“Um,” I said, “that’s not reasonable.”
“You have a thing for her, admit it.”
“Sandra, there was one moment—after you’d been in a coma for a long time. It was wrong, I’ve admitted that.”
“Don’t bullshit me. You were making out with her in the command post yesterday. I’m not an idiot.”
“Oh no,” Kwon said in a quiet, groaning voice behind me.
“We were not making out,” I insisted. “We were having a moment of closure. At least, that’s what I would call it.”
Both women glanced at me with questioning expressions.
“That’s what you thought?” Jasmine asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I wanted. I wanted everything to go back to how it was before I screwed it all up. Back on the ship, you two had become friends again, I thought. What happened to that?”
“She changed her mind,” Sandra said. “Women do that, you know. She made another move on you, and then maybe she realized you weren’t going to give her a chance. So, she decided to dump you—permanently.”
“Come on,” I said. “Major Sarin is a professional. She isn’t so petty as to kill me just because she felt spurned.”
Sandra gave her head a tiny shake and made a tsking noise. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”
Jasmine remained quiet and continued glaring. Her attitude was beginning to concern me. I wondered if Sandra was right. If she really was innocent, why wasn’t she saying so?
“What do you have to say, Jasmine?” I asked.
“I’m too upset to talk right now,” she said.
Great, I thought. “Come on, we’re all friends and comrades. We’ve fought over a thousand lightyears of space together. Tell us what you have to say. Sandra, pull back that knife so she can think.”
Slowly, ever so slowly, the two women backed away from one another. When they were a foot apart, everyone felt better. They were still glowering at each other like two cats in a sealed trashcan, however.
“Did you let infiltrators onto the island?” I asked her.
“Am I really being interrogated here, sir? Your girlfriend has assaulted me. Maybe she did it.”
“Just answer the questions, Jasmine,” I said. “That’s an order.”
In the face of a direct order, she deflated somewhat. I knew that wouldn’t work with Sandra, but Jasmine had more respect for our chain of command.
“I did not allow any unauthorized personnel to do anything,” she said.
“Did you help the assassins that entered my tent in any way? Did you know who they were? Have you had any past associations with any of them?”
“No, no and no.”
“What about our nuclear grenades? Did you tamper with them or adjust their settings?”
Jasmine frowned, looking honestly puzzled now. “What happened?”
“Just answer the question!” Sandra shouted at her.
“No, I didn’t tamper with anything!” she shouted back. “I spend all day on duty on the command screens.”
I looked at Sandra questioningly. She made a frustrated growling sound. She stepped back, sheathed her weapon and crossed her arms under her breasts.
“Well?” I asked.
“No change in her pulse—her heart beats like a little bird anyway. No other autonomic shifts I can detect. As far as I can tell, she’s telling the truth. But she still loves you.”
“Excellent,” I said, clapping my armored hands together loudly. I decided it was time to put the best face on this I possibly could and move on. Both women looked at me in cold displeasure. I ignored their expressions and smiled broadly.
“Now that the matter is settled, we can move on to dealing with several thousand robots I’ve noticed roaming around our territory. You two don’t mind doing your jobs, do you? Wonderful. In the future, I want to see a little less paranoia toward my senior staff, Sandra. And Major Sarin, please state your innocence more immediately and keep your personal feelings out of my command post. Actually, that goes for both of you. If either one of you wants to fall in love with the First Sergeant over there, that’s fine with me, but I don’t want to hear about it while I’m trying to handle combat ops.”
Kwon looked alarmed and shook his head vigorously at my suggestion.
No one looked happy after my little speech except for me, and I was faking it. But the scene did quietly break up. We all walked outside and headed for the command bunker. Sandra fell in step beside me. Jasmine and Kwon lagged behind.
“If it wasn’t that little snake, then who tried to kill us with that nuke?” Sandra asked me. “Someone must have done it. You know that.”
“I’ll figure it out. Don’t worry.”
“You always say stuff like that.”
“Okay,” I said, stopping and facing her. “Then you do it. I want you to figure out who is behind the security breaches. That’s your job for the next few days. You know it wasn’t Jasmine, so check out everyone else.”
Sandra looked surprised. “Okay,” she said after a few moments thought. “I will find the truth.”
Kwon and Major Sarin had walked up behind us and stood there, looking wary. Perhaps they expected another outburst.
“Kwon, you stay with Colonel Riggs,” Sandra said. “Go everywhere he does. If he orders you away, sneak back when he isn’t looking.”
“Um,” he said, looking at me.
I nodded slightly.
“Okay,” Kwon said brightly. He seemed happy about the assignment.
Sandra nodded too, satisfied with the idea of Kwon performing bodyguard duty again. She turned and left us then, heading toward the ramparts at a shocking pace. Each step took her ten or twenty feet over the ground. To Sandra, Earth’s gravity must have felt like the Moon.
Crawlers and teams of marines were working all around the fort, shoring up the walls. Sandra disappeared among a knot of marines working on the fortifications. I had no idea what was in her head at that moment, but I pitied whoever was next on her suspect list.
I reached the headquarters building and passed inside the entrance. The nanites recognized my touch and dilated an opening in what appeared to be a smooth metal surface. I stepped through into the building. Kwon and Jasmine were recognized and allowed inside as well. Before I reached the first ramp heading down to the bunkers, I heard a familiar voice in my ear.
“They are coming again, marines,” Barrera said.
I’d joined the base defense channel, and since Barrera was running ops, I could hear him like everyone else. I wanted to ask him what they had with them, but before I could transmit over the command channel, he answered my question.
“Looks like they are rolling up new supporters. The big machines that survived our hunter-killer platoons have surrounded Fort Pierre. They’ve suffered over fifty-percent losses, but they are still a viable force.”
I grinned in my helmet at that news. My marines, armed with nuclear grenades, had done more damage than I’d dared to hope for. Still, half an army of giant machines would be powerful in a single mass.
“All the Macros, big and small, will be hitting us shortly,” Barrera’s voice continued in an announcer’s monotone. “In addition, the enemy fleet has decided to advance into range of our position. They are flying cautiously over the ocean toward us from the east. They’ll be in range within—three minutes.”
I made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and a grunt. That was it—the end of the game. We couldn’t face the Macro workers, the big invasion machines, and their fleet. The heavy laser forts I’d built to drive back the enemy fleet had all been knocked out.
Fort Pierre was about to fall. After that, Andros Island was doomed.