“
“It was a huge story for a while, and my parents suggested that I might consider going off to college somewhere far away from there. I saved them further mortification by joining the Guard. I finished my schooling in my off time, and went through this course myself only two years ago. Then…” She hesitated, taking another sip of wine. “I was on Kali when the Moro People’s Army attacked the capitol at Pithapuram.”
“Blood of the prophet,” he shook his head. “That was a nightmare.”
“Only four of us survived,” she said softly, staring somewhere past him. “We held out in the armory for three days until reinforcements arrived.”
“Well, I suppose that answers why you are here,” he raised an eyebrow. “Yet, I wonder, Alida, whether anything we can teach them will be enough.” Seemingly casually, he glanced around at the dark, cozy restaurant, its walls decorated with colorful mosaics. There were only a few other people eating and they all seem deeply involved with their own conversations. “Things are bad out there, and they are going to get much worse. O’Keefe is a bloody fool, and our troops are going to be the ones to pay the price.”
“So you are not a fan of the new emigration policies, Mo?” She asked him, her mouth curled into a sarcastic smirk.
“History shows us that revolutions happen in times of increased expectations. That moron is creating the perfect atmosphere for revolution, and then trying to tie our hands and keep us from preventing it. And it’s not just the colonies I worry about,” he expanded. “Without the ability to remove troublemakers and provocateurs from the population, we will be faced with violent uprisings right here on Earth, the same sort that led to forced exile in the first place.” His expression grew dark. “I tell you truly, Alida, I feel that our whole civilization is in danger of burning. And I do not know what I can do to stop it.”
“You are not the only one who feels that way,” she said quietly, eyes flickering to meet his as she hid her mouth behind a sip of wine.
“I am certain of that,” he shrugged. “But unless they wish to get drunk together, I do not see what good it does.”
“You should talk to them,” she suggested. “Then you can judge what good they can do.”
“If you think well of them, I would be happy to, of course,” he said, trying mightily not to show the eagerness he felt. “Though I should tell you, I have little experience speaking with politicians.”
“These men and women are not politicians, Mo. I think you will find them easy to relate to. But I will tell you more once I have had the chance to talk to them. For now…” She cocked her head to the side and grinned. “The night is young. Let us speak of more pleasant things…”
Ari felt his heart beat a bit faster as she laid a hand on top of his.
There were some advantages, he realized as he grinned back at her, to being married to your job…
Chapter Six
Shannon Stark stepped out of the flyer and onto the soft loam of the clearing. The valley and the lake at its center were remnants of the glaciers that had swept through northern Minnesota 12,000 years before, but the cabin and the dock behind it were more recent, dating back only three hundred years. The bass boat floating next to the dock could have been a year old or a hundred… the design for such things didn’t change much. The man dressed in casual clothing, fishing off the dock could have been from anytime in the three hundred years the cabin had existed, though he had definitely changed in the years she had known him.
Glen Mulrooney still had the same wavy, blond hair and the same youthful look to his rounded, pleasant face, but that face seemed less driven than when she’d first met him and more at peace with himself. As she came closer, Glen reeled in his line and dropped the pole into the boat, then turned and strode over to meet her.
“Hey Shannon,” he smiled, taking her hand. “You’re looking good.”
“So are you, Glen,” she said. “Nice place you have here.”
“Isn’t it?” He looked around, as if appreciating it himself for the first time. “Val loves bringing Natalia out here… there’s no roads, no one around for a hundred miles.” He laughed. “I’d never gone fishing before, you know that?” His eyes went thoughtful. “I wonder how many people go fishing. Probably not a lot… most people live their whole lives in the cities.” He shook his head clear. “But I don’t think you flew out all this way to talk about fishing.” He waved at the cabin. “Let’s go inside.”
The interior of the cabin was more modern than the outside; a full holographic communications hub occupied one corner, appropriate for the getaway vacation house of a Republic Senator. Glen gestured to the kitchen table and sat across from her. Running a hand across its smooth surface, she noticed that it was real wood.
“Val said you wanted to talk someplace private,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anyplace more private than this.”
“I’ve had people investigating the rumor Val told us about,” Shannon began without any further preamble. “But it’s brought up some questions… some things that need to be looked into. But I can’t do it, and neither can my people, not without raising some red flags.”
“So you want me to do it,” he deduced. “All right… what is it?”
“Vice President Dominguez. If they want to take out your father-in-law, there has to be a reason. Unless they expect things to be different if Dominguez is in charge, it doesn’t make any sense.”
“You think he’s involved?” Glen seemed surprised.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “The alternative is, they have something on him they think they can use to control him. Either way, we have to know.”
“I don’t know him that well,” Glen said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “But I know President O’Keefe trusts him. They’ve been friends for years.”
“Can you do some digging for us? Or is this too high up the food chain? I don’t want you or Val to get burned in this.”
“I’ll dig around the edges, see if I turn up anything that could point toward him being compromised,” Glen said, wheels turning behind his eyes as he spoke. “There are a few journalists I could talk to, people I trust, that have systems for connecting this kind of thing. That way, if something does pop up, Dominguez couldn’t keep it quiet just by… silencing me.”
“Glen,” she shook her head, “if you think you’ve gone too far, back off. You have your family to think of. Ask your journalist friends, but that’s it… keep your involvement in this untraceable.”
“I’ll stay quiet,” he assured her. “I wouldn’t do anything to put Val or Natalia in danger. Besides,” he shrugged, “it might all turn out to be nothing.”
“Let’s hope. If you find out anything and need to reach me, send a message to this address… let me see your ‘link.” He handed the device over and she tapped a name into his address book file. At his raised eyebrow, she chuckled. “It’s safer and harder to trace than if I’d sent you the name electronically.”
“Well, you’re the spymaster,” he shrugged, pocketing the ‘link. “So, tell me… how are you and Jason doing?”
“Great,” she sighed, “except for all the time we have to spend apart. But that’s just part of the job.”
“You two ever think about having kids?”
“We’ve talked about it. But we’ve both agreed we want to wait until we’re ready to retire from the military. Having both your parents shipping around different star systems for months at a time is no way for a kid to grow up.”
“Somehow I just can’t imagine you retiring, Shannon,” Glen laughed.
“I expect to live a long time,” she grinned, knocking on the wood of the table, “barring enemy action. People change. Ten, twenty years down the road I might be ready to change diapers and read stories.”
“Well, don’t wait
“People never change, Captain Al-Masri,” Colonel Lee Jun-hwan declared forcefully, punctuating his statement with a jabbing finger. “Daniel O’Keefe was a bleeding heart populist as a senator, before the war with those Russian
