Killswitch: (Cassandra Kresnov Book 3)
: Chapter 8

“I don’t know what to tell you, Am’ Vanessa stood atop the best vantage spot on the Herat Complex grounds, fully armoured and sweating in the midmorning sun. The visor display told her, among a multitude of other things, that there was a cool breeze blowing from the south east, but it did her precious little good beneath layers of micro-compressor and myomer-powered ceramic. ‘I’m on the highest alert we’ve got, it doesn’t go any higher.’

‘Look … ‘ Ari’s voice sounded agitated in her earphones. Lately, that was as usual. `Just keep an eye out, will you?’

‘Oh, well, that’s real fucking useful advice, that is,’ Vanessa snapped, hefting her assault rifle with powerassisted ease. The laser-target assist flickered across her visor as the muzzle moved, highlighting fire-trajectories in her field of view. ‘Where would a CDF officer be without such sage advice? Anything else?’

‘Vanessa, I’m not trying to tell you how to do your job, I’m just saying that there’s something here that looks very suspicious … ‘

‘There always is. No interruptions for the next hour please, I’m going to be busy.’

She disconnected, and scanned once more across the broad, open space before her. From atop the Central Chambers of the new Federation Grand Council building, she had a mostly uninterrupted view across one hundred and eighty degrees. At her back, the enormous curving ribs of what would soon become the Chambers’ central dome soared another ten storeys high. Two construction cranes loomed upon either side of the nascent dome, silent and idle at the moment, their crews sent home with the rest of the Herat construction teams for today.

To her left and right were other buildings, the beginnings of stately grandeur emerging from within the mass of construction gantries, cranes and obscuring canvas sheeting. Between the flanking buildings the main access road curved in from the heavily fenced perimeter in a giant U shape. Within the U, an enormous court of pavings and gardens was emerging from the chaos of digging and earth moving equipment.

This, the new district of Herat, was to be the new centre of the Federation. The imposing scale of it all drove home the stakes involved in recent happenings like nothing else could. Not merely the size of the grounds under construction, but the style. It was the architecture of power, all grand domes and pillars, beautiful yet authoritative, with influences borrowed from several of the greatest empires of human civilisation-Indian, Arabic, and European in particular.

Beyond the tall, wrought-iron fence around the grounds’ perimeter, the road was clear of traffic save the usual police patrols. At either end, large roadblocks manned by thick lines of police in armoured riot gear held back enormous crowds of protesters. The chanting reached Vanessa’s ears clearly enough through her helmet’s audio receptors, and if she blinked the right icons, inbuilt software could sift the mass of noise for anything potentially alarming. According to software parameters, anyway, which she didn’t trust a millimetre. Besides, she had more important things to bother herself with.

‘The Maharaja is at ETA one minute,’ announced a controller on tacnet. ‘Maharaja’ was Secretary General Benale. President Neiland, as befitted a good host, was already here. ‘Dacoit’-meaning Admiral Duong-the tac-net further advised her, was five minutes’ flight time away, having come down by his own shuttle to Gordon Spaceport. If Vanessa wasn’t so certain the CDF’s tac-nets were so secure, she wouldn’t have risked allowing her underlings to brand Duong with the Hindi term for ‘bandit.’ ‘Maharaja,’ of course, was pure irony.

Vanessa peered over the rim of her rooftop vantage point. Far below, a grand flight of steps led up to a broad marble floor, decorated now with guards, functionaries and leafy tree ferns in pots beneath enormous stone pillars. There was commotion there now, official media and documentors scurrying upon the stairs for positions, some arguments with local security, a groundcar pulled up too close on the road and being asked to shift quickly before the procession arrived.

Vanessa scanned the tower-studded horizon, and spotted a row of incoming vehicles, breaking into local airspace where civilian traffic was not allowed. Tac-net eliminated the need for mundane communications-Vanessa could see the graphical display of all Herat district, including the immediate status of all her units and others. She switched to a broadscan display of the immediate foreground as the convoy of vehicles approached, and saw a multispectrum view of all neighbouring buildings, parks and available spaces, computer-sifted for hostile activity, meaning anyone looking to shoot at the Secretary General as he passed overhead. Nothing registered.

‘We look clear,’ came Rassmusen’s voice on the tac-net. Meaning that no one had tried to shoot down the convoy yet. Vanessa switched to rearview perspectives where several units were guarding the rear of the Chambers-more half-completed gardens, and more buildings under construction. Beyond those, the unspoiled wilderness of the Shoban Delta, a horizon of unbroken trees and rivers, lifting into the southern reaches of the Tuez Mountains in the distance. It was the obvious direction from which threat would come, or could come, with everyone facing the other way. Except that the immediate forest behind the grounds was strewn with enough covert, buried and implanted sensory equipment to track individual insects in their flight, and watch the mating rituals of local frogs and bunbuns.

