"She's right," Metternich said quietly. All eyes swiveled in his direction, and he snorted. "Come on! All of you know that as well she does! We're Recon, remember? Who always gets handed the dirty end of the stick when some League neobarb gets a wild hair up his ass, or some bureaucratic puke from Out-Worlds screws the pooch? You mean to tell me you've all been over the river and through the woods as often as I know you have without learning how many ways the politicos can fuck up?"
"Well, yeah, Sarge," Gregory Hilton said. "But, I mean, he is the Planetary Governor. Doesn't that mean he can shave the rules, even bend them a little, if that's what it takes to get the job done?"
"Of course he can," Metternich agreed. Alicia watched him, trying not to look wide-eyed. She was surprised at how bluntly the sergeant appeared prepared to speak his mind about the Empire's appointed governor for Gyangtse.
"The point, though," Metternich continued, "is that he's supposed to do it to 'get the job done.' And also that there are some rules he's not supposed to bend, ever. You know how thoroughly it's pounded into our heads that we don't negotiate with terrorists. Never. Oh, sure, we do it anyway, in a sense. But there's a difference between trying to talk a bunch of terrorists holed up with a batch of civilian hostages into surrendering on the best terms they can get and sitting down to talk political deals with the bastards! And that's supposed to be just as true for a planetary governor as it is for a Marine first lieutenant."
Several other Marines were looking at Metternich as if his acid tone had surprised them almost as much as it had surprised Alicia. Leo Medrano, she noticed, was not one of them, and she felt an inner chill at the realization that the two men she had decided were Third Squad's most thoughtful observers felt nothing but contempt for Governor Aubert.
No, it's worse than that, she thought. They're not just contemptuous. They're worried. They think he's going to be one of the politicos who 'screw the pooch.' And Grandpa wasn't too happy about my getting sent out here, either, now was he?
She finished cleaning the trigger group, set it aside, and picked up the bolt, and her brain was busy.
Namkha Pasang Pankarma smiled for the cameras in front of the Annapurna Arms Hotel with a pleasure he was far from feeling, as he stepped out of the first of the three ground cars into the brisk autumn morning. Gyangtse's news media was scarcely what he considered a standardbearer for freedom of the press. Too many of the local newsfaxes and public news channels were owned by members of the planetary elite for that. Their editorial staffs-to their credit, he supposed-made no real secret of their own biases when they pontificated on local politics and events, but everyone pretended that they at least tried to be neutral in the way they reported those events.
Pankarma was willing to concede that at least some of the street reporters tried to be neutral, but it would have required something very much like a miracle for that effort to succeed. And miracles, he thought, were in short supply upon Gyangtse these days.
Nonetheless, the newsies had turned out in strength to cover this series of private discussions with Planetary Governor Aubert. There was a lot of speculation in the editorials, and it was even possible some of the newsies covering this meeting actually believed something might come of it all. At any rate, it was incumbent upon all of the participants to pretended they believed it.
So he stood there, smiling and waving through the blustery gusts of wind, while Chepal Dawa Nawa and the rest of his delegation followed him out of the ground cars. Although he was the one who'd suggested to Ang Jangmu that she not be a member of the delegation, Pankarma still missed her presence. Nawa had been with him almost as long as she had. His seniority had made him Pankarma's second ranking lieutenant, and the GLF founder had no doubts about the man's loyalty and determination. But for all his many virtues, Nawa was a plugger, not really a thinker, and he lacked Thaktu's quick, alert intelligence.
Still, it wasn't as if it were going to matter. Pankarma had come to the conclusion that Ang Jangmu had been right from the beginning. This entire meeting was nothing more than a bit of political theater, something Aubert had arranged because he expected it to benefit his own political agenda.
"I think that's all of them," Lieutenant Salaka said softly. He was speaking over a secure landline link, but he kept his voice down anyhow, as if he thought Pankarma might somehow overhear him.
"You think that's all of them?" Captain Chiawa repeated from his command post.
"I mean, it's the right number of bodies," Salaka replied a bit defensively. "I can't see them all that well from here. You know that."
Chiawa rolled his eyes, then made himself inhale a deep, steadying breath. Salaka, he knew, hadn't been any happier about drawing this assignment than he'd been himself. Unfortunately, Brigadier Jondgomba had been willing to call up only two companies for the operation, and Colonel Sharwa had decided that Chiawa's company deserved the chance to show its mettle as a "reward" for Chiawa's alertness during their last disastrous exercise against Major Palacios' Marines. Personally, Chiawa suspected that it was also a form of punishment for what those same Marines had done to his company despite his alertness.
"I realize you may not be able to see their faces, Tsimbuti," the captain said after a moment, his tone much more relaxed. He even managed to inject a little humor into it as he continued, "On the other hand, we're supposed to get this right, and I'm sure the Colonel will be grateful if we manage to pull that off."
"I know," Salaka said. "All I can tell you for sure, though, is that the right number of people got out of the cars. They're headed into the hotel now, and the cars are pulling off towards the parking garage."
"Understood."
Chiawa nodded, even though there was no way Salaka could possibly see the gesture. The militia captain's belly muscles tightened as he felt the moment rushing towards him. A part of him-most of him, really-was eager. Pankarma and his lunatic fringe followers had caused enough grief for Karsang Dawa Chiawa's planet, and for him personally. Their boycott had cost him business, making it harder to put food into his own children's mouths, and if their constant prattle about "the armed struggle" ever amounted to anything, guess who they'd be actively shooting at? Besides it was one of the militia's job to suppress criminal activities, wasn't it? And decapitating the only organized association of violent felons opposed to Gyangtse's Incorporation into the Empire obviously fell under the heading of suppressing criminals, didn't it?
The one question in Chiawa's mind, the concern that awoke a tiny kernel of internal doubt, was the way they were doing it. Gyangtse was a planet where people who gave their word were expected to keep it … even when they gave it to criminals and traitors.
None of which mattered very much at this point, he reflected. He sat for a moment longer, then nodded to his communications tech.
"Send the execute," he said.
"Yes, Sir!" the corporal said crisply, and keyed his microphone.
"All units, this is the command post. Execute Scoop," he said clearly. The transmission went out over the militia's radio net, because it simply hadn't been possible to establish landline connections to all of Chiawa's people.
"I say again," the corporal repeated. "Execute Scoop."