Chapter 19

Dakota came in looking upset. When they were both working through mundane paperwork it was unusual for her to get up from her com console and interrupt Heather. She usually just stacked messages in their order of importance for Heather to work through as she saw fit. Even an emergency would just get tagged as such with red lettering at the head of the list if not life or death. Years ago, Dakota had been something of a drama queen and Heather had welcomed her slow conversion to a calmer demeanor.

“The Gammans have gone nuts!” Dakota proclaimed.

All of them?” Heather asked. Gamma had the smallest population of the three habitats and the highest proportion of recent Earthie emigrants. However, a general psychosis seemed unlikely unless somebody put drugs in the water supply.

“Franklin Abel just declared he is annexing the middle latitudes of Mars between your territory and Jeff’s. Is that nuts enough for you?” Dakota asked.

Heather blinked slowly, trying to assimilate why he would do that.

“This is the same fellow who tried to call their assembly to complain we kidnapped him and ruined his business when we saved their butts?”

“I sincerely doubt they have two Franklin Abels,” Dakota retorted. “He has a net presence on Gamma and posts heavily every day about their removal to Mars, the evils of the Martian government, and what he regards as the European conspiracy to prop up the Martian regime. He hints darkly that they have no word back from Home and Beta so there is no proof they are even where we claim they are. He preaches that we’ve destroyed their businesses but Central is still sitting pretty as he puts it, unaffected.”

“Preaches?” Heather repeated.

“You’d understand if you watch one of his posts. He sounds like a very strident preacher giving his congregation a good talking to because he’s terribly disappointed in them.”

“Do we have archives of Gamman net traffic since they were moved?” Heather asked.

“Sure, memory is cheap. It just gets recorded with the speed of light lag now.”

“Compose a sample of his posts,” Heather ordered. “No more than a half-hour long. I’ll look at those before I make any decision.”

Heather looked back at her screen, the matter dismissed from her mind for the moment. She had plenty of other matters that needed her attention and was too disciplined to let one distract her from giving each her full thoughtful consideration.

Dakota froze for a second, well aware she was dismissed. She hadn’t realized she was asking for a judgment. She thought of saying that and it sounded stupid even to her. Heather would ask why she brought it up if she didn’t want it fixed. She looked over at Gunny sitting reading a book and found him staring her in the eye perfectly poker-faced. He knew she’d set something in motion but wasn’t giving any clue if he approved or not. She left before Heather noticed her unnatural pause and asked if there was something else.

* * *

“Home control this is the experimental vehicle Twool, Lee Anderson commanding. We are out of Derfhome port. Requesting entry to your control volume and short-term docking to pick up a couple of passengers.”

“We have no active traffic for twelve minutes Twool. You don’t appear on our registry. Do you wish to start an account for docking fees or pay cash?”

“This is April Lewis, Spox for the Sovereign of Central. Add Lee Anderson to the Central sovereign account for any vessel she is commanding.”

“Recorded. Please use port five on the north spindle flashing blue. I have a note twenty minutes old that your passengers are waiting at the north hub. I will advise them to proceed to hatch number five for pickup.”

“That’s nice of you. Thanks. Oh, my goodness. Look at the size of the Out o’ My Way,” Lee said. “How do you dock something like that? The docking grapples will pull the spindle over to it instead of pulling it down tight to the spindle.”

“Very carefully,” April said. “You use a flexible tunnel and the ship keeps station actively the whole time it is attached. They’ll undock and transfer cargo directly to a shuttle. One little bump and they’d have a thousand solar bill for busting the spindle.”

“Don’t talk to me for a minute,” Lee said. “I’ve never docked this tiny thing and I’m paranoid enough about that to dock in slow mode and watch carefully in case I need to manually abort.”

“Roger that,” Jeff agreed and shut up.

“Perfect,” April said after the grapples gripped with a clunk.

“Alonso is really good, and the docking collar is a standard design with published specs. I’m sure he just paid the license fee and gave the fabricator a file. Still, he had to integrate it into the design and wire it up correctly. His regular fab shop has likely made them before but I don’t think he has ever built anything with one before.” Lee said.