Directly ahead, the first of the vehicle convoy was now coming in to land, midway up the approach driveway. Underside wheels unfolded, and the black, armoured cruiser touched with a bump of heavy suspension, then drove the rest of the way on four wheels, idling to allow the next vehicle down to catch up. Vanessa raised her rifle in the direction of the leftwards group of protesters beyond the fence, magnifying the visor display to get a good look through the sight. Fists were raised as each convoy vehicle whined overhead, placards waved as jeering yells pursued each arrival. Someone lit off some small fireworks, little incendiary rockets soaring skyward to detonate near a cruiser’s underside with remarkable accuracy. The crowd cheered. The riot police on the barricades looked agitated, and the tac-net registered a sudden upsurge in police communications.

‘Major Rice,’ came a voice in her ear, tac-net identifying it as belonging to Chief Malakian, the head of Parliamentary Security, or S-4. ‘Threat assessment and response has been called for.’

‘From a couple of firecrackers?’ Vanessa replied. ‘Zero and zero. Let ’em shoot.’ Damn security squibs, she thought darkly to herself, flicking to other monitors and tac-net locations, determined not to be fixated on the colour and movement, and thus miss the real threat. The next convoy vehicle came under fire from two rockets, one of which burst immediately before the windshield in a puff of white smoke. More cheers from the crowd, and the clearly audible chant of ‘Fuck the Fifth! Fuck the Fifth!’ So they thought they were shooting at Admiral Duong. But then again, she reckoned Benale, or any senior Earth politician, would have suited them well enough.

‘Major Rice,’ Malakian’s voice reappeared in her ear, ‘the organisers are demanding an immediate threat assessment and action. The security guidelines clearly stipulate that aerial hazards must be dealt with immediately in proximity to any red-zone airspace … ‘

‘What d’you want me to do?’ Vanessa snarled. ‘Open fire on a bunch of civilians because they’ve got a couple of illegal party pops? I don’t care how bad it looks on the news feeds, those cruisers can take direct hits from far worse than fireworks and I’ve got more important things to worry about! If you’re that concerned, get the cops onto it. Now stop clogging the audio.’

She disconnected, refraining from uttering a few more choice phrases for all to hear. She did not like giving the local security access to tac-net, they weren’t familiar enough with CDF operating protocols to be much more than a nuisance. If Sandy were in command of this operation, she doubted it would have happened. But because it was being commanded by a mere major, Krishnaswali had seen fit to override her recommendation. Just as he’d seen fit to allow Duong and Benale’s security teams their own bandwidth for independent tac-nets on the local network, forcing a certain CDF major to stay up half of last night in conversation with those security team leaders to coordinate the protocols so they didn’t trip over each other’s feet.

It was one more hassle on top of every other recent disaster, and Vanessa was not in the best mood of her life this fine Tanushan morning. Particularly when she had to put up with the renegade, tag-team duo themselves interrupting her with VIPs on approach to give warning of some new plot they’d uncovered to source illegal weapons through some obscure branch of the Foreign Office … she hadn’t made sense of all the details, but Ari had sounded alarmed. That Sandy had let him contact her suggested she was too. But damn it, Sandy of all people should have known that the one thing a commander on active duty didn’t need was too much peripheral information. But of course, for Sandy’s augmented brain, there was no such thing as too much information. Well, some of us are only human, she’d considered snapping more than once of late, despite knowing it was unfair. Deal with it.

Upon the approach driveway, the convoy formed up as the final vehicles touched down, and began rolling toward the broad main stairs. One convoy down, and the second on approach, tac-net switched to phasetwo, focus-scanning along a new set of parameters. Amongst Vanessa’s team not a word was spoken. They knew their jobs too well for that. Ten storeys below Vanessa’s vantage point, Secretary General Benale emerged from a cruiser in the centre of the convoy. He took his time getting up the stairs, between handshakes, pleasantries, and much smiling and waving to the small media contingent and stage managed well-wishers. And she did a fast double-take at one low-angle feed on tac-net-several Tanushan school children, no more than six years old, presenting the Secretary General of the United World Council with native flowers.

Children? It was all she could do to remain focused on her job, and not blow her top completely. They’d assured her there would be no children. It wasn’t safe, she’d told them, reviewing the original plans presented to her. The bureaucrats in question had complained that it was only a couple of children, and they wanted a softer image of Callayan greetings to Earth’s senior politician than the usual suits and ties. No, she’d said. And now, they’d ignored her. It wouldn’t have happened to Sandy-they’d never have dared. With or without Krishnaswali’s approval, she was going to kick some heads in when this was over.

At the top of the stairs, Vanessa saw on her visor tac-net display, President Neiland greeted Benale with a smile and a handshake. It all looked pathetically, fraudulently civil. God, she hated politics. And switched her fullest attention back to the landing vehicles in Duong’s convoy, who were coming in from the north rather than the east, and were thus avoiding any colourful groundfire. Admiral Duong’s arrival didn’t help Vanessa’s mood any, given that she’d personally have bet several limbs that he was in some way responsible for the attempts on Sandy’s life. She was in such a bad mood, with the cumulation of recent events, that it truly didn’t surprise her at all when the first missile contrails erupted a little over sixteen hundred metres away.

‘Live fire!’ she yelled on tac-net at the same time as twelve other voices, and tac-net switched fast to combat mode with a flurry of new electronic linkages. ‘Live fire! Everybody move move move!’

