27

Batsal Tapadia’s party turned out to be the smallest and lowest-key of the events that Kira was dragged to over the next week. It seemed like every major business leader in the Samuels System wanted to show their support for the woman of the hour and the mercenaries who’d saved them all.

Kira knew the drill, though, and she played along. While keeping the Quorum and the general electorate happy wasn’t part of her contract, she knew perfectly well it was part of her job. In any democratic society, the government had to have faith that enough of the population supported the deployment of mercenaries to keep the contracts intact.

It was still a relief to receive an invite from a name she knew: Doretta Macey.

“Any details on her invite?” she asked Smolak.

She’d coopted the coms officer as her planetside secretary and aide—and given that the assignment came with a suite on the penthouse level of the Quaker City Pahilō Hōṭala, if one shared with Jess Koch, Smolak wasn’t complaining too loudly.

“Cocktails and live music in the garden of the Quaker City house of a Mr…Broderick,” the lanky green-eyed coms officer told her. “Emilio Broderick, significant minority shareholder and board member for Macey Industries. Widower, three teenage daughters by his late wife.”

Smolak’s gaze was fixed in the mid-distance, ignoring the luxurious furnishings of the penthouse around them as she scanned Bennet’s news feeds.

“Business news has him as Mrs. Macey’s usual proxy on the Macey board,” she continued. “Political and personal allies, though the chairperson is Roy Macey, her eldest son.” Smolak paused. “It does not look like the younger Mr. Macey will be at the party, but about half of the board is on the list I have access to.

“So are several key members of Samuels-Tata,” she noted.

“Security?” Kira asked. After a week of parties on Bennet, she could guess the answer.

“Exists,” Smolak said drily. “Mrs. Macey having spent time with us, she had her staff actually include the details with the invite. Mr. Broderick has a relatively standard executive home-security system. Perimeter sensors and exterior cameras linked to a third-party response agency.

“He has also contracted with said third-party agency to provide a discreet perimeter patrol unit for this event, four officers.”

“Four,” Kira echoed. “Which is, I believe, three more than the next-best security I’ve seen at one of these events.”

Smolak chuckled.

“I’ll pass all of that on to Milani and Jess,” she promised. “I do have to note, boss, that Deception is supposed to leave on patrol six hours before the party. If you’re attending, Captain Mwangi will be deploying without you.”

“Captain Mwangi and Commander Cartman are capable of handling a three-waypoint patrol without me,” Kira said. “I’m keeping his chief engineer and XO anyway, since Commander Bueller is buried in datawork at Samuels-Tata’s head office.”

She’d seen her boyfriend awake for roughly two hours in the last seven days. While his dedication to the tasks set in front of him was always hugely valuable, it was also occasionally frustrating in more ways than one.

“I should probably be reporting back aboard myself, though,” Smolak pointed out. “I can swap out with Ronaldo. I’ll fill him in and he can play aide as well as I can. So can Jess, for that matter.”

“Fair,” Kira allowed. She’d probably done her bodyguard slash steward a disfavor by using anyone else as a secretary at all. “That’s your call, Commander. For myself… Well, let’s inform Mrs. Macey’s people that I’ll be there. And then Milani and Jess can sort out how they’re going to back up those four hapless security guards.”

* * *

“I understand, in theory, where these people are coming from,” the armored mercenary told Kira with a sigh. The digital dragon on Milani’s armor was currently sitting on its tail, glaring at the Admiral with crossed arms.

“At the same time, they have a bad habit of drastically understating their own domestic crime rate,” they continued. “Their violent crime rate is unusually low, but their property-crime rate is actually slightly above average for the Rim.”

“Which is why someone like Broderick has sensors and alarms but not armed guards,” she replied. “They know their own environment, whatever line they like to talk for public consumption.”

“And they have zero consideration for the possibility that Colossus has infiltrated covert teams of any kind onto the planet,” her senior ground commander grumbled. “My math says that something like twenty percent of the board members of the top five space industrial companies on the planet is going to be at this party.

“That’s a hell of a strategic soft spot.”

“And that’s why I’m telling you twenty-four hours in advance,” Kira noted. “You have permission to move armored troopers around so long as we don’t spook people or abuse the privilege.

“We want to watch our own backs, but I’m not going to mind if we help protect the senior leadership of the companies building Samuels’s new nova fleet at the same time!”

“Of course, of course.” The red dragon uncrossed its arms and did a triple back-flip while shaking its frilled head at Kira.

“I’m just…professionally offended,” Milani admitted. “I look around Bennet and I see so many points of vulnerability that the locals don’t seem to recognize. It’s a blind spot that Colossus is going to ram a fucking nuke through if this war goes on for long.”

“Planet full of pacifists,” Kira reminded them. “Not every last one of them, no, but it’s a strong value of multiple cultures that make up major sections of the population. It’s hard to see military vulnerabilities when you don’t think in terms like that.”

“Yeah, well, their enemies do,” the merc said. “They are, thankfully, keeping an eye on the most recent imports from Colossus, but there were a lot of people going both ways for a long time.”

“That’s part of why their leadership never really considered a war as likely.”

Kira shrugged.

“Plus, downside of direct democracy. The Ministries needed to convince a majority of the planetary population the threat existed. Easy now, but…harder before Colossus moved.”

“Well, my job is mostly to make sure you survive the party,” Milani told her. “So, you wear the armored dress uniform, you understand?”

“Yes, Milani,” she said meekly. “This one feels more dangerous because of the other attendees, right? Too much potential value for an attack.”

“Exactly,” they confirmed. “If you are the target, any party you’re at becomes a vector. But if Colossus is trying for the most bang for their buck, knocking out a chunk of the leadership of the companies building warships…”

“I mean, are the companies really going to suffer for losing their boards?” Kira asked. “They aren’t the people holding wrenches and torches. They aren’t even the ones leading building teams or coordinating logistics.”

“It depends on who replaces them,” Milani said. “I don’t know what the split on Samuels-Tata’s board was on whether they should get involved in building warships…but I doubt it was unanimous.

“This isn’t a place where people are going to be overly willing to get blood on their hands for money.”

Kira sighed her agreement.

“Fair. I’ll keep my eyes open and my ears wide,” she promised. “I’m in the middle of this war, ‘getting blood on my hands for money,’ but I don’t plan on dying for it.”

“Good. Because I won’t let you,” Milani stated firmly.

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