“He doesn’t build spaceships?” Jeff asked.

“He does now,” Lee said with a big smile. “His usual work is to build one-of-a-kind sports planes.”

“That is impressive,” Jeff allowed.

“My ears popped. Our pressure is matched,” Lee said, swallowing. “Let’s open up before they start beating on the hatch.”

Lee swung up the deck plate that let them walk over the belly lock door when the car was parked on the ground. She locked it in place and checked the pressure gauges and indicators carefully – with extra care because they weren’t wearing suits. There was no test hole with cock and wire so she bumped the lock hatch button briefly making it open a crack in the middle. There was no violent airflow, so she held it down a little longer until it opened about a quarter meter.

The docking collar indicators were painted green on the end and retracted flush to the ring when the grapples were fully engaged. All six were properly flush. The station hatch was a scant millimeter away to minimize air loss. Lee flipped the long lever over that unlocked the station hatch from their side.

The second officer of the Out o’ My Way, Jack Souza, was standing with his toe in a take hold and the two Earth envoys beside him. The lady was copying his foothold but he had a hand on the man’s waistband indicating he needed some help. Souza’s eyes were looking past them in their lock but shifted back to them pretty quickly because there wasn’t anything to see. All three had their heads pointed the same as Lee but opposite of Jeff and April. The Earthies quickly looked uneasy dealing with somebody upside-down to their experience. They couldn’t read facial expressions that way.

“Jack,” April said nodding. “Lee Anderson, Master of Twool, and our ride today. Jack Souza, Second Officer of Out o’ My Way.

“Mr. Souza,” Lee said.

“Ma’am,” Jack said and inclined his head.

April turned her attention to the Earthies.

“I’m April Lewis and this is Jeff Singh. We are peers and Voices of the Sovereign of Central. We came along to introduce you to our friend and ally, Lee Anderson. She heads the Exploration Society Protection Registry.”

That gave Lee a little jolt. She had to control herself not to suck a deep breath. They had never referred to her as a friend. She sternly reminded herself that didn’t mean the same thing with them it did with her Badger friend, Talker. She allowed that to reach her face and Sousa noted and looked concerned at the change.

Lee got her face under control and nodded at them.

“I’m Jean Navarre, representing France and my associate is Kamala Naidu for India,” he said. “We have credentials if you’d like to examine them, but Heather Anderson didn’t bother past ascertaining we were actually associated with our governments.”

“Maybe later,” Lee said. “Not because I suspect you are some strange multinational diplomatic conspiracy. I’m just curious about what forms they follow. Why don’t we go ahead and board and let Mr. Souza get back to his ship?”

“Thank you. If you are done with me then?” His eyes checked April and Jeff too.

“Unless you’d like a receipt for them,” April quipped.

That hit his funny bone. “I should take it for a novelty, my Lady.” He left smiling.

“I tell you what,” Jeff said after it was fumbling and awkward getting the French fellow through the hatch. “Just fold your arms across your chest with your hands tucked in and cross your ankles. Pretend you are a statue and I can handle you much easier that way than trying to explain what to do.”

That worked marvelously.

The ladies hung back and Lee caught Kamala looking amused.

Jeff put Jean in the front seat and strapped him in. That made sense rather than needing to get Kamala past him later. He looked around and stared at the planet overhead through the big bubble canopy. It was a fantastic view.

“Get the deck plate secured over the docking collar, would you Jeff?” Lee requested.

“Are we taking this to a shuttle?” Jean wondered, looking over at Lee strapping in.

“This is my lander and my auxiliary to my diplomatic courier the Kurofune.”

Jean looked seriously dubious but said nothing.

“Docking port is secure,” Jeff called from the rear.

“Home control, Twool has concluded her pickup and is ready to depart. Uploading flight plan. Are we clear to depart your control volume?”

Twool, hold five minutes please, for a departure. Ma’am, my computer is alerting me your flight profile is unusual. Are you aware and do you need to hold to review and amend?”