Tac-net showed an eruption of activity below her position, security swooping on Benale, Neiland and others, hurtling them in through the main doors at speed with weapons drawn as the rest of the entourage scrambled madly in panic. The two missiles were at one thousand metres and closing fast, tac-net back-tracking their point of origin, highlighting a residential block on the Herat perimeter. The grounds’ defensive firegrid sprang to life, multiple emplacements within the half-finished gardens springing from the ground, zeroing upon the racing threat. Vanessa knelt behind the low wall rimming the Chambers’ edge, and saw only too well that both missiles were headed straight for the convoy parked beneath her position.

‘Red squad!’ she snapped, even as the firegrid erupted in multiple streams of fire. ‘Get mobile, target tac-net HT5 …’ a location square upon tac-net’s regional map illuminated in illustration, ‘… get me those launchers at the source.’

A minor storm of exploding projectiles erupted across the incoming missiles’ course with a deafening roar … one missile vanished amidst the explosions, the other emerged nearside, tumbling, then ploughed into the gardens and exploded in flying clods of earth. To Vanessa’s left, several of her soldiers were scrambling from their positions as a Trishul flyer howled hovering into position upon the rooftop edge. Armoured soldiers leaped onto the rear hold ramp, which sealed behind them as the Trishul’s engine nacelles angled and the flyer tipped dramatically nose-down, accelerating at maximum toward the source of the missiles.

‘Was that both?’ she heard someone from security yelling on tacnet. ‘That’s it? We got ’em both?’

‘We are condition red!’ Vanessa announced sharply. ‘No relaxing!’

The words were barely out of her mouth when tac-net registered multiple new contrails, four more from the original position, and another four … no six … coming from a new site to the north. No, eight … ten.

‘Green squad, get mobile, target tac-net GT3!’ There were fourteen now, another four soaring skyward from the original location. Six were coming in flat like the last two, the other eight arcing straight up into the clear blue sky. It took military weaponry to fire so many highV missiles so close together. And there was nothing she could do, because sweeping surrounding tower blocks had not been her responsibility any more than was making sure those weapons hadn’t fallen into the wrong hands in the first place. In that brief, time-frozen moment, as the missile contrails arced high, long and white, she recalled the two little children upon the broad verandah below. And now, here came the rest of Admiral Duong’s convoy, having abandoned landing upon the approach road to skim airborne toward the steps at head height, scattering people in all directions.

The firegrid opened up on the low-flying missiles; again the roar of detonating projectiles ripped the air just shortly above the heads of the fireworks-firing protesters, whose mass disintegrated into a running, falling, screaming panic. Several warheads exploded in a fiery rush-the first two had been low-yield practice shots, Vanessa realised. Another broke apart, then fire tracked the last three at blinding speed across the near sky, erupting explosions streaking straight toward the chamber’s grounds … one exploded, and the previous broken warhead blew the approach drive to hell as it fell. A fifth ran wide and slammed a high stone wall with a building-shaking boom! The sixth performed a final evasive twist, then slammed into one of Duong’s convoy of cruisers, which exploded even as passengers attempted to jump down to the stairs, bodies and debris scything across running, scattering personnel.

Then the high-trajectory missiles were falling, firegrid emplacements making fast, swivelling adjustments, weapon muzzles blazing skyward in a protective shield. Fully the first half were struck on the way down, eliciting a split-second rush of hope. But then the reasoning behind the high-low fire-spread became clear, as rushed emplacements lost their fire sequence in the hurry to adjust to new targets on totally opposing trajectories. One whizzed down past Vanessa’s nose and blew much of the broad stairway to burning shards. Another ploughed into the parked cruiser convoy, blasting one into a flaming somersault amidst the smoke and debris. More vanished in midair explosions, Vanessa crouching with squinting determination not to leave her position as metallic fragments rained down, and firegrid detonations tore a ceiling of fire just armspans above her head. One last explosion shook the foregrounds, and Vanessa allowed herself to believe she might live through it after all … and the last, spinning missile ploughed into the chambers’ roof ten metres to her right. Directly on top of where Hydek and Gavaskar had been crouched, awaiting further orders.

‘Airborne squads!’ Vanessa announced as visibility vanished amidst the cloud of roiling debris. ‘You have local command, those are residential locations so maintain a midintensity assault pattern and watch for local network infiltration.’

And was amazed at how steady her voice remained amidst the chaos. To her right, tac-net informed her, several more soldiers were running to the aid of Hydek and Gavaskar.

‘Red Leader copies,’ came back one reply. ‘Green Leader copies.’ Four armoured assault flyers went fast and low toward the origins of the missile attacks.

‘First and fourth squads, maintain that perimeter! Third squad, close cover for the VIPs, maintain an outer perimeter around their security.’ Tac-net showed those eight soldiers on ground level rushing to comply, their positions moving through the Chambers’ graphic to shadow the cluster of dots that marked Neiland, Benale, Duong and their security … so Duong was still alive. She hadn’t noticed either way until then.

