Rules of Conflict (23 page)

Think if this had been a knife
, the first line had read. It
got better after that, but not much.

Nice report, Kilian. You think like a crook, but you need
seasoning. When you get sick of protecting the litter-runts of the
Commonwealth, I’ll be waiting. Rikart.

“And do you believe he signed that note?” A few weeks later, he
had her seconded to the Twelfth Rovers to help her make up her mind.

Jani reassembled her file and tucked it back into the envelope.
Val the Bear had toppled over and lay flat on his face.
I know the feeling.
She sat back, cradled her head in the crook of her arm, and let her gaze drift.
“Piers didn’t answer my question about how Ebben, Unser, and Fitzhugh died. I’d
bet ‘on purpose’ myself.” Her eyelids felt heavy. Her stomach growled.

She stared at her comport message light for a full minute before
she realized it blinked. “Lucien, go away.” She struggled to her feet and
shuffled to her desk. “I’m mad at you.” She hit the playpad so she wouldn’t
have to look at the flickering light anymore—she meant to delete the message
immediately, but the face flashed before her fatigue-blunted reflexes could
kick in.

Lieutenant Ischi’s pensive aspect filled the display. “Captain?
Ma’am, I know you’re not feeling well. But if there’s any way at all you can
manage to stop by the office today, it would be greatly appreciated.”

Jani checked the time-date stamp on the message.
Only an hour
ago.
Odds were good the bodies hadn’t cooled yet, although Ischi’s
expression aside, she had no reason to assume Hals and Vespucci had gotten into
another fight about her.
And if you pull this one again, it sings “The Hymn
of the Commonwealth.”

“All eight bloody verses.” She recovered her garrison cap from its
resting place and tottered out the door.

Jani entered the Foreign Transactions desk pool to find
Ischi and several techs clustered by the coffee brewer. Ischi stood fists on
hips and head thrust forward—the traditional lecture posture of a frustrated
tech wrangler trying to cut the stampede off at the pass.

“Colonel Hals is a helluva lot more aware than you are of the
problems we’re facing, Mister!” he barked, his nose a finger’s breadth away
from that of a pasty-faced SFC. “And the sooner you stop bleating your unique
blend of garbled fact and outright fiction, the better off we will
all
be!” He was about to launch into round two when another tech’s eyes rounded,
and he turned to follow her stare.

“Captain Kilian, ma’am!” His turnabout-and-present was so quick,
the object of his ire barely ducked an elbow in the nose. “The colonel will see
you shortly. Please follow me.”

Jani fell in behind Ischi in the best Officer’s Guide manner,
waiting to draw alongside until they had passed into the anteroom. “Having a
bad day, Corporal Coffee Cup?” That got a smile out of him. “Ah, the joys of
personnel.”

“Doylen’s an idiot. He listens at doors, catches half the words,
and rearranges them in the worst order possible.” Ischi stopped at his desk and
paged through the assorted stacks. “The problem is, it’s hit the fan, everyone
knows it, and they’re diving for cover.”

“So what’s the latest?”

“Hals is being relieved and FT split up. Some of us will be
shipped to colonial postings and the rest shoved back in the main pool.”

“
What?
What brought that on?”

“A complaint by Hantìa. She claimed Colonel Hals is incompetent
and that her mistakes have hampered negotiations.” Ischi kept his eyes fixed on
his paper rearranging. “All the errors are Hantìa’s fault. She held back vital
data, waiting for the colonel to ask for it. But she wasn’t allowed.”

Sounds like the Hantìa I knew and hated.
Jani jerked her
head toward Hals’s door. “Who’s in there now?”

“The colonel, Major Vespucci, and Colonel Derringer from Diplo.” Ischi
exhaled with a rumble. “Come over to
explain
the situation.”

“Right.” Jani circled around the distracted lieutenant and punched
Hals’s doorpad. She ducked into the office and forced the panel closed on
Ischi’s wailing “Ma’am, not yet—”

Hals sat at her desk, face drawn. Vespucci sat across from her,
the look he directed at Jani suffused with outrage.

