Hellsky (Hunter-Killer #3)

Chapter 08 - A Little Hotter Than I'd Like

Year 248 P.L. Rychter Calendar
Coordinates: 15.4°N; 29.8°E
Site Designation: Rubicon (City of)

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Rubicon's Commissariat chamber rang with the thunder of voices.

An immense, hollowed out cube, the chamber was made up of tiered ranks of crisp, white-stone seating filled by two-hundred of the capital's ministers. Senior military officers, government ministers, district liaison officers and city militia commanders formed the visible guiding hand of Rubicon – outwith Lando and the Planetary Affairs Sub-Committee.

Right now, the place was full, and his head hurt from the volume. Reports of the near miss in the Scraegan badlands had not taken long to make their way north. Angry voices shouted the loudest.

The Scraegans are attacking humans again.

All bets are off.

Being honest with himself, Lanto wasn't totally sure they were wrong. As indignant speeches poured from the most irate of the Commissariat members, he rolled the incident over in his mind.

He'd reviewed the battle-cam footage that Brekka's commissariat had reluctantly shared dozens of times before walking in here, and still wasn't quite sure what to make of it. All he could say for certain was that they all owed one Lieutenant Brackenshaw an expensive drink for not kick-starting the war all over again.

Frustration gnawed at him. Lanto's mind wouldn't stay away from the Crawlers, and all the unanswered questions around them. He did not want to see humanity hurl all its weight into another conflict until he had more information. Until this incident he'd been reasonably confident of getting the funding he needed from Xanthus to pursue that line of enquiry.

Now? Now that idiot Nastassos would be pushing for every solitary aqua to be allocated to military spending, and he'd have plenty of support to do it.

His eyes flashed up as a liaison officer from Rubicon's southern delta district rose, a brawny woman with dark skin and a short tangle of braided hair. He recognised her dimly. He also knew that her district had provided a large portion of troops for the first expeditionary force. Many of them had not come home.

"Comrades," she began, her voice fierce as the rapids. "With respect, I do not understand what is so complicated about this. The Scraegans have fired first. Their intentions are clear. We might have avoided all out war, this time, but it's coming, whether we want it or not."

A chorus of cheers went up in support of her words. Lanto frowned; sipped his water.

"In Rubicon we lead by example," the officer thundered, her eyes blazing as she glared around the room. "If we don't bring the hammer down on the Scraegans, who will? Do we leave it to Brekka? They've proved they do not have the resources to eradicate this threat, and they are not going to invite anyone." She slammed a fist down on the lectern in front of her seat. "We must mobilise, and do it now. I will not see the lives my district sacrificed disrespected while we sit and wait. If we are to be ready when the next Scraegan attack comes, it starts today."

She sat down again, to a storm of applause. Lanto sighed, knowing that his dwindling faction of cooler heads would never have the numbers to carry the commissariat. More frustratingly, he couldn't even be sure he was right. No-one in this room had enough information to make that judgement.

Is this what getting old feels like, he wondered absently as more speeches tore through the auditorium. Indecision? Not willing to take a single step without perfect knowledge of what you'll land on?