Ambulance sirens howled, several were rushing up the approach drive, taking a bumpy detour around the crater there. From below, at the foot of the broad stairs, flames crackled and wounded screamed, as others shouted desperately for help. To her right, soldiers had reached Hydek and Gavaskar … Gavaskar was alive, there were shouts for a medic, and more instructions to remove armour. Vanessa remained crouched, jaw tight, eyes fixed only on the tac-net display. She knew she had frozen. Maybe that was okay, there was nothing more she could do but watch. Vid-displays from red and green squads’ approaches lit her visor … a green squad flyer came under fire from a missile, took evasive action amidst a cloud of countermeasures. The missile missed. The second flyer let fly several volleys of machine-guns and rockets, clearing the rooftop in seconds.

Red squad met with small arms fire, rapidly ended with two bursts of high velocity fire. Through the drifting smoke of pulverised ferrocrete, she made out a quad-barrelled, personnel-mounted missile launcher, lying on two rooftop deckchairs beside a row of potplants. A second later, tac-net identified it for her further benefit-a Kawamatsu AT-3, Federation model. The assault rifle by the dismembered corpse that had fired upon the flyer was also Kawamatsu-made. For some reason, beyond the immediate concerns of tactics and survival, that rang alarm bells.

Tac-net showed the two of her four aerial units still on the grounds, their transport hovering nearby in lethal anticipation. Another unit was now inside the Chambers, providing close quarters support to VIP security that included the elite Alpha Team of Presidential guards. Her perimeter was now thin, but ample enough. And she dimly realised, then, that someone in security was shouting at her on tac-net, demanding to know more, as flyers now poured armoured troops onto the rooftops of the two residential blocks from which the fire had come, while others established defensive positions upon the streets around the base, halting traffic and yelling at gawking pedestrians.

‘That’s it?’ was all Vanessa could think. Long range bombardment with military-standard weaponry … a hell of a lot of effort to acquire the weapons and plan the assault without detection, but for very little strategic result, save a lot of smoke and noise. Just like the first attack upon Sandy. Click! went her brain, in that dazed, hyper-sensed slow motion. That first attack had been little more than distracting. The second, more lethal attack had come shortly after. Probably not by the same people who carried out this one. Damn, green and red squads were probably wasting their time, better to leave these shooters to the cops.

‘It’s not over!’ she announced onto tac-net. ‘All units, listen close-we’re going to treat this one as a decoy!’

‘A decoy!’ spluttered the same unidentified security man.

‘Stay sharp and watch yourselves, don’t rely too much on procedure, we’re going to assume there’s been a breach! Don’t trust anything, I don’t like the smell of this one at all.’

‘Major Rice,’ the security man cut back in, ‘on behalf of the Secretary General, I d e m a n d to know what is … ‘

‘If you don’t get the fuck off the tac-net,’ Vanessa snarled, ‘I’m going to have you declared a security threat and shot! SHUT UP!’ Then to the troops on her right, ‘Hussein, Silchenko, Yadav, with me!’

She unhooked the rapelling cord on the front of her armour, placed it upon the lip of the wall and activated the fuse-a flash of smoke and it sealed tight to the stone. She grabbed the slim wire in one armoured hand and leaped from the edge, even as the other three ran to follow her. The winch howled as it unwound, and then she was falling past enormous stone columns, through rising smoke and clouds of debris, flames and running people below. On the tac-net, the terse, fast com mands of red and green squads sweeping the buildings. Below that, the brief commands of other unit leaders on the ground, closing up the gaps left by red and green’s departures.

Ten storeys straight down, then the stairs were rushing up, littered with debris. She hit, cut the wire, ran up the remaining half-flight and toward the broad main doors. The Grand Chambers’ central hall was colossal, its broad floor gleaming, its high walls covered with scaffolding for work on statues and decoration. Vanessa’s armoured footsteps echoed as she ran across the front domed atrium, toward the long hallway beyond, noting the wounded lying against the walls, tended by small clusters of terrified people. Blood spilled on the beautiful floor-tile patterns.

The run down the central hall was long, and gave her further time to assess the situation. Neiland and Benale, the tac-net showed her, were two levels down in the prearranged secure zone-the kitchens, which were themselves halfway to the bomb shelters … but those had not yet been fully completed. Duong was separate from the others, with his own small team of Fleet security-marines, no doubt, good close quarter fighters but perhaps not so adept at assassination techniques.

She stared at the visor display while running, allowing the suit’s powered myomer musculature to do most of the work, and saving her energy. The assault was well organised, she wasn’t about to let its lack of success blind her to that. Ari and Sandy had just found evidence of higher-level complicity in the supply of arms where they shouldn’t have gone. People up that high had a lot to lose. They didn’t take such huge risks without good reason. And so a long-range bombardment was all they had? Not damn likely. On the first page of every assassin’s guidebook was the simple rule-first, get close. Long-range bombardments were an iffy proposition. No, what they wanted was a single shot to the head at close range …

Tac-net detected gunshots from the kitchen, and her heart missed a beat. A graphical leap and zoom, and she heard it clearly, many urgent voices, the crash of what might be stainless steel benches, and a distant, muffled shooting … too far away to be immediate, she realised with a rush of relief.

