Chapter 6:
- Incognito
- A Hero’s Welcome
- The Deal
Scene
Back in the Chandier colony, in an anonymous box warehouse at the edge of the military zone, a longcar pulled out from under a darkened roll-up door. The car was unmarked, unescorted, and unassuming. It turned in the direction of the Executive Tower, but it made no promises.
Of course, Kurtie Brook had her sources. She knew the Snowboys were packed in the back of that car, just as she knew they were on their way to an unpleasant conversation. Just as she knew a hero story was the best coverage she’d get from this assignment before they ported her off the planet with everyone and everything else. Besides, those boys owed her an interview – an interview she may not be able to get from them tomorrow, if that impending conversation went as rumored. She had called Morefield’s media office after the show but got only the straight-arm, which did nothing but confirm her suspicions.
The car slipped into the subterranean tunnels at the edge of the military zone. Most of the inner city was footways only, with the driving lanes buried out of view. Kurtie could have gotten the feeds for the tunnels, but she wasn’t watching the car anymore. She’d already called up her outdoors backdrop and petitioned the studio office for live feed.
Scene
The Square beneath the Executive Tower was usually empty. It fronted the magnificent grand entrance of the city’s tallest building outside the spaceport, and with a colonnaded carportico and arcing stepway up to the first level of the Tower, the Square was an impressive locale for the Mayor’s quarterly Summaries and Patio addresses. But Chandier had no important executive visitors after its first year, and the Mayor wouldn’t be giving any addresses during the teardown – she was far too busy issuing memoranda. Moreover, the Square was nestled into the cleavage of the administrative complex, and thus it had no shops. No shops meant no regular foot traffic, so it was a predictably discrete location for the longcar to insert its passengers.
Kurtie stifled a self-satisfied giggle as the longcar emerged from the ramp into the center of the square and stopped dead in the heavy crowd of her audience. The people turned to stare at the longcar, but neither rushed to surround it, nor stepped back to make way. The car honked and lunged forward a few times, but in the end it had to settle for inching into the square, nudging the docile crowd out of the way. Kurtie could almost hear the frantic driver screaming at dispatch.
She wasn’t on-site herself, of course – that wouldn’t be proper, and Morefield had already declined her interview with the boys – but she was pulling signal from volunteers in the crowd, and she had a remote monitor mounted just above the ramp and locked on Channel Three.
The Monitor flicked to life to display Farier and Dana wrapping up their show. Farier turned to the camera. “Thanks for staying with us this morning. Come back tomorrow for updated shuttle schedules and the results of our Destination Survey. We turn now… back to Kurtie? Back to Kurtie Brook for an update on her earlier story. Kurtie?”
Kurtie’s face appeared in the monitor, standing in front of the crowd and the long car. Several of the less savvy audience members twisted in confusion to find her, but most of the people, seeing themselves in the monitor, sprung to life and jostled to frame themselves in the camera for a memory. They even began to cheer as she spoke.
“Thanks, Farier! As I promised, I’ve tracked down today’s battle heroes, and found them on the very steps of the Executive Tower’s Grand Receptionary! I’m here with the throngs of grateful citizens in Executive Square to send my thanks to Capatin Byrie Harold, Leftenin Cormick Green, Leftenin Minor Damwick Gunder, and our very own, Leftenin Minor Roger Jasper.
“While the BDF has declined our repeated requests for an interview with Capatin Harold and his men, at least until after their meeting with the Mayor’s Office, I hope to catch them for my segment spotlight tomorrow morning, so stay tuned.”
In her studio, Kurtie turned to the backdrop behind her for effect. “In the meantime, lets see if we can’t encourage the Army to at least let us see our Heroes!”
On cue, the crowd went wild.
Reluctantly, after a long pause, the rear doors of the longcar slid forward. Only now did the audience step back, leaving a wide enough circle for everyone to get a good shot with their cameras. Byrie emerged first, just like an actor, pausing to straighten his uniform leathers and draw back his shoulders for the crowd. Next came Roger and Damwick, with Cormick trailing. Chests pressed, arms raising and extending in salute, the Snowboys marched in loose formation down the aisle opening for them toward the Grand stepway. An almost reverent silence passed over the crowd.
Kurtie held her breath as she peered into her screen. This was going very well.
But then a Femme burst out from the wall of people and flung her arms around Byrie, pulling herself down into a dip as she stole a long, noisy kiss from him. Stumbling back to catch her breath, she raised her clasped hands in victory. The solemnity of the audience vanished, and people pressed in from every direction to touch the Snowboys. Femmes gave hugs or kisses, women took them, and men mostly just wanted to grasp hands. There were even a few babies produced for benetecture.
Kurtie was already lowering her studio into standby and setting the door and window locks. Her crowd would tie up the Snowboys for at least another 20 minutes, long enough for her to swing by the office on her way to the Executive Tower. Her little scene had picked up double the viewership from the previous peak of the morning show, and even Channel Seven was leasing her feed. She had a feeling Morefield’s office would be interested in renegotiation.
Scene
The penultimate level of the Executive tower had the second-best view of Chandier. The western stretch of windows framed the spires of the spaceport, which bristled over the frozen bay beyond. In the morning, when the sun hit them just so and from behind, the spires would glow like glass. To the east, the meandering curves of the superurban streets rolled lazily up into the residential slopes. A low fogbank hung in the northern ridges, partially obscuring the non-native forest struggling for a foothold there.
