovery. She wasn’t used to seeing this many active displays in the president’s cabin. Nor was she used to seeing more than one or two military types present.

“Admiral Yeoh,” Andrea blinked. “I didn’t know you were here.”

The head of Archangel’s navy offered a quick, tight smile. “Hello, Andrea. Naval Academy graduation was just yesterday, so I was in the neighborhood.” The thin, endlessly calm woman turned back to her holo screens and the somber mood she’d carried all morning. “Just as easy to be here with the president or at headquarters at a time like this. Or just as hard.”