Crow looked thoughtful. “Don’t like losing two fighters. We have so few. They don’t even have any mines left in their holds, you know. They are waiting for rotation back to Earth. I’ll send out two new ships to relieve them immediately, with a hold full of fresh mines.”
I shook my head. “We have to know what they are doing, Crow. Can’t you see that?”
Everyone looked at him. He wore a stubborn look on his face. Barrera handed him a mug of coffee, and he sipped at it, not responding. I began to wish I’d waited to kick him out of his office a few days longer. We didn’t need this squabble between the commanders doing us strategic harm.
Crow stared at the screen and sipped more coffee.
“Well?” I asked.
“I’m thinking.”
I took a deep, slow breath. We were both hotheads. Crow gave me time to think about a lot of things, while he drank his coffee. I thought about apologizing. I thought about shooting him on the spot. I thought about unilaterally ordering the ships to press in at Venus—but I wasn’t sure they would do it. Fleet was loyal to Crow. He’d always done his best to hold onto that trump card.
“Look,” I growled at last, when I couldn’t take it any longer, “I’ll give you back this office and fix your ugly orange carpet.”
Crow looked at me smugly. There was a hint of triumph in his eyes that made me want to punch him.
“Very generous of you. But I never liked this orange shade myself. Looked good in the catalog, you understand—I’ve been thinking avocado green, for next time. You yanks like that color, don’t you?”
“We love it,” I said through gritted teeth.
“All right then, Star Force will build me a new building, with a new office and a new avocado-green carpet. All of which will be billed to the Marine side of the budget. Agreed?”
My desire to punch him had expanded. Now, I wanted to kill him. I think Sandra and Barrera did too.
I nodded slowly. I held out my hand to shake. Crow took it warily and we shook.
“But Crow,” I said as he relayed the orders to his ships. “Don’t ever hold my world hostage over something petty again.”
“Wouldn’t think of it, mate.”
He grinned.
-4-
The hours crept by and the mines kept winking out up there around Venus. No one had thought of a good reason for them to do so. Crow’s ships had moved in closer to the field and investigated, but the vanishing mines were down inside the atmosphere of the planet. Venus wasn’t an easy planet to investigate. The upper atmosphere was covered in mocha and cream-colored clouds of sulfuric acid. These clouds blew around the planet at about two hundred miles per hour like a continuously stirred pot. Beneath the killer cloud-cover things became nasty. The surface temperature was a cozy nine hundred degrees Fahrenheit and the pressure was enough to crush a submarine.
I put the entire base on alert and assigned Major Barrera to kicking everyone’s butt into gear. He marched off and I soon heard sirens and pounding feet all around the base. At lunchtime, the group took a break. The truth was we didn’t have much to do until we learned more. Alone in my office, I received a message from the receptionist.
“There’s a young woman here to see you, Colonel,” said the voice. The receptionist wasn’t someone I knew yet, but she sounded reproachful.
I frowned at the intercom. “Who is it?”
“She says her name is Ping. She seems—upset.”
I grimaced, remembering her. Had Crow managed to proposition her already? Sighing, I ordered that she be sent up. After I had done so, I reflexively looked to the window ledge where Sandra had spent much of the morning. She was gone. I shrugged, at least I didn’t have to worry about that kind of misunderstanding.
A few moments later, I heard a loud commotion outside my office door. With my hand on my sidearm, I walked to the twin mahogany leaves and threw them wide. Sandra stood there with an odd look on her face. In her arms she carried what looked at first to be a broken doll. I looked again, and recognized the body. I backed away, despite myself. Sandra advanced. She appeared distraught.
Behind her, the office staff that had survived the morning sweep of lay-offs were ducking under desks and whispering in every cubicle. I slammed the doors and turned to Sandra.
“What did you do?” I asked in a low voice.
“I had to, Kyle. It’s terrible. She’s so young.”
I looked Ping over. Her neck had been snapped. Her long, black hair hung down, almost brushing the carpet. I eyed Sandra, who was looking at the limp form she held effortlessly in her arms. I was reminded of a housecat who has brought a dead blue jay into the house to show it off. At least in Sandra’s eyes there was remorse, not the pride of a hunter.
“Sandra?” I asked, trying to sound gentle. Inside, I was a turmoil. “Did you…did you lose your temper?”
“No, nothing like that. See this?”
Sandra lifted the girl’s shirt. Underneath, strapped around her thin midriff, the girl had hidden a belt of C4 and a blasting cap. I stared.
“Don’t worry, I pulled out the mercury cap,” Sandra said. “It was nothing complex.”
I still stared at the body and the bomb wrapped around her. “What the hell is this?”
“I didn’t mean to kill her, but couldn’t let her get to you. I was watching the entrance. When I saw her come in, I moved on her. I didn’t know if she was nanotized or not. My first blow killed her. I only meant to knock her out, Kyle.”
I looked up at Sandra finally. Her eyes were full of tears.
“Ping was an assassin?” I asked, still trying to grasp the situation fully. “But I talked to her only this morning. Could Crow have ordered this so soon?”
“Who else?” Sandra asked.
I began to pace on the orange carpet, which was now showing many overlapping stains. “I don’t know. It could have been Kerr and his Pentagon boys, making their next move. They tried to take Star Force out last year. Maybe this time, they are taking a new approach. Maybe they want to kill the snake by removing the head.”
“You’re right,” Sandra said thoughtfully. “It could be a lot of people. How could Crow have known you were going to take over his building today? All the records show this girl was just hired. How could he have recruited her so quickly, then sent her after you?”
“He couldn’t have,” I said. “These things usually take significant planning. I think Ping was surprised to meet me in person today, and she wasn’t ready to move. But then she put on her bomb and made the attempt. She had to have support to do this. She was an asset placed here by someone.”
“Maybe she wasn’t just after you, Kyle. Maybe was supposed to kill Crow, or whoever was in charge.”
I nodded my head. Inside, I felt despair. This was just what we needed today. While the Macros knocked on our doorstep again, Earth had sent a fresh round of assassins after us. And one so young and seemingly innocent, too. For a selfish second, I was glad I hadn’t been the one forced to kill her. I looked at Sandra, and I felt for her. I understood her pain. I’d gone through similar soul-searching when I’d killed Esmeralda, an assassin the Pentagon had sent for me a long time ago.
“How did you spot her?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” Sandra said. “I…I smelled the explosive on her.”
I suppressed the urge to react with a look of alarm. I simply nodded. I knew her senses were heightened. In this case, it had allowed her to perform her prime function as my bodyguard. My girlfriend was a freak, but it was best not to think about that. After all, I was something of a freak as well. The differences between us were only a matter of degree.