The Lotus Eaters

AC 472 Estado Major, Balboa City, Balboa, Terra Nova

Though the sun was long down, two of the three moons long up, and the antaniae crying mnnbt, mnnbt, mnnbt in the brush that edged the complex walls, a light still shone from the window of Fernandez's administrative office. With his wife long dead and daughter murdered by a terrorist's bomb, Fernandez had no real life outside the Legion. He didn't really feel the lack of that, though he missed his wife and especially his daughter terribly. This was the single best explanation, more than patriotism and more than dedication to the profession, that he worked such long hours, often sleeping on a the couch of the waiting room.

His men and women, likewise, took their cue from their chief. In a sense they had to, given the sheer workload and the relatively small numbers of people able to do the job. The expansion, of late, hadn't helped any. Thus, it was no great surprise when Fernandez's deputy, Legate Barletta, knocked, despite the late hour.

* * *

I don't know how I get into these things, Barletta had thought to himself as he'd walked nervously down the corridor leading to Fernandez's administrative office. He was certain his chief would be there, because he wasn't in his "secure office" down below. Yes I do, I acquired a little too much gambling debt, mostly entertaining my secretary, the bitch. That led to doing a couple of favors for money, which led to some more of each, which led to . . . ah, to hell with it. I'm here, now, and I'm stuck. But shit, Omar's my friend.

Reaching Fernandez's outer door, Barletta turned the knob and walked in to the waiting area. There he removed a pistol from under his uniform tunic with his right hand, while his left sought out a smallish cylinder contained in the tunic's left hip pocket. The cylinder went smoothly onto the end of the pistol's muzzle, quite despite Barletta's trembling hand.

But then again, friend or not, he'd have me down under that fucking Arab's care in a heartbeat if he knew I'd been turned. So, friend or not, it's him or me.

Barletta walked the couple of steps to the inner door, then knocked with his left hand.

* * *

Fernandez recognized the knock. He said, "Come in," then looked up, nodded a greeting, and turned his attention back to a small metallic or plastic box that sat atop his wooden desk. Barletta's hands were clasped behind his back, but that wasn't anything particularly unusual.

"What's that, Chief," Barletta asked. Since the deputy wasn't cleared for this particular piece of information, Fernandez just shook his head in negation. That could have meant anything from, "you don't need to know" to "I don't know." Barletta was used to that. He waited silently for a few moments until he was certain that the intelligence chief's full attention was back on the box.

"I'm sorry for this, chief," Barletta said, taking aim at Fernandez's chest. The deputy sounded sincerely sorry and also very nervous.

"What?" Fernandez asked, looking up.

Fernandez was short, thus the difference between a pistol aimed at his heart and one aimed at the box was minimal. He didn't think much of his own importance—and there he was quite wrong—but did think the box was important. As Barletta squeezed the trigger, Fernandez grabbed the box and spun around in his chair to his left, placing his body between it and the weapon.

The move was quick, taking Barletta by surprise, enough so that—added to his case of nerves, his first coughing shot went wide of his aim, taking Fernandez in the right side of his back, the bullet passing though the lung on that side, driving blood, phlegm, and tissue out of his chest. The energy transferred set Fernandez to spinning, so that the next two shots went though his spine, in one case, and his gut, in the next. Arms flopping limply back, he was thrown chest forward to the floor, his body falling over the black box.

Nervous almost to the point of hysteria now, Barletta dropped the pistol and ran off through the office door, through the waiting room, and into the corridor. From there he forced himself back to a brisk walk, and began to move to the stairs that led down and to the front entrance where his secretary was supposed to be waiting with the car running.