Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [171]
“I am pleased to give you the good news, however”—Willis’s voice conveyed anything but joy—“that you will be heading up the comprehensive training of second-stage recruits here on the Mars base. This is a task we really need you to do. Your innovations and flexibility should make you a superb instructor.”
“A teacher?” Tasia mumbled, as if the message screen could hear and respond. “What did I do to deserve this?”
“Don’t misunderstand me, Tamblyn.” The Admiral’s image continued without a pause. “As far as I’m concerned, your service record is exemplary and your performance has always been impeccable. However, not every soldier can participate in every mission, and General Lanyan has determined that your services are not required for our new EDF initiative.”
“Damn right they’re not, if you intend to go after Roamers instead of the real enemy. Shizz, this is even worse than that stupid siege of Yreka.”
EA stood beside her absorbing the information, but the Listener compy placed no significance on Tasia’s emotional reaction. “I will be happy to assist you in developing a training curriculum, Tasia Tamblyn.”
Tasia tried to contain her inner anger, wanting just to punch somebody. The Earth Defense Forces clearly did not trust her. Had they been eavesdropping on her conversations? Were her quarters bugged? She had been so careful, even when talking to EA. She frowned at her compy, wondering if the Eddies themselves had done something to spark EA’s odd behavior.
Or was her Roamer heritage enough in itself to make them doubt her, even after so many years of service? Though no one would tell her what was going on, she feared the EDF meant to do something to the Roamer clans. Something terrible.
Chapter 86 — ROBERTO CLARIN
At Hurricane Depot, enormous mountains of orbiting stone circled overhead like the hands of a clock. In his private office in the north polar dome, Roberto Clarin reclined in his chair, looking up at the transparent sky. Every hour the mountains passed overhead in an endless parade.
When the original gas cloud had coalesced into the Couarnir star system, no habitable worlds had formed. In the liquid-water zone, scraps of leftover material had pulled together into two large chunks of rock that orbited around a mutual center of gravity, as if a stillborn planet had broken in half. The two components shared a thin, wispy atmosphere, and at the exact center of the rotating body was a stable Lagrange point—a perfect sheltered spot, simultaneously protected and threatened by the obstacle course of debris.
Roamers had used material mined from the orbiting pair of bodies to build a central depot and fuel-transfer station sitting in the eye of the storm. Ships came in from above or below, threading a course through the safe polar zone of the two rotating planetary components.
Like an old Arabian bazaar at a caravan crossroads, Hurricane Depot had become a popular place where ekti cargo escorts could drop off their fuel for efficient distribution to other settlements. Roamer traders lived and worked there, and many more passed through. Metals, fuel, food, fabrics, and even Hansa merchandise were brought here for sale or trade. Two or three ships arrived every day, and their captains and crews shopped, haggled, or bartered their shipments for necessary or desirable materials.
Roberto Clarin was a dark-haired, loud-voiced man who insisted on sampling all the exotic foods that came through his station—his stomach’s equivalent of a tariff. Under his leadership, Hurricane Depot had thrived at first, though now with the hydrogue ultimatum against skymining and the trade embargo with the Big Goose, the station often looked like a ghost town.
His brother Eldon, a talented engineer, had helped design Hurricane Depot. For a while, the two men had been partners, but Eldon was an inept businessman who didn’t understand how merchandising and trade worked, though Roberto had tried to explain the simplest economic concepts over and over again. Eldon could comprehend esoteric physical