Cormick was rarely treated to such a view, and now he wasn’t given the time to appreciate it. He tried to focus the scene in his mind – dramatically painting it with the smells and ambient sounds he imagined it would have – in an attempt to imprint it into his memory for later enjoyment. He tried … but he just couldn’t ignore the timbre of Byrie’s voice. He had undergone too many years of contrary training to have that luxury remain. In any case, what the Major was saying was important – Byrie was fighting for their future.
The quadry were alone with the Sub-Mayor in his office, which was unusual. Sub-Mayor Pass Tasfalon had received them formally when they first arrived, grasping their hands and making a brief congratulatory speech for the benefit of the audience of cameras and onlookers crowded into the anteroom outside his door. But once the door was shut, once he had blackened his interior windows and set them to a random vibration sequence to discourage pick-ups, Tasfalon had fixed the quadry with a withering glare.
Cormick had known then that this was to be a battle, but one only Byrie would fight.
While the Sub-Mayor had built the momentum of his speech, pacing from his window to his desk and back again, folding and unfolding his arms and at last grasping the back of his chair (apparently just so his hands would have something to crush), Cormick had peered his way around the office, searching in vain for what marks of wealth a Sub-Mayor might have accumulated. When Tasfalon had reached his point – something displeasing about their recent performance, it seemed – and had fixed his glare on Byrie, Cormick had begun searching outside for a landscape in which to lose himself. He’d almost escaped before Byrie made his rebuttal. He sighed, and willed his eyes back into the room, his ears back to their reproval.
The Sub-Mayor now stood behind his desk, where he leaned heavily on the glassy surface. His voice was controlled – but only just – as he responded to Byrie. “Your opinion – as it stands – is irrelevant, Major. You have destroyed 5 billion sesters of Company Inventory in the course of your meritless pleasure hunt—”
Byrie raised his hand to mark his confident interjection. “The mission transcripts will clearly show that the course deviation was applied for and approved—”
“Under false pretenses!” A lone droplet of spittle flew from the Sub-Mayor’s mouth, arcing just past the shiny edge of the desk, where, had it landed, it might have demanded attention.
Cormick blinked lazy eyes and flared them to rouse himself. He looked back to the Sub-Mayor and considered the man. He was tall and lean, and old to judge by the white semi-halo of hair framing an otherwise bald pate, though his dark skin was stretched too tight over his frame to allow for any wrinkles. He wore a dark suit without frills, and his office was similarly decorated – dark and stark, with only a few gold-framed falsebacks of battleships for accent. Cormick had expected something more showy from a Sub-Mayor’s office – especially a male Sub-Mayor.
Tasfalon had a surprisingly high rank for a male in an administrative post. Cormick hadn’t thought much about it before now, but he’d never met a man with a better title than Deputy Director. Even a femme had a better chance than a male of administrative leadership. Tasfalon must have had talons to claw himself this far up the ladder. Or perhaps he was exceptionally qualified at some bureaucratic skill. Perhaps he considered himself even more qualified than the Mayor herself. Perhaps he was itching to prove it.
Cormick jaw-clicked over to the sub-vocal channel. What’s got him so hard on our bead?
Cut the chatter. I need to concentrate. Byrie shot him a glance before starting again with the Sub-Mayor. “-Approved, when Lef-Minor Gunder observed a Squamiform melee team destructing MRS-Eight-Five-Doris and posted the observation to High-Cap. We followed standard protocol and neutralized the enemy team.”
“Had that been the entirety of your actions, Major, you would still be on duty and not standing here.”
Byrie continued. “We then noted and reported a legionary-proportioned Squamiform force advancing on our position, and – as we had already been approved for mission deviance and armament use – we moved to intercept in order to reduce their angle of attack and further protect the MRS. The decision was clear and justified. And in accordance with precedent.”
The Sub-Mayor leaned over his desk. “Allow me to explain to you what is clear to me, Major Harold. The Mobile Remote Sensing unit you ‘protected’ has a cost to Blackbie of just under 800 Thousand. The combined cost of your spent Enforcement Units, Air Support, and the Retrieval comes to 2.7 Million.
“You see, Major: today your unit cost the Company 2 Million more than you are worth. That alone could be forgiven, but your past history of reckless disregard for company policy, destruction of property, and cost-intensive missions does nothing to recommend you for further activity. This is a business, not a popularity contest. We are here to make money, Major, not to get our faces on the local news feed. In order to prevent future loss to this Company, effective today, your unit’s employment is terminated.
The word hung in the air as the Sub-Mayor walked back behind his chair and hovered over the window controls. His glare broke into a satisfied smirk. He turned his back to the windows again, though one hand stayed behind him on the controls. “Smile and wave, soldiers.”
The interior windows faded back to clear. Out in the anteroom, people sprung into activity, surprised out of their bored musings and conversations by this sudden development. Cameras came to bear, and a swarm of bodies pressed to get a better view through the glass. Cormick spotted Kurtie Brook at the front of the press, ingloriously flattened against the window. She smiled and waved at him.
The Sub-Mayor kept his back to the window, but took his hand from the controls to cross his arms again. “Of course, we at Blackbie Centralized Communications believe in keeping a good face turned to our constituents, and as the citizens of this operation have made you their darling of the day, I have authorized the following contract for you: All charges of undue destruction of property will be permanently withdrawn from your records. Migration transportation off-planet will still be provided, as per the signing agreement. And … you will receive standard early termination compensation, along with battle hazard bonus, provided you do not reveal the spirit or the details of this conversation to anyone. Agreed? Good. Now go out there, enjoy your splash of celebrity, and mention Blackbie Centralized Communications distinctly and in a favorable light at least 3 times on a broadcast feed to make the contract binding.”
The quadry stood as a unit and each solemnly shook his hand.
