“I’m not sure what I should do,” Jasmine admitted at last. “I have my orders-but you make a compelling argument. You always do.”
I smiled slowly. “Welcome to one of the secret hardships of command. Sometimes, the path is not clear-or there are several reasonable options. It’s your job to choose one and stick with it. You have to display conviction. The troops have to believe you are sure of yourself, even if you’re not.”
She looked at me. “That’s the thing about you, Kyle,” she said softly. “Somehow, you are always self-assured. You always proceed without the slightest doubt.”
“That’s a combination of a character flaw and an elaborate fiction,” I said. “It’s true, I choose a path and follow it tenaciously, but I’m not always sure it’s the right one.”
Her eyes narrowed and she squinted at me. “You fake it?”
“Sometimes,” I said, shrugging.
She snorted softly and smiled. It was the first honest smile I’d seen on her face for months. I had a thought then-a nice thought. I considered reaching out my hand and clasping hers. I’m an impulsive guy, but I made no moves. I just returned her smile with one of my own. We both sat quietly for a few seconds, enjoying the moment.
At that point, the ship’s inner wall melted. We both looked up in surprise. My surprise changed into shock as I saw who stood there in the opening. The nanites in the smart metal didn’t see too happy, either. The intruder moved faster than they did, not allowing them time to get out of the way. They moved in dribbles and slagged away from an outstretched, thin-fingered hand that punched its way through them.
The figure was female, and she advanced into the room so quickly the nanites didn’t have time to dissolve completely. They stretched over her like a bubble-which quickly popped and sent bits of semi-liquid metal everywhere. It looked like a shower of mercury. The beads of nanites quickly found their brothers on the deck of the ship and merged together, smoothing out.
The wall closed behind her again, and she loomed between us at the head of the conference table. She placed her palms flat on the table and suspiciously eyed each of us in turn.
“I couldn’t take anymore whispering and giggling,” she said. “I could hear you right through these thin nanite walls, you know.”
“Sandra!” I said, standing up. “I had no idea you’d come on this trip!”
I was honestly glad to see her, even if she was in one of her jealousy-fueled moods. She looked at me with pursed lips and narrowed eyes.
“You didn’t think I’d let Jasmine come out here to see you alone, did you?”
“Of course not,” I said, laughing nervously.
Jasmine didn’t make eye-contact with either of us. I sensed these two had endured a tense voyage on the way out from Earth.
I stepped to Sandra and attempted a hug. It was like hugging a manikin at first. She stiffened and I felt nothing but her bones and hard muscles. After a second however, she softened a little.
Internally, I complimented myself. I was very glad I hadn’t grabbed Jasmine’s hand.
— 29
The conference shifted into a three-way affair after Sandra joined us. She sat with her eyes flashing back and forth. She didn’t talk much, but she didn’t have to. As always, it was easy to tell what she was thinking.
“Well, Rear Admiral,” I said, “have you made up your mind yet?”
“No,” Jasmine admitted.
“What do you plan to do then?”
“I’m going to give you some time,” she said. “I’m going to observe and help if needed. I’m going to investigate the situation for a few days.”
I smiled. I couldn’t help but think of how unhappy this decision would make Crow when he heard about it. He’d have to wonder if his gambit had failed utterly. Instead of embarrassing me into returning to Earth under the thumb of Jasmine in her new ship, he would have to worry I’d turned her back into one of my supporters and stolen a light cruiser as well as a key officer. It would be torture for him.
“Wonderful!” I said. “That’s all I ask. An investigation-a hearing, so to speak.”
Jasmine inclined her head slightly. Only Sandra looked unhappy. “We’re all going to sit out here?” she asked. “Waiting for what?”
I glanced over at Sandra. She really didn’t belong in this high-level discussion. I was going to have to have a talk with her about that. I didn’t expect the talk would go smoothly.
“We’re not sitting around. We’re building a new fleet-faster than we’ve ever done in the past. Your light cruiser will provide a welcome shift in firepower. How many are aboard her?”
“Seventy,” Jasmine said. “Thirty crewmen and a full platoon of forty marines.”
“Excellent!” I said, honestly excited. “We started out here with less than three hundred marines, and we can really use the reinforcements.”
Jasmine looked uncomfortable. We both knew that she hadn’t been sent out here to reinforce me. But sometimes if you took things for granted, they went your way.
“I will return to Goa and brief my officers,” Jasmine said, standing up. I did the same.
No one saluted, but I didn’t make a fuss about it. She had moved in my direction, and I really did need her help.
The second she left, Sandra leaned close and hissed a lot of words at me: “You should have let me kill her when I had the chance back on Andros. No one would have doubted she was a traitor.”
“But she wasn’t the traitor, Sandra,” I said calmly. “Lieutenant Colonel Barrera was the one behind the assassination attempts.”
“Not a traitor? Look how she’s sucked up to Crow. She’s playing you both. You are blinded by her soft voice and pretty face. She’s probably been playing footsie with Crow as well. How can men be such fools?”
I thought about what Sandra was saying. Could it be true? After Barrera had turned on me, I now took such allegations more seriously. My officers were only human, after all. They had ambitions and plans of their own. Still, I’d been through a lot with Jasmine Sarin and I felt I knew her enough to trust her. She could be misled, but she wasn’t a devious schemer like Crow. I reminded myself that Sandra had an agenda of her own when it came to Jasmine.
“I think she’d misguided, but not a traitor.”
“She’s gone Fleet!”
“Last I checked, that wasn’t against the Star Force handbook.”
“There is no handbook.”
“I’m working on that.”
Sandra crossed her arms and pouted. She’d failed to get me to declare Jasmine a threat, so she was far from happy.
“You need to get your jealousy under control, Sandra,” I told her. “Try to think professionally. We’re all in this together. The machines are the real enemy.”
Sandra softened and nodded. “You’re right about that. But don’t think everyone is in complete agreement with you. Things are going strangely back home, Kyle. That is another reason I insisted on coming out here.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Crow is gathering power. He’s like some kind of spider. He’s got all the factories under his control now.”
I wasn’t surprised by that, and I couldn’t really object. When I’d left Andros island, our fortifications had been devastated.
“Has he rebuilt the island defenses?”
“He did that first, but he only repaired one of the central forts. The other two are still in ruins.”
I frowned. “What’s he been doing with all his output?”
“What do you think? He’s been building ships. Not just this light cruiser, either. He’s got two more ships just like it. And two wings of new destroyers.”
I nodded. Crow had always believed the fleet was more important than our ground forces. He’d finally gotten his way by gaining full control over our Nano factory output.
“None of that sounds sinister to me,” I told Sandra. “I might have done the same.”
“That’s not the creepy part. There are visitors, coming to Fort Pierre all the time now. General Kerr and others. People from Europe and Asia. Military people and spooks. They come to talk to Crow, to have private conferences with him.”