Derringer sat on the short side of the desk between the two, his
mainline stripe drawing the eye like a warning flare. He stiffened when he saw
Jani—the leg that had been crossed ankle over knee slowly lowered until foot
hit floor. His was the rangy build and sun-battered face that came from a bin
labeled “middle-aged officer-standard issue.” He looked like he knew the
answers. Jani would have bet her ’pack he didn’t understand half the questions.

“Ma’am.” She snapped to attention as well as her weakened right
leg would allow. “Captain Kilian reporting as ordered.”

Vespucci’s voice emerged level and hard. “You don’t have an
appointment scheduled, Cap—” He had twisted so his back faced Hals, but they
must have worked together for so long, they’d developed psychic communication.
Hals’s stare bored through the back of his head—he turned to face her slowly,
as though in a trance, and fell silent.

“Captain, it’s obvious some mistake has been made,” Derringer said
sharply. “Please leave us.”

Jani clasped her hands behind her back. Lifted her chin. Dug her
heels into the carpet. Just like old times—ready, steady, into the deep end. “I
know what this meeting is about, sir. I find it alarming that Diplo has taken
it upon themselves to decide a course of action without consulting the one
officer in Foreign Transactions who is a known authority on idomeni affairs.”

Derringer stared past Jani at the door, as though waiting for
Ischi to make an appearance. “And who would that be, Captain?”

“That would be me, sir.”

His gaze shifted to her. Even Vespucci’s had held more warmth.
“Captain, I realize sideline conducts itself more loosely than mainline, and I
also realize documents examiners as a whole pride themselves on their
unmilitary behavior. But you are out of line here, and I am ordering you to
leave this room.”

“Captain Kilian is
my
direct report, Colonel, and we are in
my physical jurisdiction.” Hals’s soft Indiesian accent contrasted sharply with
Derringer’s twangy Michigan provincial. “If we are indeed so concerned about
proper military behavior, I believe those two points give me the deciding vote
as to whether she stays or leaves.” The look she directed at Jani said, OK
expert, this better work.” “Carry on, Captain.”

Jani heard voices outside. She reached behind her and pressed down
on the doorpad—the doormech scraped as Ischi tried to open it from the other
side.

“Sir.” The scuffling outside the door grew louder, and she leaned
harder on the pad. “It is my informed opinion, as a Service officer experienced
in dealing with the idomeni, that removing Colonel Hals from any further
contact with this matter is not a sound decision. It will prove detrimental not
only to immediate Service dealings with the idomeni, but to future Service and
Commonwealth dealings with them as well.”

Derringer looked from Hals to Vespucci, then back at Jani. He
hadn’t expected this. He had no fallback position, no support, and no idea what
to do next. “It has not been officially determined that you outstrip everyone
in the Diplomatic Corps with respect to idomeni experience, Captain.”

“Fair enough, sir—in that case, I have two questions for you. One,
how many years did the senior Service negotiator attached to this matter live
on Shèrá and two, how many idomeni languages do they speak and is High
Vynshàrau one of them?”

“That’s three questions.” Hals’s expression was bland, but tiny
embers of rebellion glowed in her eyes.

“My mistake, ma’am,” Jani replied with equal flatness. “I do
apologize.” She looked at Derringer. “Sir?”

Derringer shifted in his chair. He wanted to refuse to answer, but
three pairs of sideline eyes let him know that wasn’t an option. “General
Burkett spent one year at Language School and a six-month stint at our embassy
in Rauta Shèràa.”

“Is he a colonial? Some colonials have had a great deal of
day-to-day experience dealing with the Haárin.”

“No, he is Earthbound by birth. However, he did do a ten-year
stint in the J-Loop, where large populations of Haárin do reside. He tells
stories.” The corner of Derringer’s mouth twitched as the gauntlet hit the
floor.

