Singh leaned back a centimeter in his chair. “Criminal elements? You mean he was corrupt?”
“It’s not unusual on this side of the gate,” Tanaka said. “And it makes the investigation more complicated than I’d like. Add to that, he appears to have purged several caches of data he still had access to and inserted false entries into what we have got. And Langstiver and his little friends aren’t going to be questioned by anyone but God at this point.”
“But you’ve found the network they were using.”
“One of them,” Tanaka said. “There may be others. Part of the problem is that Medina wasn’t run as a military installation. There were—and probably still will be—competing levels of culture and infrastructure. Controlling the official channels is trivial, but even the officials were using additional undocumented frameworks. It’s not like the locals have to create ways to get around our surveillance. All those ways were built in before we showed up.”
She lifted her hands in a shrug. Singh had a stark flashbulb memory of Kasik, and with it a powerful, all-pervading dread. In his imagination, Nat and the monster were looking at a picture of him with blood spilling down his chin. It wasn’t the prospect of his own death that brought the flush of rage. It was how cavalier Tanaka was being with them.
“Well, we’ll have to address that directly, then,” Singh said. “Mandatory curfews and roaming checkpoints will be a start. And restrict the station security forces to quarters until they can be interrogated and evaluated for service. And I’ll want a list of anyone who might pose a threat moving forward for precautionary monitoring. And … hm. Yes, and coordinate that through the Gathering Storm. If we can’t be sure the local system’s clean, we should use our own. The most important thing is that the systems on the Gathering Storm not be compromised.”
“I’ve already set up an encryption strong room,” Tanaka said, nodding without seeming to agree. Her sigh was like grit on his skin. “But you want to be careful about a crackdown, sir. Especially this early on. It could send the wrong message.”
“The wrong message,” Singh repeated, stretching out each syllable into a question and a confrontation.
“Belter culture and identity is built around pushing back against authority. This is what that looks like in practice. We knew something like this was possible, and—”
“We did?” Singh said, his voice sharp. “We knew that, did we?”
Tanaka’s eyes flattened and her lips thinned. “Yes, sir. We did. It’s why I had a fire team with you at all times. And, respectfully, it’s why you’re alive.”
“Pity there wasn’t one for Kasik.”
“Yes, sir,” Tanaka said. The languor in her tone was gone. She had the tightness in her voice that said that at last she was taking him seriously. “I’m sorry to have lost him. But that doesn’t change my assessment. Bringing Laconian focus and discipline to Medina Station and the other systems isn’t a matter of imposing our customs and rules on them.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that.”
“Our discipline is ours, sir. The same actions can have different meanings in different contexts. What would be routine back home would seem draconian here. Anything harsher than routine will read as a wild overreaction. I believe the high consul would agree that underreacting to this would be a more persuasive show of authority.”
Singh stood up. He hadn’t meant to, but the need to move, to occupy the space inside his office, was suddenly overpowering. Tanaka stayed still. Her expression was like someone tracking a target on a firing range—focused, but emotionless. He walked to his sideboard and poured himself a drink since his aide wasn’t there to do it for him.
“It’s an interesting perspective, and I can respect it,” Singh said. “But I don’t share it. You have my instructions.” The alcohol was sharp and strangely acrid in his mouth. His gut rebelled a little at it. He swallowed anyway, trying to enjoy the bloom of warmth in his throat. Kasik had had a better hand at this than he did.
“Governor,” Tanaka said, not standing. It was the first time he could remember her using the title. “I strongly urge you to reconsider this. At least sleep on it before we implement it.”
He turned to look at her. He imagined himself as she saw him. A young man, off Laconia for the first time as an adult. Having been the target of enemy action for the first time. Seeing an unplanned death by violence for the first time. He must seem shaken and weak to her. Because as much as he hated the fact, he did feel shaken and weak. And naked before her implacable and judging gaze. She thought he was being irrational. Letting his fear make his decisions.
And if he changed his course now, it would prove her right.
“Respectfully,” Tanaka said, “as your head of security and a woman with a lot of years of experience in her bag? This isn’t a set of orders I can support.”
Singh took in a long breath between bared teeth. His gums went cold with it. Whether he was right or wrong didn’t matter now. He was committed.
“Your second is Major Overstreet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Please send him in on your way out. You’re relieved of your command.”
There it was in the flash of her eyes and the lift of her chin. The contempt he’d known would be there. Giving in to her would only have helped cultivate it. Tanaka had never respected him. She thought herself better suited to make the policies of governance than he was. It didn’t matter whether she was right or not.
She stood wordlessly, braced, and stalked out of the room. He more than half expected her to slam the door as she left, but she closed it gently. He finished his unpleasant drink in a gulp and went back to his desk.
The alcohol did what it was supposed to do, taking his too-sharp mind back just half a degree. Letting him relax, just a little bit. He wouldn’t have another one.
He pressed his palms flat against the surface of his desk, feeling the little bite of cool fading quickly. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Then again. When his calm was more or less reestablished, he opened his personal log and reported his decision and the reasoning behind it. Visible weakness to my chief of security undermines confidence in the chain of command. Tanaka’s expertise is admirable, but her placement on Medina proved unsuitable. Recommend her without prejudice for more appropriate duty.
Hopefully his superiors would approve of his actions. If not, he’d know soon enough. It was done. Time that he got back to work. He felt better now. More centered. More nearly in control. It had been a bad day. Maybe the worst he’d ever suffered through, but he was alive and his command was intact. And it was just a bad day.
He opened a fresh message, flagged it for immediate delivery. For a moment, he felt the impulse was to send his first message home to Nat. To be with her even if it was only a little bit. This attenuated, one-way presence would be better than nothing. But it would wait until he’d done his duty. Duty always came first. He routed the message for the Tempest instead of home.
“Admiral Trejo,” he said into the system’s camera. “I am including preliminary data provided by former Medina Security Chief Langstiver and confirmed by my own staff—”
His own staff meaning the dead man. Meaning his first sacrifice to the empire.
“Ah. Yes. Confirmed by my own staff concerning an unexpected side effect of our actions while securing Medina Station. If command agrees with my assessment that this windfall provides a significant defense and is willing to position a ship equipped with a USM field projector permanently to the ring space, it is my belief that the timetable for further occupation can be moved up considerably. If the Tempest adopts a more aggressive schedule, the local forces in Sol system will have a considerably reduced period to prepare defenses. We can have absolute control of Earth and Mars in weeks.”