“Be my guest. I’ll tell Gifre Zeloc the same thing I told President Andrews, when he demanded something like this. You don’t use a Bolo for crowd control. Sonny isn’t a police officer, he’s a machine of war. There is,” Simon adds with an acid bite in his voice, “a significant difference.”
Sar Gremian pauses, then chooses not to complete the transmission. “Let me try to explain the situation to you, Khrustinov. That mob of protestors outside Assembly Hall has refused to disperse, despite repeated orders to disband. They’ve blocked Darconi Street. They’ve jammed every square centimeter of Lendan Park and Law Square. They’ve thrown up barricades across every entrance into Assembly Hall. They’ve trapped the whole Assembly and they’re blockading President Zeloc’s motorcade. He can’t leave the Presidential Residence.”
Simon shrugs. “That’s his problem, not mine. Madison has an entire police force for this kind of work. There are five thousand police officers on this base, alone, and that doesn’t include the five thousand that have graduated every year for the last five years in a row. If my math skills are up-to-date, that’s twenty-five thousand federal police officers at your disposal. Given the amount of money it’s costing to train, feed, and house them all, I suggest you make use of them.”
Anger flickers across Sar Gremian’s scarred features. “Don’t play games with me, Khrustinov! President Zeloc wants that Bolo,” he jabs a finger in my direction, “to clear out that pack of criminal agitators.”
“Criminal agitators?” Simon asks in a soft voice I have learned to associate with profound anger. “That’s an interesting choice of words, coming from a POPPA social engineer.”
A dark red flush stings Sar Gremian’s face. “You will regret that remark, Colonel.”
“I seriously doubt it.”
Sar Gremian flexes his fingers, clearly struggling to control his temper. He regains his composure sufficiently to return to his original topic of conversation. “Those lunatics are threatening the entire Assembly with violence, over a minor law bill designed to fight crime. President Zeloc has no tolerance for mob rule. That Bolo goes out there now.”
“You don’t get it, do you, Gremian? You don’t use thirteen thousand tons of sophisticated battlefield technology to break up an inconvenient political demonstration lawfully conducted by citizens free to voice their opinions in public assemblages. Those protestors are fully within their rights to refuse to disband. Any order to disband is illegal under Jefferson’s constitution. Using a Bolo to threaten and harass citizens exercising their constitutional rights is not only illegal and a bad usurpation of Concordiat property, it’s a damned stupid stunt. One that will do nothing but damage the government’s credibility and spark a wider surge of protests.
“It might,” he adds in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “even jeopardize passage of a bill you apparently think is a good idea. God knows why, since schemes like that have proven to be totally ineffective at reducing crime on every world humanity has ever inhabited.”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass what you think about crime or credibility! Those are our problems, not yours. You’ve been given an order. Send that Bolo out there. Now.”
“No.”
Sar Gremian breathes rapidly for two point six seconds, then his frayed temper snaps. “All right. You want to play hardball? Here’s a slapshot for you. You’re fired, asshole.”
Simon laughs, which is not the reaction Sar Gremian expected, given the startled expression which flickers for a moment across his face. “You think you can fire me? Just like that? Nice try, my friend, but I’m afraid you don’t have the authority to fire me. Neither does Gifre Zeloc. Nor anyone else on this godforsaken ball of mud. I’m deployed here under treaty. I can’t be removed without a direct order from Sector Command. You’re stuck with me, Gremian. Just as much as I’m stuck with you. I suggest you learn to cope.” The disdain in his final words slaps the president’s chief advisor like a physical blow.
“Then you’ll be fired!” Gremian snarls, “and when you are, I will personally kick your carcass onto the next freighter that docks at Ziva Two. And you can forget about obtaining exit visas for your wife and kid!”
My Commander’s face turns white in a single heartbeat. Not with fear. Simon is angry. Angrier than I have seen him since we entered battle on Etaine. The look he bestows upon Sar Gremian would melt steel. It sends the president’s advisor backwards a single step.
“If you do anything to or against my family,” my Commander says softly, his words hissing like plasma through a gun barrel, “you had better watch your back for the rest of your natural life. Never, ever fuck with a Brigade officer, Gremian.”
Shock explodes through Sar Gremian’s eyes. I surmise that no one in his cumulative experience of life has ever delivered such a message to him. As the shock fades, fury erupts in its place. He snarls a curse and snatches at the snub-nosed handgun concealed beneath his coat. I snap to Battle Reflex Alert before his fingers have finished closing around the grip.
Every prow-mounted weapon on my turret tracks his motion. Gun barrels spin with a blurred hiss in the echoing space of my work-bay. I lock on with systems active, all of them flashing proximity-threat alarms. Blood drains from Sar Gremian’s pitted face. He freezes, involuntarily loosening his grip on the pistol. He stares up at my battle-blackened gun snouts. Sees in them his own imminent death.
I break my long silence.
“Your actions indicate an intended lethal threat to my Commander. My guns are locked and loaded. I have your brain case targeted in my fire-control center. If you draw the pistol in your hand from its shoulder holster, you will not survive to make the shot.”
Sar Gremian stands motionless, a wise decision for a man in his situation. I detect a stream of liquid registering ninety-eight point seven degrees on the Fahrenheit scale, trickling down his left trouser leg. I surmise that he has never before been this seriously frightened.
“I would suggest,” Simon tells him softly, “that you take your hand out of your coat. Very, very slowly.”
The president’s senior advisor complies, moving his hand in quarter-of-a-centimeter increments until it dangles, empty, at his side.
“Very good, Gremian. You may just live to see the sun go down, tonight. Now take your sorry ass out of my sight. And don’t ever come back.”
The look of malice he sends my Commander tempts me to fire, anyway. This man is dangerous. It would satisfy me to remove the threat he represents to my commanding officer. In the absence of a clear and immediate danger, however, my software protocols do not permit me to act. This gives Sar Gremian time to organize his retreat. He turns on his heel and stalks out of my maintenance depot, slamming the door back with the heel of one hand. An odiferous yellow puddle remains to mark where he had been standing. His lackeys scurry after him, one of them skidding through the mess. The other plows into the door frame in his zeal to exit as rapidly as possible.
Then they are gone and silence rolls like thunder through my maintenance bay.
“Sonny,” my Commander says softly, “that man will not rest until he takes an ugly kind of vengeance. Lock onto the ID signals from my comm-unit and Kafari’s. Yalena’s, too, if you please. Those three ID signatures are the only ones authorized within one hundred meters of my residence. Until you hear differently, monitor all three data signals at all times and report any clearly lethal threat within the same one hundred meter radius.”