stalling me and switched to whispering warnings into their phones instead.
I reached for Crow’s office door, which was a good twelve feet tall and built of fine island mahogany. The golden latches twisted before I could touch them, and the stately doors swung open to reveal a sumptuous interior. There was orange carpet underfoot, thick and soft. Fan blades shaped like palm fronds spun overhead. A massive desk built of rosewood filled the center of the room.
There, standing in the middle of it all, was Crow himself. His blue eyes were open wide, as were his grinning lips. He had a sunburn and his reddened face made the whiteness of his big square teeth all the more noticeable.
“Come on in, Colonel!” he greeted me, waving me forward with a sweep of his arm. “I hadn’t expected you would be done with your holiday so soon, but I’m glad you’re back.”
I nodded, accepting his lie, and walked into the office. A few women with long dark hair and navy-blue business skirts swarmed quietly at the threshold behind me. Their eyes darted and they whispered to one another in hushed excitement. Crow shooed them back and closed the massive doors in their faces.
I stood with my hands on my hips, admiring his office. “Nice flat you’ve got yourself here, Jack,” I said.
His face puckered just for a second, then smoothed back into a smile. I knew he didn’t like it when I ignored his title of Admiral, but I didn’t care.
“Glad you could drop by. You should build yourself a better building. I know a few architects. Everyone swears they’re the best in the hemisphere.”
“I noticed,” I said, “and that brings me to the reason I’ve come.”
I tossed a sheath of paper on his huge desk. The desk was so big the folder looked like a snowflake on a football field.
Crow picked through the printouts, frowning at them. “Spreadsheets?”
“Yes, budgets. Fleet is sucking up all the accounts. I don’t know how that got started, but it’s going to stop today.”
Crow worked his mouth for a second, but nothing came out. Then he got his bearings again. I figured he was out of practice at the art of dealing with me. For months, everyone around here had been his frightened yes-man.
“I’ll see what I can do about that, Kyle,” he said. “I’m sure we can come to some arrangement. Possibly, a bump up is in order for the Marines. Your side of the house took a beating out there. You’ll need to rebuild.”
I nodded slowly, staring at him. He bent over the papers, took out a pencil and made some adjustments. The pencil scratched briefly.
“Yes…I’ll cancel the officer’s private stadium. That’s a morale-building project, you know. Plenty of my mates will be disappointed, but we have to keep our priorities in order.”
I shook my head slowly. “Fifty-fifty,” I said.
He blinked at me, and cocked his head to one side. “I don’t quite follow you there-”
“Oh yeah, you do. Fleet gets half of all incoming funds and the Marines get the other half. That’s it. End of story.”
Crow flashed then, as I knew he would eventually. The man had a temper, and I was surprised he’d managed to keep it under wraps for this long.
He sprang at me. It was sudden, almost thoughtless. His eyes were bulging in his head like boiled eggs. He didn’t punch me, he extended a single finger and poked me with it. My chest muscles tightened, but that only made my ribs hurt more. I whipped up my hand, grabbed his wrist and twisted. He went down on his face.
He bounced back up. I stood there, staring at him. My eyes were slits and my mouth was a tight line. His nose was bleeding, probably from hitting that gaudy orange carpet with excessive force. I was bleeding too, from the hole his finger had punched into my chest muscles.
I crossed my arms. He took a deep breath and crossed his. He laughed suddenly.
“Same old shit between us,” he said. “Two alpha dogs, only one pack.”
“Right,” I said, “but you’re all done humping my leg.”
Crow nodded. “Okay mate. You win. Seventy-thirty. I’ll write it up today. There will be a lot of damage, a lot of good projects cancelled, but Fleet will survive.”
“Fifty-fifty or we go for it right here,” I said.
He took a step toward me and I thought he was going to punch me this time. I wasn’t really in good enough shape for a brawl. My bones weren’t completely reattached in places. But I was ready for it anyway.
Crow stopped with his bloody nose no more than six inches from mine. “You’ve got the biggest pair, mate. You know I’ve always admired that about you. But do you know where you are, my man? Do you know how many armed men I have in this building?”
Crow was escalating. I blinked in mild surprise. I hadn’t been sure he’d go so far, not over a few percentage points on a budget. Maybe he thought this conflict between the two of us had been inevitable. I’d come to that conclusion myself, while laying in my hospital bed reading reports for days. Maybe he’d figured out he might as well go for broke right now, and determine who was going to run Star Force once and for all. He’d probably enjoyed ruling Andros single-handedly while I was gone. It was natural enough for a man like him.
“You just blinked, Kyle,” Crow said, his mouth twitching. “Yeah, I saw it. You’ve overplayed your hand by coming here.”
Over the years, I’d come to understand Crow’s behavior patterns. The man was quite predictable. When he saw weakness, he lunged. When he saw strength, he pulled back and bided his time. It was time to show him strength.
I pointed calmly to his desk. “You’ve got security systems in this mahogany aircraft carrier of yours, don’t you?”
“You bet I do.”
“Use them. Check your cameras.”
He walked around his desk warily, keeping his eye on me. We could both move very quickly with our nanite-enhanced bodies. In less than a second of distraction, either of us might be able to launch a preemptive strike against the other.
Crow tapped his desk, and the top of it lit up. I was impressed. I’d been fooled into thinking it was real mahogany, but the surface was essentially only a wood-grain screen-saver. A dozen views from every floor flashed up on the desk. I understood instantly why the desk was so big. It was actually his observation system.
Crow sucked his teeth. He didn’t say anything for a moment. I glanced at the scenes displayed in a score of boxes on his desk. In most of them, one of my marine’s in combat gear stood in front of one of his lackadaisical guards. My men were wearing battle armor and goggles. They had beamers pressed up against the throats of his men, who hadn’t bothered to fire a shot. There was no point in using bullets on my marines. It would only piss them off and possibly result in death for the shooter. A few of my boys waved at the camera pick-ups that were placed all over the building.
I pulled out my com-link. Sandra answered immediately.
“You need me inside?” she said.
“Come on in, but take it easy,” I said.
Sandra had never been good at taking it easy. The roof above us tore itself apart. An explosion of white plaster dust, insulation and wires fell into the office. Fortunately, only sheetrock and a single rafter fell, and they didn’t land on Crow’s desk. It would have been a shame to ruin it.
Sandra was a strange combination of chief bodyguard and girlfriend. She’d been altered more than anyone else under my command. She had not only been nanotized, but upgraded by an intelligent race of microbiotic creatures as well. Unfortunately, the microbiotics had all died tragically. Otherwise, I might have been able to upgrade all my marines in a similar fashion.
She sprang out of the dusty mess and moved in a blur. An instant later she stood atop the desk. She had both her arms operating again, but I could tell the right one was still healing. After all, she’d had it torn off less than a month ago.
She carried twin knives in her hands instead of guns. Two combat knives with molecularly-aligned, carbon blades. She’d used the blades to claw her way through the ceiling. A shaft of sunlight came beaming down through the haze of plaster dust, turning the floating motes golden.
