gargoyle.
“Is there an investigation going on yet?” I asked.
Sandra nodded. “Barrera put himself in charge of it. He’s going through the regular base staff to see what they know. These men came in from a ship, supposedly to seek a job here on the base. They were on the first supply boat from Miami after the Macros retreated over the ocean.”
I tried to get up and Sandra blurred closer in immediate response. I looked down in surprise. Her hand was on my chest, and she was crouching over me on my medical table. Three whipping arms rose up, startled. They reached out tentatively and tapped at her calves. She ignored them.
“Don’t get up yet,” she said sweetly.
“You can’t push me around like this when I’m wearing my battle suit,” I grumbled.
“Well, you’re not wearing it now. You are weak, Kyle. We gave you a fresh dose of nanites while you were out. But they have to learn your body and grow accustomed to it.”
I thought about that. It was a strange thought. I felt a little bad that millions of tiny robots who’d been my friends, swimming in my body for years, had all died. I had new nanites now, but somehow it wasn’t the same.
“I want to know who did this,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” Sandra said, “I do too.”
“Go get Barrera,” I said. “I want to talk to him.”
“I’ll call him for you,” she said. “But I’m not leaving you again.”
She kissed me then. My lips were sore for some reason, but hers were soft and insistent. I enjoyed the kiss and the tingling burn she left on my lips when it was over.
— 28
With a fresh shot of nanites I began healing very fast. After two days, I was as good as new except for a few deep scars.
I examined myself in a mirror on a Tuesday morning. I tapped at raised, red seams of crusty flesh on my back where the skin hadn’t quite regrown yet. The recovery had been nothing less than miraculous. I reflected upon how quickly we’d become accustomed to the miracles of the nanites.
If anything, these new nanites were working faster than the old ones. It made sense, as the nanites must cease working now and then. They might run out of power, or become damaged, or simply wear out. Over time, there would be fewer and fewer in a man’s system to do the needed repair work. I was sure my men wouldn’t be happy about it, but they should really have a booster-shot of fresh nanites every year or so. I thought I might have to institute a system of medical nanite replacement, where my marines would have to undergo an oil change, so to speak, periodically.
My body was functioning again. I was whole and strong, but my mind was unhappy. I couldn’t get certain questions out of my head. Who was behind these two attacks, and why? Ping had tried it first with a sweet smile and a bomb. The second pair had been more direct and urgent. It seemed obvious my attackers had had some kind of internal help. How else could men fresh on the base have found my tent, set up a sophisticated trap within it and nearly murdered me all within a single day?
Barrera’s investigation turned up very little. It was too bad Sandra had killed the pair so effectively, instead of capturing them. I couldn’t blame her for that, however. I would have done the same if the situation had been reversed. We’d identified them as ex-members of the KCT-Dutch commandos. Their government claimed they were mercenaries now, and claimed they knew nothing about it. Strangely enough, I believed them. The Netherlands had no cause to go up against Star Force. It would be a senseless, suicidal move for them. Therefore, someone else had to be behind the attempt.
And that was the bad part. The worst thing the assassins did to me was make me doubt my own people. The injuries were healing much faster than the loss of trust. After the second attack I began going through a list of likely suspects in my mind over and over again. I couldn’t help it.
Topping the list was General Kerr and his Pentagon crew. I’d asked them to hold back when the Macro battle fleet arrived. Maybe someone up there on the Potomac River didn’t like that. The Americans had made a few plays to kill me in the past. I still recalled hugging Esmeralda, their failed assassin, as she died in my arms. She had been the first human I’d killed up close and personal. Prior to that, I’d shot a few enemy insurgents back during my brief tour of the Mideast, but they’d died a hundred yards away from me. Fighting to the death hand- to-hand with a woman wasn’t the same.
Kerr and his crew had sent Esmeralda after me, and then they’d sent troops to Andros to take out Star Force the following year. Maybe these attacks were their latest attempts. The possibility could not be ignored.
Next on the list was fine, old Admiral Crow himself. Sure, he was off hiding in his ship behind the Moon right now, but that didn’t give him an airtight alibi in my book. Hadn’t we come to blows just days ago? There had been more than one fight between us that had become physical. The whole attempt seemed overly-sneaky for Crow, however. He tended to move on me very openly when he did it. He would lose his temper and take a swing at me-assassination through third parties had never been his style. He’d never worked through go-betweens, preferring to come at me man-to-man when the mood struck him. In a strange way, I respected that trait. Still, it was impossible to leave him off the list.
If it wasn’t Kerr or Crow, the list became much longer and more disturbing. One of my own marines? Another party I’d yet to identify? One of my officers, seeing their chance to move up the ladder? It could be anyone in that case.
After I’d showered and dressed, I took a deep breath and headed toward the new headquarters building. I was still thinking about my mental list of suspects, and it wasn’t getting any shorter.
The new headquarters building was much less imposing than it had been. Gone was Crow’s four-story castle. Instead, the Star Force command center had been reborn as a single-story structure. It was flat and thickly-built with walls of nanite-coated rubble. Most of the structure was underground now in a deep, anthill-like bunker meant to defend us from another aerial bombardment. The building on the surface served primarily as a secure entrance.
I saw Sandra as I approached. She lifted a hand to wave at me. She was crouching on the low roof of the headquarters bunker, leaning over the entrance and scrutinizing everyone who passed through. She’d been worried about my safety before, and now she was absolutely paranoid.
As I walked through the doors, she hopped down and joined me, matching my measured step. We were going down to a staff meeting to review the state of our defenses. I figured the Macros would assault us within the next week. They would only wait long enough to mass up sufficient forces to overrun the island. Fortunately, we were preparing as well and had a few surprises in store for them.
Nanotized marines didn’t really need elevators. Since they tended to break down under heavy bombardment, we didn’t bother to build any. We walked down steep stairs that rang metallically as my foot touched down on every riser. Each set of steps ended in a long hallway, followed by another stairway. Behind me, Sandra watched everything except me. She watched the ceiling, the floor-even the walls themselves.
Sandra appraised every door that opened as we approached with intense suspicion. Often, when a staffer popped out into the corridor, he was startled when Sandra appeared in his face. Moving with uncanny speed, she placed her body between me and the stranger. The staffers never complained, however. They froze in place, eyes wide, until I passed and Sandra stepped away. They eyed her knives and her steely gaze. They knew how fast she could move, and they didn’t want to end up with their heads bouncing on the metal floors of the corridor due to a misunderstanding. Freezing was the safest move.
As we walked, I kept thinking about the assassination and who was behind it. As annoying as it was, the situation had to be dealt with. Who could it be? In an attempt to make myself feel better I decided to mark down names I did trust. Sandra headed that short list, of course. She had a nightly opportunity to kill me, and if she had wanted the job done it would have happened long ago. Kwon was on the no-way list as well. He’d had just as many chances as Sandra over the years, and he was almost as protective of me as she was. Besides, he simply lacked the imagination to cook up a complex plot like the EMP blast I’d dealt with. There were a few loyal officers I