‘This is Alpha Leader,’ came Chief Mitchel’s voice then, cool and professional. ‘We have gunfire nearby, I estimate it might be coming from Admiral Duong’s position.’

Vanessa flipped channels at speed. ‘Hello, Amazon One? Amazon One, do you copy?’ And cursed that the one group of people she might have welcomed on the tac-net had turned down her request in the planning phase. ‘Can anyone contact Amazon Team? Is Dacoit in contact?’

She took a hard right into a smaller corridor, aware of her three soldiers closing behind with their longer strides, then arrived at a stairwell and rattled down it at speed. All she had on the tac-net was the dot representing Duong’s position-those trackers were mandatory, com frequencies weren’t. More muffled gunfire.

‘… I’ll take four and check it out,’ one of the Alphas was saying.

‘Negative, if the Admiral’s in trouble he’ll ask for help.’

The shooting seemed to grow louder. Vanessa left the stairwell in a lower corridor, unadorned walls, exposed, dangling electrics and unfinished construction, her three fellow troopers almost at her heel.

‘… big fucking trouble!’ suddenly came a panicked burst of transmission that tac-net identified as Fleet marine. ‘It just fucking came outta nowhere … I can’t contact the others, we’ve got localised jamming, I don’t even know where the fuck I am … !’

Vanessa arrived at the big doors that led to the kitchen, braced open now with two Alpha Team men in dark suits covering their approach, lean black weapons in hand.

‘Marine, calm down and tell me your situation!’ Vanessa snapped, halting at the junction before the kitchen doors. Her troops rattled and crashed hard into position along the corners, covering each direction.

‘I … I dunno . . . ‘ a pause for hard breathing. ‘I dunno how many, it all happened too fast, we lost the LT and then … ‘ Static, as the line went abruptly dead. Vanessa swore under her breath, taking in this lowerlevel schematic upon her visor, trying to figure the situation. Beyond the kitchen, the main passage to the underground bunker. In the intervening rooms, storage, temporary quarters for Chambers staff, a veritable maze of half-completed, half-constructed passages and rooms.

‘Major Rice,’ came Mitchel’s voice, ‘we are in position to deploy five men to assist.’

‘Negative,’ Vanessa commanded. ‘Alpha Team will hold its defensive position and maintain highest alert.’ There was a brief silence.

‘Copy, Major.’ And Vanessa got the distinct feeling that Mitchel and she were thinking exactly the same thing. Past the thumping heartbeat and quickening adrenaline, she felt the first real stab of fear.

‘Alpha One,’ she continued, holding her voice steady with an effort. ‘I want you ready to get everyone up to the surface real damn fast, you got me? I can’t draw more people down here without stretching the perimeter-we already have emergency evac on its way, I want all VIPs in those evacs and away from here as fast as possible.’

‘Return to the surface?’ asked Benale’s security, breathlessly. ‘What about those missiles?’

‘I copy that,’ said Mitchel, ignoring the interruption. ‘What about the Dacoit?’

‘I’ll get him. When I give the signal, get the hell out, no detours.’

She gave fast hand signals to her troops, and rushed down the lefthand passage, assault rifle poised and ready to move at the slightest motion. Tac-net showed a right-hand corner leading past the kitchen-Vanessa flattened her back to the right wall, covering leftwards while the helmet eyepiece unsealed and swung out into the corridor, to show her a clear view of empty passage. She spun and ducked low, Sergeant Yadav closest behind-he was seniormost, a former SWAT private rapidly promoted to cover the influx of raw recruits. Private Silchenko was youngest and greenest, but talented. Private Hussein scored well in skills, but less so in tactics. A picture formed in her mind-an instinct-of what she could count on, and who, and when. And immediately she heard Sandy’s voice in her memory: ‘don’t predict anything, just react.’

She moved fast and light down the passage, Hussein remaining to cover the last cross-junction. Paused again at the next corner, then raced across. Two more like it and she’d be at Duong’s position-a storage room with multiple exits, doubtless his marines had liked it better than the kitchen, and they hadn’t been real thrilled about working in conjunction with Alpha Team and the Secretary General’s security. Vanessa couldn’t really blame them.

There was construction equipment at the next cross-junction, scaffolding blocking half the way and newly installed electrics dangling. Vanessa scanned first, then spun about the corridor edge … there was an armoured marine lying face up on the hard floor. Only the basic armour for away missions, not the full combat kit that she wore herself. She took in the marine’s injuries without dropping her eyes from the corridor ahead-one shot to the forehead. At the doorway to Duong’s storage room, another assault rifle lay upon the ground, scarred where two precise shots had torn it from its owner’s hands, presumably while holding it blindly around the doorway and firing.

‘Okay, people,’ Vanessa announced, trying to keep her voice calm while feeling something cold and fearful attempting to creep up her spine. ‘We’ve got ourselves a GI down here. Maybe more than one.’ Waving Yadav past as she spoke, to cover the next junction down. Silchenko followed, moving swiftly backward, covering her back.

‘Copy, Major,’ said Mitchel. ‘Are you certain?’ And not just panicking at the first sign of blood, he meant.