“No, thanks for your caution. This is an experimental vehicle capable of the filed plan. May I ask if you are sharing traffic control with Derfhome station?”

“Derfhome station is acting as the planetary traffic control and we forward all departures to them. They only advise us if there is a conflict, but it is still necessary to contact Derfhome control for a station-to-station transfer.”

“Thank you, Home control.”

“Our traffic is clear and you are released. Be careful out there.”

“Always Home, thank you.”

There was a muffled clunk and they were undocked.

“These double seats are kind of nice,” Jeff said.

“You behave back there!” Lee said a little louder than necessary.

There was giggling but Lee couldn’t tell if it was April or the Indian lady.

Nobody talked much with such a view. Lee made a call after a bit and asked Strangelove to have Alonso and his men pick the Twool up at the hotel. That was in Derf, too, and she didn’t bother to translate.

“Derfhome air traffic, Lee Anderson commanding Twool. We are turning on our transponder that reads Alonso Air and descending from station-controlled space to normal flight status over Derfhome City. We intend a vertical landing at the Old Hotel. Please advise us if you are conflicting traffic.

“Well clear but sweet Mothers’ mercies, what are you flying girl?”

“My auxiliary to the diplomatic courier Kurofune. Talk to Alonso and maybe he’ll build one for you. The Derf is an artist.”

“That he is but I’m hoping to one day be able to afford one of his two-seaters.”

“Fortune Freight, departing the port south if you are through chatting,” a voice said.

“Clear of you too. Apologies for the chatter,” the other flier said.

All that was in Derf so her new passengers didn’t follow it. Jeff and April followed the translation on their spex but said nothing.

“The Derf don’t conduct air operations in English?” the Frenchman asked.

“No, I know that is irregular but there is no governing body,” Lee explained. “The Mothers would have to declare a law to establish it and few clans have any air traffic in and out. Few of the early fliers spoke English so they use their language. It’s worse than you think. They don’t have controllers. They just follow what Humans would consider visual flight rules and informally advise each other where they are on approach or when ready to take off. We did just get admonished for being too chatty on the radio, however.”

“Then traffic must be very light,” Jean concluded.

“It is and it’s a race whether it will be English controlled or AI that can handle multiple languages by the time it is congested enough for this not to work.”

Details of the city were coming into focus as they descended.

“The roads…” Jean said.

“Yes?”

“None of them are straight.” he objected.

In the back, Jeff just laughed.

* * *

“I am irritated,” Heather announced.

Dakota was regretting she’d said anything.

“I need a ship. But they are all terribly busy and have backlogs of action or tired crews already asked to do too much. I can’t effectively inquire of the Gammans with a radio lag. It even ruins the flow of a conversation using a jump drone to relay messages.”

“If you have a pilot, the Hringhorni left the Remora off to help transport Home and has not been back to reattach her,” Dakota reminded her.

“I should have learned to fly her myself,” Heather said.

“Well unless you intend to learn this afternoon, you better get a pilot,” Dakota said.

“Who is available?” Heather asked her, but she was putting the list up on the screen even as she asked.

“Your brother just got in from Oasis and is off duty while his ship loads for his return trip,” Dakota pointed out. “He hasn’t flown the Remora but my understanding is there isn’t all that much difference between them.”

“The jump controls are the same,” Heather said. “Docking should be easier. Tell Barak to confirm the Remora is ready to lift and have his butt sitting in her hot to lift in an hour.”

“Since I precipitated this may I ask what is happening?” Dakota asked. “What are you intending to do about this Franklin Abel?”

“I viewed the samples you provided of his net postings,” Heather said. “The man is a demagogue. He only has a couple of hundred people who follow him and comment on his posts. Those are his hardcore fans if you will, but the numbers show a lot more lurk to see what he is doing. People have taken over countries from much smaller starts. Having a core like that gives him a tool to intimidate others. Especially because I don’t see any organized opposition. I intend to ask Gamman security why he has such influence. He’s said a lot of untruthful things about their rescue and Central. I intend to call him on it.”

It was easy to forget Gunny was there until he spoke.

