“I bet you do,” I agreed. “I read up on the civilian resistance on Demeter during the war. How the hell did you not get the Medal for that?”
“Because of my mother,” he answered without hesitation. “She wasn’t happy about me running away, changing my identity, and joining the Marines. It was pretty much all I could do to keep her from dragging me back to Trans-Angeles.” He made a dismissive gesture as if waving aside the entire thing, as if his story was inconsequential. “I didn’t just come here to offer my condolences,” he admitted. “I’ve been discussing your situation with Kara and Deke, trying to figure out how to best put you and your ship to use. I apologize for not getting back to you sooner.” A pained expression passed across his face. “Perhaps if you’d been able to give the crew something constructive to think about the last few days, they wouldn’t have had time to sink into depression.”
That sounded almost like a criticism of my leadership, and I frowned but didn’t comment on it. Maybe I deserved it.
“What are you wanting us to do?” I asked him.
“You have to be aware the military has been reorganized. We only have one operational cruiser, the Teutoberg Forest under Admiral Khan, and he’s constantly patrolling the rest of the systems in the provisional Commonwealth.” Munroe shrugged. “Not that we’ve discovered any other major threat since we allied with the Pirate Worlds, but we’re weak, and there’s always the chance someone might take advantage of that.”
“The Unity didn’t need you to be weak,” I assured him. “They could have wiped out the Commonwealth before this whole Psi War business.”
“Yes, well, that’s a potential threat, but not one we could stop right now anyway, is it?”
I reluctantly shook my head. That part was inarguable.
“The lighters and other armed civilian ships are all we have besides the Teutoberg Forest, and our ground forces are pretty much all light infantry. Not even Force Recon. We had to pull in the Savage/Slaughter Private Military Company out on Highland to use their mercenary infantry. The head of the company, Keller Savage, is officially a general now.”
“Who made him a general?” Vicky asked sharply.
“Well, not to put too fine a point on it,” Munroe told her with a thin, taut smile, “but I did. And I propose to promote the both of you to the rank of colonel as well.”
I knew what Vicky was getting at and it bugged me too, enough to say something when perhaps I should have kept my mouth shut.
“Mr. Munroe…” I began, but he interrupted me with a raised hand.
“Just Munroe, if you don’t mind. I was a sergeant… I worked for a living.”
And that was another reason why I liked this guy. Which was exactly what made him dangerous.
“Munroe,” I said, “you seem like a good man. But you’re a hero to the people on this world. I worry that might blind you to the scope of the systems you’re trying to bring together. Not everyone is going to see you as a hero… some are just going to think you’re a dictator. Do you have any plans to hold an actual election at some point?”
He grinned. Not a calculated smile that the politician I could see in him would have approved of, but an honest smile. I think had it not been for the circumstances, he might have laughed.
“I really need to tell you the story of how I got this job. Trust me, it wasn’t because I wanted it. We’ve already had elections for local representatives to the Demeter emergency government, but the problem with elections on an interstellar level is the fact that the populations are small and scattered. In total, there are close to a billion of them, but they’re spread out over fifty systems, more maybe, and most of them are preoccupied with survival at the moment. Then we have the Pirate Worlds…” he shrugged. “The former Pirate Worlds, I should say. We’re in an economic alliance with them at the moment and we have a mutual defense agreement, but they don’t have any interest in being a part of our new government and definitely wouldn’t be up for a census. But they’re the only organized force out there besides us, and they have a lot more warships than we do at the moment.”
“You’re worried about them?” Vicky asked.
“I’m paid to worry. But yeah, I spent years as a Corporate Council merc and I had to deal with the cartels. Their power is dispersed but it’s not dead, and as bad as the Transformation Virus was, I don’t know if it’s enough to change a century of the way they’ve always done things. And we can’t discount the possibility that some bright boy out there might be thinking that all those disorganized systems would be easy pickings. So, our first priority is to find out which systems can be fortified, which can be saved, and which need to be evacuated back to the closest worlds we can hold. Which is where you guys come in.”
“You need our Drop Troopers,” I said. “I haven’t seen a single Vigilante since I got here.”
“There are none,” he confirmed. “Every single Drop Trooper we had was killed in the final battle with the Changed. You have the only ones we know about in the entire Commonwealth. It’s possible there are caches of suits out there somewhere, but our priority so far hasn’t been searching for them.”