‘Among non-GIs, I’m one of the best shots I know,’ Vanessa replied. ‘But I’m not this good, no damn way.’ No light came through the slight gap in the doorway. Vanessa reached into a leg-pouch, and withdrew a miniscan. Activated the button, and rolled the small, armoured sphere in through the gap … a flash of multispectrum activity from the sphere, and a patchy, 3-D graphic swept across her visor, angles changing as the ball continued to roll. No activity. It looked clear. Vanessa took a deep breath, and slammed an armoured foot into the door, slamming it open … it crashed upon an obstruction inside and she stepped forward to brace with her shoulder so it didn’t rebound, rifle scanning the darkness with feverish intensity.

Her heat-scan showed many blotches upon the floor. Human sized, and larger. Tac-net found a local electrical circuit attached to the network-she let it access, and the power came on in a flickering buzz of fluoro. The storage room looked only mildly untidy, the odd box knocked from a pile against a wall, some construction sheeting fallen from otherwise empty shelves. Only that between the rows of shelves lay the lightly armoured bodies of Fleet marines. Vanessa walked cautiously to one wall, then along. Many of the fatal wounds were headshots. Those that were chest-shots were actually several holes so close together that the light armour had ruptured. There had been ten marines in Duong’s entourage. In the storeroom, she counted seven … and Admiral Duong.

She stared at him for a moment, lying crumpled behind a row of large crates against the wall, two of his marines fallen on either side, almost on top of him in their futile efforts at protection. Duong’s lifeless hand still gripped a pistol, heat-scan showed the muzzle still warm. His stern, hard features were frozen in a sightless grimace. Most dead people Vanessa had seen appeared astonished at their own demise. The Admiral looked affronted, as if scandalised that death should dare such an improper advance.

‘We lost the Admiral,’ she heard herself say. ‘I count eight dead marines, mostly head-shots.’ Her soldier’s mind had little difficulty reconstructing the final moments-the panic, the wild shots in the dark, the fast, lethal shape that moved and fought with inhuman speed and precision. She’d seen it herself. Had faced it, in combat drills against Sandy, when she had volunteered to demonstrate the difficulties of facing GIs at close quarters. She’d often been cautious with Sandy, knowing what she was, but never, ever genuinely afraid. Until now.

‘Major,’ came Lieutenant Hiraki’s hard voice over tac-net, ‘I have movement at CT2.’ The graphic flashed up on Vanessa’s visor … the Chambers’ north wing, one level above ground floor. And suddenly she could see what Hiraki saw-a motion sensor graphic that told of a single figure moving fast through deserted passages and rooms.

‘Shut him off!’ Vanessa snapped, hurdling the bodies of dead marines as she rushed back the way she’d come. ‘Be highly visible, let him see you! Flush him toward our best firezones!’

‘Copy that,’ came Hiraki’s terse reply, and tac-net showed gold squad moving rapidly to comply. Vanessa crashed out into the corridor, gathering her troops as she went. Tac-net highlighted a possible route from the target to the gardens outside … Vanessa blinked it away with irritation, there was no way this GI was headed outside where his advantages would be neutralised. No, there had to be another way.

‘Alpha One, stay put …’ as she darted a quick glance at the next cross-junction, then rushed onward, ‘… this could be a ploy to get you out of the kitchen. Command, tac-net’s telling me all underground access is secured but won’t say how-can you confirm?’

There was a pause as someone back at HQ rushed to check that request. Vanessa headed for the nearest small, service staircase, bashing a door off its hinges and rushing upward. One of the Trishuls was requesting permission to fire, hovering in low besides the Chambers’ north wing.

‘Permission granted,’ Vanessa replied, breathing hard as she raced into the empty upper corridor, noting that Hiraki’s unit had now left its perimeter position and was entering the north wing on the ground floor. Abruptly the target vanished, as the motion-sensor lost acquisition.

‘He’s descending,’ Hiraki announced. ‘Give me a full defensive spread, he’s not getting out this way. ‘

‘Major,’ came HQ’s delayed reply in her ear. ‘We read all underground transit access as blocked by security measures … ‘

‘Yeah, but how?’ Vanessa retorted, panting. ‘Welded plates, ferrocrete blocks, what?’

‘The records don’t specify.’

‘Then get onto whoever wrote the fucking records and ask them! Fast!’

It was yet another of those things that weren’t within her purview of responsibility. A mere CDF major didn’t have the time or resources to triple check every entry into the database-she was forced to assume the people who’d done so were competent, and go from there.

Fire erupted on tac-net audio, armour-readings showed several members of gold squad firing, tac-net flashed their visuals up on Vanessa’s visor, and for a brief moment she saw a lower corridor erupting with assault-rifle fire, but no sign of a target.

‘I think I got him!’ That was Private Zainuddin, harsh and breathless.

‘Gold four, target 360, brace!’ That was Hiraki, cover screening fast west behind his line … he must have seen something. Another burst of fire, then …

‘Fuck, I’m hit!’

