'All right, tell me exactly what you have in mind and how it will operate.'
Hamilton, FD, Federated States of Columbia, 15/10/459 AC
Carrera wore a suit and tie- God, I hate ties!- and carried an old leather coat over one arm. Unaccompanied, he entered the senator's reception area and announced himself as, 'Patrick Hennessey. I believe I have an appointment.'
'Oh, yes, sir' the receptionist said. 'The senator was very explicit that you were to be given every courtesy and shown right to her office… but…' The girl looked stricken.
'But?'
'She's tied up in a meeting and won't be quite on time. 'Fifteen minutes late, she told me, 'no more.' I'm terribly sorry.'
'That'll be fine.'
'If you will follow me, sir.'
Hennessey followed the receptionist to a tastefully decorated office. He noted the probable expense with disapproval, then chided himself for being a cheap prude. Apparently the senator, Harriett Rodman, felt nothing was too good for her comfort and prestige. In the unreal political world of Hamilton, he conceded that she probably had a point.
When he had asked the attorney, Mr. Tweed, about Rodman, he had answered, succinctly, 'Corrupt, venal, power hungry. She can be bought, however, and for only a modest interest payment will stay bought. There is, after all, Colonel Hennessey, sometimes honor among thieves.'
Hennessey thought, by her description, that Rodman would be perfect. A little money-very little, actually, in comparison to the family trust at full value-and she could be a strong arm at his side, pushing, prodding, nagging and threatening to force the Federated States' military to give things they otherwise might have been most reluctant to give.
He heard a sound from the open doorway. 'Colonel Hennessey!' exclaimed Senator Rodman, almost as if she were truly happy to see him for himself. 'I am so pleased to meet you… and so terribly sorry about what happened to your family.'
Dripping mutual insincerities for the next two hours, Hennessey and the senator worked out a deal favorable to both of them.
UEPF Spirit of Peace
Khan and her husband had asked for a special appointment with the high admiral. Given the offices they held, the appointment had been readily granted. Rather than meet in his office, however, Robinson had, on a whim, told them to meet him on the Peace 's observation deck.
This was a small area, relative to the size of the ship, with a thick, transparent viewing point. Normally, the port was protected by thick, retractable protective shields. Those shields were withdrawn to the sides now, allowing Robinson unimpeded view of the planet slowly spinning below.
Neither Khan nor her husband were privy to the full scope of their admiral's plans and intentions. Some things were better left unsaid, after all. Nonetheless, from the high admiral's questions and interests they'd surmised some important portions of what he wanted, not merely what he wanted to know about, but also what he wanted to happen.
Khan, the wife, began the informal briefing.
'High Admiral, do you recall my saying that the kind of war mattered?' she asked. Seeing that he did, she continued, 'Well, there is a new development down below that might change the nature of the war. Note, please, sir, that I only say it could, not that it will or must.'
Robinson, who had been watching as the continents of Uhuru and Taurus slowly spun by, lifted his eyes from the planet and looked directly at the speaker. She was informally dressed in a long, flowerprinted skirt. Her bare breasts stood out magnificently in the low, shipboard gravity, the nipples pert from the cool air blowing across the observation deck.
A much more attractive view than the cesspool below, thought Robinson. 'What development?'
'One we did not predict and are still investigating,' Khan, the husband, answered. 'There is a force building, down below, that was not in any of our initial calculations. Right now, all we can say definitively, is that it will be about the size of a brigade, that it will be technologically primitive in comparison to the most sophisticated armed groups on the planet, but that it is unlikely to be constrained by the web of treaties and accords your predecessors have thrown up around most of the planet's armed forces.'
'You mean to act like the Federated States?'
'No, sir,' answered the wife. 'We expect it to be much worse than that.'
Interlude
29 July, 2067, alongside Colonization Ship Cheng Ho
The UNSS Kofi Annan adopted almost the same high orbit as the ghost ship, only a touch farther out. This allowed the captain of the Annan to watch as the launch neared the derelict and docked.
'There's still a charge to the batteries, Captain,' the Marine officer in charge of the away party announced. 'The hatch is cycling and… we're in. Good Lord, the radiation is bad! Skipper, this ship is so hot we couldn't even hope to scrap it for a thousand years.'
'Very good, Major Ridilla. Put us on visual please.'
'Wilco.' The Cheng Ho suddenly disappeared from the bridge's view screen, being replaced by the view from the Marine's helmet cam.
'Where to first, Skipper?' asked Ridilla.
'Check out the bridge to the Cheng Ho,' ordered the captain. The image on the view screen wobbled as the Marine walked forward under the small gravity provided by the Cheng Ho 's spin, his magnetic boots gripping the deck lightly.
'Stop,' the captain ordered. 'What's that writing on the walls?'
'No clue, Captain,' Ridilla answered. 'I can't read Arabic.'
'Hold on the image, Major.' The captain looked around the bridge. 'Who can read Arabic?' she asked.
'I can, Skipper,' answered a lieutenant at life support. 'It's from Sura Forty of the Koran. It says, 'Whose is the kingdom on that day? God's, the One, the Dominant!''
'Thank you, Lieutenant. Stand by and give me translations if Major Ridilla finds more. Proceed, Major.'
'Aye, aye, Skipper.'
Time passed slowly on the bridge, with little on the view screen but a trembling image and nothing to hear but the hum of the Annan and Ridilla's labored breathing.
'I've got bodies, Skipper… twelve… no… fourteen. Mostly young but there's one old guy with a beard. The radiation must have killed any bacteria and the cold preserved them.'
The captain ordered, 'Show me.' The image on the view screen twisted down to show the fourteen corpses identified by Ridilla. They were all but one young men, half of them bearded and half cleanshaven, apparently locked with each other in deathgrips at a point where two corridors of the Cheng Ho met. One young man, frozen eyes staring blind at the opposite bulkhead, had managed to sit up before he died. The arms were clutched around a stomach wound and bloody icicles trailed outward from the fingers.
Other bodies, singly and in pairs, dotted the way to the ghost ship's bridge. Most had apparently been killed by cutting or stabbing implements. There were only two obvious gunshot wounds, both of those outside the sealed hatch to the Cheng Ho 's own bridge.
'The hatch is locked tight, Skipper,' Major Ridilla announced. 'We are cutting through.'
'I want the log for the Cheng Ho, Major. I want to know what happened on that ship.'
Chapter Twelve Hardship, poverty, and want are the best school for a soldier. -Napoleon I (Bonaparte), Maxim LVIII
We become brave by doing brave acts, -Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics
I love the infantry because they are the underdogs. They are the mud-rain-frost-and-wind boys. They have no comforts, and they even learn to live without the necessities. And in the end they are the guys the war can't be won without. -Ernie Pyle
Fort Cameron, Centro de Instruccion Militar, 20/3/460 AC, 3:30 AM
A shrill blast of a whistle matched with a sudden glaring light awoke Cruz from a rather pleasant dream of Caridad. She was walking toward him, wearing nothing but an inviting smile…