Jani nodded. “I began my course of study in documents examination
at the Rauta Shèràa Academy at the age of seventeen. Four and a half years to
degree, with my final year spent under direct tutelage of the being who
currently serves as idomeni ambassador. After that, two and a half years at
Rauta Shèràa Base, the majority of that time spent as a Food Services Liaison
and an Import-Export Registrar. After that, eighteen years—”

Derringer held up his hands. “Captain, no one is denying your
expertise—”

“Only my loyalty?” She stared at him until he looked away. “I am
fully aware of the low opinion any member of the traditional Service would hold
of me. But your opinion of me is not the primary consideration here. The
primary consideration here is the continued lack of regard being shown the
documents examiners assigned to this matter and the confusion this engenders in
the idomeni, who consider examiners as qualified to negotiate and determine
policy as any diplomat.”

Derringer sucked his teeth. “Captain, we have discussed this with
the ambassador at length, and while he questions our reasoning at times, he has
shown himself willing to see the human side of things.”

“Sir, FT isn’t dealing directly with the ambassador, who is an
exception to almost every rule regarding traditional Vynshàrau behavior. FT is
dealing with the documents examiners, who have been reared from birth to
operate in the diplomatic sphere.”
Except for Hantìa, but I’ll worry about
that inconsistency later.

Derringer glanced at his timepiece. “Captain Kilian, negotiations
for the Lake Michigan Strip have grown more and more heated over the past
several days. The Prime Minister and members of her Cabinet are currently
attending at the embassy, and we have been called in as well. There is no time
to waste.” He stood. “The decision on how to proceed has been made.”

Jani leaned against the doorpad. The voices and scrabblings had
stopped long ago. All she could hear was the voice in her head that whispered
gotcha
.
“NìaRauta Hantìa issued the complaint against Colonel Hals and the Vynshàrau
demanded FT presence
all
this afternoon?”

Derringer hesitated. He’d grown sick of answering her
questions—that was obvious—but he knew alarm when he heard it. “Yes.”

Hantìa, you witch, you set me up.
“Sir, they know I’m here.
They want me to attend. They’ve issued the sort of challenge they know will
flush me out.”
They know me.

Vespucci screwed up the nerve to open his mouth again. “Aren’t you
taking a lot on yourself, Captain? You’d think the outcome of these
negotiations hinged on you.”

Jani worked her neck. Her back hurt. Pimentel would strangle her
if he knew where she was and what she did.
I wish I had never checked that
comport light.
“Sir, I’m sure I sound arrogant, but I know them. They’ve
always acknowledged the actions I took at Knevçet Shèràa. This is their way of
formally recognizing me. Everyone here wishes I’d dry up and blow away, but
ignoring the unpleasant in the hope it will disappear is not their way. I’m
anathema to them, but I’m the devil they’ve always known. In a culture that
values open disputation and the concept of the esteemed enemy, the thought that
you could be hiding me is as repugnant to them as a food hoarder during time of
famine is to us. They want to see me. Let’s get it over with.”

Brigadier General Callum Burkett proved the taller, greyer
edition of Colonel Derringer. And more frazzled. Seeing Derringer arrive at the
embarkation zone with Hals and Jani in tow did nothing to calm him down.

“
Goddamn it!
” He slid into his seat in the rear of the
Diplomatic steel blue triple-length and glared across the compartment at the
three of them before settling on Derringer. “Intelligence is stepping on our
necks for even talking to the idomeni about the Strip, the PM is mixing up
Family politics and defense policy
again
, and now you take it upon
yourself to jettison the only firm decision we’ve been able to make in three
months!”

“Who drove the decision?” Jani looked from Derringer to Burkett.
“It was a bad decision. Who drove it? Ulanova?” She flinched as the skimmer
passed beneath the Shenandoah Gate. It wasn’t political opinion, but a
shocklike tingle that radiated up her right arm. “It’s in her interest to
destabilize colony-idomeni relations. One way to do that is to blow systems
here, and let the backflash take out a few of the Haárin-colony arrangements
that have formed over the years.” She flexed her arm, then rested it in her lap
instead of on the armrest.