“If you mean you will call him out please don’t endanger yourself. I trust your judgment if he’s a danger to Central. Just give me the nod and I’ll take care of it for you.”

“Who said you are even coming along?” Heather asked.

“You accepted me here,” Gunny said. “Are you telling me it’s safer at Gamma? If you think that, you need to wait a day to give yourself time to chill and think about it, because your emotions are making you stupid.”

Heather glared at him but didn’t say he was wrong.

“You can come, but I do not intend to call the man out,” Heather said

“Great,” Gunny said marking his book and closing it. “Tell me if you change your mind.”

* * *

The Hotel had a lovely apron between the street and the front doors laid in square granite pavers. As soon as they came to rest the doorman opened the hotel entry and four Derf came out. Lee exited the vehicle last and was consulting with three of the Derf while one attached himself to Jeff like a shadow.

Jean turned around and looked at the car from the outside for the first time. It was hovering off the pavement silently with no exhaust or spinning propellers. Kamala was admiring the Twool too but Jean was bold enough to go push on the side of the car. It yielded slightly for a couple of centimeters and then pushed back far harder than he could resist to its original position.

When Lee turned away the three Derf climbed in the car. Jean thought the entry hatches were generous, but now he saw why. They were snug for Derf.

“OK, tell me how the Devil it works.” He seemed a little angry about it.

“It’s magic,” Lee assured him.

That made Jean’s face cloud up even more.

“That’s an advertising slogan, not an explanation. They use it for meaningless adjective-fillers like the magic of cheese!”

Kamala had her hand over her mouth. It hid the smile but not the laughter.

“Oh Jean, can you really explain most of the things we use, like how a starship jumps or a pad does calculations? It is magic to us.”

“Yes, but although I am not a physicist, neither am I a primitive to disrespect,” Jean objected. “It offends me even more, that my veracity software says she believes that tripe better than halfway. I’m not asking for drawings and specs, just a general statement like – It’s antigravity.”

“Or an incantation to repeat?” Kamala teased him.

“I do not want to make you my enemy,” Lee said. “I’ll tell you one small secret that you didn’t earn. We don’t have the damnedest clue how it works.”

Jean looked incredulous.

“How can that be?”

“Do you think that when Ogg brought fire back to the cave from a lightning strike he needed a detailed concept of chemistry and oxidation before he could use it to stay warm? Well, our Ogg found some stuff that lets aircars float,” Lee said. “Since we don’t understand it, I’m not going to lie and make up some technical sounding nonsense. It would just be another word for magic.”

“My apologies for my temper and thank you for explaining it,” Jean said.

While they were speaking the aircar turned from deep glossy red with vivid flames tipped with tinges of yellow and blue to a pale blue on the bottom shaded to almost black on top. It lifted slowly a few meters and then with more authority. When it was a couple of hundred meters overhead it was almost invisible, just a blurry spot in the robin eggs blue sky. Then it was gone.

Jean lowered his gaze from watching it disappear.

“If you were trying to impress me, it worked,” Jean assured Lee.

Jeff and April watched all this with interest but no comment.

“Are you coming back up with us?” April asked Lee.

“No, I’ll see that the hotel takes care of these two and I’m done for the evening,” Lee said. “The food was pretty much gone so I bet everybody left by now.”

“Except Strangelove,” he’ll be waiting to resume guarding me,” Jeff predicted.

 

 

* * *

“Mr. Oliver, Heather Anderson just called on com and said to inform you she wishes to have a word with you. She asked rather rudely why your com address isn’t in the public directory. She signed off before I could explain why it is the security department policy.”

“Thank you, Helga. Forward it to my message queue and I’ll pop an answer back to her in a couple of minutes. I’ll give her my private address for her to reply. The lag is long enough a few more minutes won’t matter.”

“No sir. I mean that she is at the dock and coming to the office to speak with you right now. She didn’t even ask if you were here, just said that she was coming up.”

He paused. Oliver’s voice wouldn’t betray his concern if you didn’t know him as well as Helga did. She could hear he was rattled.

“OK, ask John Weaver to come to my office as quickly as possible and let me know when Ms. Anderson arrives,” Tod Oliver said.