‘Stay down, four … three and six, pincer flank, lay it down!’ More dots moved to comply on tac-net, a coordinated formation switching to cover a moving target, laying down fire as they went. Vanessa raced into the north wing main hall, across a broad floor of patterned tiles and chairs for waiting, large wall display screens blank in the deserted silence …

‘Alpha Leader,’ she announced, ‘this one’s not staying to fight, he’s buggin’ out! Get to the surface now, move move move!’ And saw a sudden rush of activity from the lower kitchen as Alpha Team sprang into action, rushing all VIPs out of the kitchen. Vanessa raced across a broad food court behind huge stone pillars, dodging past chairs and tables and sprinting up the main north wing passage, hearing gunfire directly ahead now over the thudding of her team’s footsteps. Explosions, as Hiraki let loose grenades at a speculated target … and Vanessa saw a sharp flash of movement upon Private Leung’s transmission, then static.

‘Leung’s down,’ Hiraki announced. ‘The target’s headed for the CT4 stairwell.’

‘Got that,’ said Vanessa, and turned to leap down the next broad stairway, newly installed signs upon the walls indicating the underground transit down this way … a quick glance at Leung’s vitals showed that he was dead. ‘Secure the stairwell, watch for booby traps, he might have had plenty of time to set up. I’ll take the station’s south end.’

The corridors opened into what would become a mass transit entry when the Chambers opened, designed for the thousands of commuting staff who would work in the Grand Council Chambers. The ramp walkway sloped steadily downward. Vanessa switched her helmet’s optics to tripwire scan, but saw nothing. Yadav on her left side, Silchenko on her right, Hussein guarding their rear, they hurdled the ticket scanners, past broad display screens of the underground network and train timetables. Vanessa skidded low to the corner of the first of multiple descending stairways on the right, Yadav and Silchenko racing across to take up covering positions. From the position of the stairwell Hiraki’s target had gone down, Vanessa reckoned even a GI would take a full minute longer to get to the platform … but would be much closer to the north-end tunnel, and escape, when he came down.

She plunged around the corner and down the stairs, well aware that against a GI, the first indication that they were under fire would come when the point man took a bullet through an eye socket … but she was senior, and if she didn’t set the example, lesser ranks could be forgiven for never advancing at all against GIs. Down the steps alongside silent, stationary escalators and blank panels where advertisements would soon garishly adorn the walls.

Then she hit the bottom, and found herself on a broad, empty central platform between two half-completed magnetised rail lines. Yadav, Silchenko and Hussein came down behind, and she gestured them to spread out, Yadav with her, the other two on the other side. Yadav leaped down onto the tracks, to cover that low angle, while Vanessa crept with slow, careful steps along the platform, weapon and helmet vision scanning, trying to keep every heavy footstep, every rattle and creak of armour, to an absolute minimum. She could see the left-side tunnel entrance ahead-the right was blocked by the central shop cubicles and central elevators, but she had a clear feed from Hussein and Silchenko. Nothing. The silence was eerie, broken only by the soft background chatter on tac-net-red and green squads cleaning up some final resistance out at the residential blocks, Alpha Team leading VIPs to safety and evacuation on ground level, perimeter units rearranging positions to maintain full coverage … tac-net muted it all, aware that none of it was directed at her, nor required her immediate attention.

A minute flicked past. He should have been down by now. Vanessa scanned quickly over the regional schematic once more, wondering if maybe he’d backtracked on a lower level and would come down behind them … the schematic showed it wasn’t possible, the traffic-flow management design had ensured that all passages up from the station went directly to the Chambers’ ground floor with no intersecting. But then, if the schematics were untrustworthy …

‘No booby traps on the stairwell,’ came Hiraki’s voice, ‘I’m approaching ticket level, no sign of target.’ The vitals of his remaining squad members were all displayed green-tac-net immediately informed the direct commander if they ceased, a precaution that was especially necessary when facing GIs. Often opposing soldiers didn’t have enough time for a syllable’s warning.

‘Nothing here yet,’ Vanessa replied, trying to keep her voice level, for the sake of her guys. It was difficult, her breathing coming in sharp, rapid gasps, and only partly from the long run. Sensors did not indicate so much as a breath of air moving through the tunnels. Maybe they were sealed further down. ‘I don’t trust these schematics entirely, stay alert. He might be hiding somewhere between us, or waiting for …’

A single shot cracked off the high walls and ceiling, and Silchenko’s vitals leaped, then flatlined. ‘Down!’ yelled Vanessa, and hit the platform on braced elbows, then sprayed fire across her most likely guess. Glass panels on intervening platform structures exploded, Yadav’s fire joining hers from above the platform rim. Vanessa pumped a grenade into an elevator for luck, the explosion ripping debris across the platform and rails.