“And that’s another thing you’d like us to do?” Vicky asked. “Search for weapons and equipment?”
“Among other things. But what I’m really concerned with is a threat that our intelligence assets have been hearing rumblings about out on the Periphery.”
“A bigger threat than the Unity?” I asked him pointedly.
“I believe you,” he said. “There’s no way you’re making this shit up, not with that ship, not with the aliens you brought with you.” And the memory of Munroe and the others being introduced to Jay, Bob, and Spinner nearly made me chuckle. “But the bottom line is, that’s a threat that might be here tomorrow, or next month, or next year. And from what you’ve said, I don’t know that there’s a Goddamned thing we can do about it. This… this is something we can deal with now. You can deal with it. If you agree to it. I can’t draft you…” Munroe shrugged. “Well, maybe I could, but I’m not going to. You’ve been through enough, and I don’t intend to disrespect that. The ship, we’re going to use. Nance and his bridge crew have already volunteered to stay on, and we can crew the ship with Savage-Slaughter infantry, but as a Marine, I’d much rather have Drop Troopers on her.” He offered me a hand. “What do you say?”
Vicky caught my eye and nodded, which would have been good enough even if I hadn’t already decided for myself. I took his hand.
“All right, Munroe. I promised myself when I went to OCS that I’d never let get promoted out of the field. But as long as you guys won’t kick me out of a Vigilante, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
[ 10 ]
“I want to apologize ahead of time,” Kara McIntire said, which is just the sort of thing I expected from an intelligence officer and yet didn’t want to hear, “about the sketchy nature of our intelligence, but I think once you hear the subject of this report, you’ll understand why.”
We were in her office, which was actually larger and better-decorated than Munroe’s, despite the fact that he was her boss. I wouldn’t have expected someone as harsh and lethal as McIntire to be an art connoisseur, but paintings hung at the cardinal points of her office, a simple yet elegantly pastoral look to them. I couldn’t swear to it, but I’d have been willing to bet they were painted here on Demeter from local landscapes.
After Munroe had solicited our help the night of Gow’s suicide, I’d assumed we’d be called in for a briefing the next day, but no one from the government had contacted us for three days, and at first I’d thought they were dragging their feet in bureaucratic inefficiency. Then new uniforms had been delivered to the crew at the barracks and to Nance and us at the townhouse, and within an hour Kara McIntire had buzzed me on my ‘link and set up a briefing.
Not so inefficient after all.
Walking from the townhouse to the government offices, the first thing that hit me was the people—or, rather, the strangers. Open spaces didn’t bother me anymore, but I’d spent a good part of the last several years seeing the same faces every day, and having so many new ones around everywhere I looked gave me repeated jolts of fight-or-flight. I was sure Vicky noticed, but she said nothing, just grabbed my hand and held it as we walked.
No one stared at us this time, but there were a hell of a lot of salutes, which made me uncomfortable. We hadn’t done any saluting on the Orion, mostly due to the fact that we were rarely outdoors in a non-tactical situation, and I was out of practice returning them, not to mention that it seemed like a huge waste of time. But I suppose they were making an effort to maintain proper decorum in order to reinforce that this was a real government with a real military and not just a bunch of half-assed refugees with a makeshift militia.
McIntire had also seemed a bit more pleasant to deal with when she’d greeted us at her office door, this time without Deke Conner in the office. The thing I’d noted after the quick scan of the artwork was the lack of family photos or videos. I wondered if that was a recent thing, something everyone did to put aside the pain of losing them, or if she hadn’t been close to her family even before the Psi War. I would have bet on the latter. McIntire didn’t strike me as someone with a lot of family ties.
The last thing I noticed was that there was no holographic display, no star map in her office. I would have expected one for a briefing like this. Maybe the lack of one had something to do with the preemptive apology.
I settled into my chair, leaned on my knees, and waited. McIntire sighed, and if I was willing to hazard a guess despite my short acquaintance with the woman, I would have said she was embarrassed.
“Our intelligence sources are scattered and unreliable,” she told us. “Most of them are in the Pirate Worlds, and they’ll say anything for the right barter.” She snorted. “Which is the only sort of trade there is right now until we establish a new monetary system. But this source… well, I trust her a bit more than most, since I worked with her in the DSI during the war.”
I tried to keep the distaste off my face but Vicky couldn’t quite manage to conceal hers, and McIntire grinned ruefully.