Helga called John and then pulled out her private phone and called Frank Abel.

“Frank, you should know the Queen of the Moon is on the way up to talk to Tod, and he doesn’t seem thrilled about it. He called in John.”

“Why would he do that?” Frank asked but the tone was sarcastic.

“Because he’s terrified of her?” Helga asked back.

“I doubt John will shoot her for him,” Frank said.

“Wouldn’t that be embarrassing if he asked and was refused?” Helga said.

“And I doubt he’d stop her from shooting Tod. His being there is kind of useless. I’m thinking about it. I may just happen to show up needing to talk with Tod too.”

“You think this is about you?” Helga asked.

“Oh, for sure. About my notice to the Martians. She needs the Martians for her land deal and for Singh’s land purchase to have any legitimacy.”

“Show up and I’ll send you right in,” Helga promised.

“He might still fire you for that,” Frank warned her.

“Oh, boohoo. You’ll take care of me in a couple of weeks and we can’t let her derail the Martian takeover. Whatever she says in there he’s too spineless to resist her.”

“OK, but just forget to relock his door when she goes in, not unlock it for me. The log will show it was just a mistake not a deliberate action.”

“Smart. That will only merit a warning on my record,” Helga said “After all the whole thing is out of the ordinary and upsetting. No wonder I’m distracted.”

Frank just chuckled, amused, and ended the call.

When Heather walked in the door there was fire in her eyes and Helga was jolted. Not by her but by the large humorless man behind her wearing two Singh pistols with the grips sticking forward from under his embroidered vest. The hood thrown back on his shoulders indicated he was wearing Lunar armor beneath it all too.

“Ms. Anderson?” Helga squeaked. She immediately hated how it came out. It betrayed her anxiety when she wanted to project calm.

“No, the frigging Easter Bunny, fool.”

“I’ll tell Mr. Oliver you’re here,” Helga said and managed a closer to normal tone.

“Don’t bother, I’ll tell him myself,” Heather snarled.

When she slapped the door pad it was locked.

She stopped for a full two seconds frozen in disbelief at the arrogance of it.

“He is not playing dominance games with me,” Heather declared. She retreated even with Gunny to be safely out of his way. “Gunny, remove that door for me,” she said pointing if he hadn’t figured out which door she meant.

“That’s a high-security door,” Gunny pointed out. He visibly had a thought and looked over his shoulder. “That’s interesting. They don’t put her inside a security door,” he said nodding at Helga.

“Well, if you can’t kick it down, and you didn’t bring breaching charges, burn it.”

“OK,” Gunny said agreeably and pulled up his hood. “You might want to wait in the corridor, my Lady. There’s going to be quite a bit of molten steel spraying around.”

“No, no,” Helga said suddenly. “I’ll unlock it,” she said scrambling on the desk for the release.

“That’s smart,” Gunny said. “No telling how much damage would happen behind it.”

The was a solid >chunk< of six big lugs retracting.

Gunny held a forestalling hand up and stepped forward to open the door himself. He drew a Singh pistol, slapped the same pad Heather had and the door retracted to each side. He stabbed the tab to keep it open and stepped in the opening far enough to check both walls each way before he holstered the pistol again.

“Clear,” he informed Heather.

Oliver was staring at them with his mouth hanging open.

Heather squeezed past Gunny and planted herself in one of the two large, comfortable chairs facing Tod Oliver’s desk. Gunny went to the side and stood with his back against an ornamental bookcase, where he could see both of them and the entry.

“Start explaining what’s going on here you little weasel,” Heather demanded.

“Is that any way to treat a trusted ally?” Oliver asked. He was projecting anger, but it was stage anger, and his body language was shouting he was scared stiff and it was bluster.

“Central stopped being your ally when the North Americans made us disperse the habs for survival,” Heather informed him. “Once you couldn’t call an Assembly and have all three habs linking in a common session with a short lag, you were on your own. Each of you now has to see to your own futures without a common location and circumstances. If you haven’t called a new Assembly and started to iron out who you are and what you are going to do yet I have to ask, why? You might gain ally status with me again. Proximity isn’t an absolute requirement. Even distant Derfhome is now our ally. But making war on your neighbor who hasn’t done any aggression towards you isn’t a great start.”