A grenade shot hit the wall opposite Hussein’s position, crouched low on the right-side rails, the blast knocking him over, showering him with debris. Tac-net attempted to trace the grenade trajectory from the angle of the explosion … Vanessa reached a half-crazed decision and shoved herself up into a low run, crossed between two intervening platform structures, and went into a sliding crouch across the tiles to open up an angle on the right-side rails. Something moved lightning quick across the platform ahead, and Vanessa flung herself back, shots cracking millimetres from her nose to shatter glass behind her. She rolled up with her back to the store cubicle before her, surrounded by shattered glass, and heard the next grenade shot a split second later …

‘Down!’ she yelled, and saw the platform just in front of where Yadav was peering over the rim explode in flames and shattered tiles. She sprang up and fired through shattered glass, pumping her own grenades in quick succession, and saw a lean, dark figure somehow, inhumanly leaping and rolling across the platform a few centimetres ahead of her bullet strikes … grenades hit the platform, and blew that view to hell. Vanessa stared through the erupting debris, weapon ready with trembling intensity, waiting for the dark figure to reappear above the rim of the left-side platform where it’d gone … and recalled, in a fractional second’s memory, Sandy’s calm analysis of GI reaction times versus those of even the best humans. She dropped quickly behind cover, just as the next shot nearly clipped the top of her helmet.

‘Major!’ shouted Hussein.

‘No!’ Vanessa shouted as he leaped from the rails onto the platform rim, and ran low and crouched to her position, laying down expert cover fire as he came. ‘Get d-‘

Another shot, Hussein’s head snapped back, and the armoured suit crashed to the platform like a stringless marionette. Vanessa held back a scream, biting down hard to keep the tears from her eyes. Yadav’s vitals were still active, but brainwave activity showed him unconscious. She was dimly aware of Hiraki’s voice, harsh with anxiety.

‘Major, do you require assistance! Should I continue to hold this position!’ Usual strategy was that he would hold that position for her group to flush the target in his direction. He did not have command authority on the tac-net, he didn’t have access to everyone’s vitals as she did.

‘No,’ Vanessa found herself answering. ‘Don’t come down. Stay where you are.’ It was just murder. She knew what would happen next. She couldn’t bear to see her old friend Hitoru Hiraki add his own corpse to the pile. She levered herself up to peer through the shattered glass, rifle ready. She had no vision below the lip of the platform, now. Asking for help to acquire that vision was impossible-anyone who came within line-of-sight of this GI was dead.

She was only a little surprised when she heard the crunch of a footstep directly behind her. She spun, knowing it would be the last thing she ever did … her weapon hit something immovable-a hand, she registered, clamped around the muzzle of her rifle. Another hand smashed her armour in the chest, and she was flying backwards into the wreckage of the platform cubicle, minus her weapon. The remains of the glass wall collapsed on her. And then she was staring up at the dark, leather and synthetic-clad figure before her, clutching her own weapon by the muzzle in one hand, another pointed directly at her face.

Several seconds passed, and Vanessa realised she was still alive. Perhaps there was some use to paying further attention, if just for a few more seconds enlightenment. The GI, she noticed with no real surprise, was female. Broadly built, but of only moderate height. Famil iarly broad, in fact, with shortish blonde hair. So familiar, in fact, that … but a direct gaze at the face dispelled that sudden horror as fast as it arrived-it was a stranger’s face that gazed down upon her, cool and emotionless. A leaner face than Sandy’s. Not as attractive. There was no light in her eye, no familiar, subtle expression. Vanessa sensed nothing of warmth or humanity from her. It was as if the space before her was just void, occupied by a lethal, human shell.

‘Helmet,’ said the GI. The voice was as flat and emotionless as the face. The weapon in one hand gestured at her helmet, wanting it to come off. Vanessa’s hands reached for the seal beneath the chin, moving dazedly, as if on automatic. Snap, and the chinstrap came away, then the breather mask and visor unsealed with a release of pressure. Vanessa pulled the helmet off, feeling her short hair plastered and sticky beneath, cold with sweat in the open air. She disconnected the insert from the back of her head, and felt the flow of tac-net information abruptly cease, all additional visions and patterns vanishing from her mind’s eye. The GI just looked at her. If she was curious or surprised, amused or angry, she gave no sign.

‘Vanessa Rice,’ said the GI. ‘You’re Cassandra Kresnov’s friend.’ Somehow, that didn’t surprise her much either. It wasn’t exactly classified knowledge.

‘I am,’ Vanessa replied, her voice hoarse with defiance. ‘You remember that, just before she kills you.’ For the first time, there was a glimmer of reaction in the GI’s eyes. Perhaps amusement. Perhaps anticipation.

‘I expect she’ll try,’ was the reply. The voice remained as flat as before. ‘You nearly managed today. You’re an excellent soldier, for a straight.’ Somehow it didn’t sound like much of a compliment. The GI walked across crunching glass, and put a foot on Vanessa’s armoured chest, the rifle muzzle held unwaveringly to her forehead. In the armour suit, she might have tried to trip the GI, and wrestle. Except that she’d tried that before with Sandy, in power armour, as had several others who’d dared. None of the fights had lasted more than a few seconds, except when Sandy prolonged them by not trying as hard, for demonstrative purposes.

‘I want you to tell her something,’ the GI continued. ‘Tell her that if she wants to disable the killswitch, she’ll have to contact me. Otherwise it will kill her. It’s just a matter of time.’

‘Not before she gets you, you mechanical piece of shit.’

The GI nearly smiled. Nearly. ‘Her time is shorter than she thinks. I know. Tell her to contact me, or she’ll die.’

The dropping knee-smash, like all the GI’s other moves, came out of nowhere.