Franklin Abel appeared at the door, glanced around the room, and seeing Gunny spoke before he entered. He judged it was past pretending he just happened by.

“I heard that,” Franklin said. “I believe this involves me. I sincerely believe no violence will be necessary. The Martians have no ability to resist any outside force. That’s why you and Singh extorted the majority of their territory from them so easily. I’m just picking up the scraps of territory you and Singh didn’t bother with taking yet. You are just pretending there is still any real Martian government to lend legitimacy to your claims.

“If I did make war on them that’s certainly nothing you, Singh, and Lewis haven’t done to the Chinese, North America, and everybody who supported the UN in trying to evict you from the heavens. The Assembly of Home never told you to curtail that.”

“You haven’t waged war on the Martians because your shiny new ship hasn’t been delivered,” Heather said. “If they don’t yield you will. It’s still a coup of aggression if they do so out of fear. So, why did you announce your annexation now, before you have the means to enforce it?” Heather asked.

John Weaver belatedly showed up behind Frank and cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, old man. I should be in there.”

“Both of you come in,” Oliver insisted.

Franklin took the other seat uninvited, which said a lot about their relative status. John looked a little lost then assumed a position opposite Gunny at a sort of parade rest.

“It seemed good to put them on notice and give them some time to come to grips with the reality of the situation. It avoids them taking foolish actions in the heat of the moment like they might do knowing I have a lander,” Frank said.

“And it is better to do now than waiting a few days until my transport arrives to remove those who want to be repatriated to the Moon or other habs,” Heather said. “If you called your Assembly now, there are quite a few people in residence who would censure you. I expect very few will be coming here when it is uncertain where you’ll end up and you have no superluminal transport of your own. The brightest and wealthiest, who would oppose you if they had to stay, will be leaving in a few days.”

“We have nobody like Muños, well known and trusted to run the voting,” Oliver said. “I have no political ambitions and no authority to call an Assembly or create any political entity. I’ll keep public order and serve whoever can muster a consensus.”

“Certainly not you,” Heather agreed. “This one will wait to do that until the Martians have yielded, having no other choice. You have far more newly arrived rich people steeped in Earth Think than Home, used to coups and waiting to see how things shake out. Feeling they can’t abandon their cubic that took the most of their fortunes to acquire. They’ll favor anyone who promises stability.”

“Why would it matter about the Martians?” Oliver asked.

“Are you really that dumb?” Heather asked. “Mr. Charisma here has a few hundred people that follow him on your net. That’s not enough to vote themselves into power. Not even enough to intimidate a large majority. Once he has control of Mars, he’ll declare that being neighbors you are naturally a single political entity just like the three habs were when they were close together. I can think of a dozen ways to sweeten the pot to convince enough of your people to accept that. Land grants, promising Mars will be a market to the businesses that suddenly have none. Just the ability to go visit a planet and stand under a sky even if it does take a suit. He may even float some idea about terraforming it that the gullible will buy. That on top of intimidation if they don’t go along. Then, he will have doubled his force of bully boys, because the Martians are a bunch of fanatics who are accustomed to following orders and currying favor with authoritarians. At that point, they will be a good third of your population and he will have performed a reverse annexation, Mars absorbing you.”

The look Oliver was giving Frank said he was that stupid and had never seen the whole picture before Heather spelled it out for him item by item. Well, he got it now. Unsaid was that Frank, fully in power, would want his own, wholly-owned Head of Security. He figured that part out all by himself.

“Even allowing that everything you said should come to pass,” Frank said. “If we are all independent, and have no common Assembly, what business is it of yours? Is Gamma not free to pursue our own governance and do what is good for us?”

“You mean good for you. You are destabilizing what small accommodations we have remaining with the Earth powers,” Heather explained carefully. “They see Spacers as a group and the Martians exist with the approval and support of the Europeans. You will tie Gamma to Mars which was never our intent when we parked you here temporarily. I see that was an error now. If you stay in the Solar System the burden of protecting you is on us. The way you do business you will eventually piss off some Earthies. They will remove you with a gravel storm just like North America tried on us. You can’t protect yourselves.

“While we are at it, I’ll mention your ingratitude for saving you from being killed and your lies about my motives and goals in doing so. I should put you back by Earth so you can have the joy of them as neighbors again or drop you off at a distant star where you can scrape along to survive until you can feed yourselves and develop a star drive.”

That idea visibly rattled Oliver and his man John, but Frank didn’t twitch.

“I think about my words, and I never spoke against you. I do object to Central gaining advantages from our misfortune. If nobody steps up to provide a plan and leadership for Gamma I may have to do so,” Frank said, spreading his hands like the matter was obvious. “You should be happy to have somebody to deal with and not an unorganized rabble who can’t even get it together to call a local assembly. I’m rational. You can deal with me.”

“I’m not a weak-minded idiot. You will never be happy with Gamma and the Martian Republic. You won’t be satisfied until you have the rest of Mars and by then you will be a threat to anyone wanting to tap other resources of the Solar System like the minor bodies and the moons of the gas giants. Your thoughts were not deep enough to see you can’t divorce what you say about Central from me. I am Central,” Heather said simply.

“Nevertheless, there’s nothing you can do about it,” Frank insisted. His manner abruptly was no longer supplicating or conciliatory. His voice had a rough contemptuous edge to it. “Are you going to declare war on Gamma? Are you going to punish our entire population by snatching us away in some sort of exile? I don’t think so. It would be political suicide. You’d make all the other habs and not a few worlds scared you would intervene the same way with them any time you fancy it.”

“True,” Heather said, letting the word hang there. She drew fast as a snake and fired before Frank had time to look surprised. The beam flashed the room bright briefly and caught him high on the chest. The dull >POCK!< of expanding steam tipped him and the entire chair on its back. Behind where her shot penetrated both Frank and the chair-back, a glowing yellow hot spot on the bulkhead quickly faded to a burnt gray scar.

John bent his arm a little, and locked eyes with Gunny who didn’t so much as blink. He foolishly ignored Heather who could have targeted him with a slight turn of the wrist and slowly relaxed his arm back to the rest position rather than die.

“Sorry for the damage,” Heather said. “He was right. If I let him go ahead there was no way to stop the progression of events he planned. The price in chaos and conflict down the road would only get worse steadily. But the other habs and planets won’t give a damn about one power-hungry low life being removed from the game today.”

She got up to leave and stopped at the door.

Don’t make me come back to sort things out again,” Heather warned them.

They were shaken beyond responding but that was fine. It wasn’t a request.

Helga was clutching her chest sitting shaking all over when they walked past.

“She was complicit you know,” Gunny observed in the corridor.

“Yes, she had to have called him in. He got there too fast,” Heather agreed. “It doesn’t matter. The rest of his mob don’t really matter now. They’ll break up into factions without one forceful leader. If anybody stood out as a possible replacement Frank would have removed them by now. He understood the way that works.”

“As promised, you didn’t call him out,” Gunny said amused. “He had no idea that removing him directly was a possibility.”

“As Heather, I couldn’t have considered it, but as the Sovereign, I had no other choice.

I have the obligation of self-preservation for my nation far more than just myself.”

“Much more so,” Gunny agreed. “I’m sure you saved hundreds if not thousands of lives back there. If you stayed your hand to allow it to become a contest between nations that would have been a very poor and false morality.”

A few people passing them in the corridor registered shock and shied away or hurried on. Heather couldn’t figure why. Word couldn’t have gotten around that fast and if there had been a general com alert their spex would have told them.

When they opened the hatch to the Remora, Barak was revolted too.

“What happened to you?” he demanded of his sister.

Heather was embarrassed to realize she was running on far more adrenaline than she realized. She took off her spex she hadn’t even noticed were speckled and looked down the front of her white tunic that was now pink.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was close to a person who exploded.”

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