Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 67

“Sergeant.”

“I’ve never asked you for any favors since we started patrolling together. I am asking you now. Go step outside for a minute and get a cup of coffee, please.”

Dahl didn’t reply right away. When Idina looked at her, the older woman’s emotional conflict was obvious on her face. She knew how Dahl felt right now, knew the magnitude of what she was asking of her. Three months of cautious friendship were not enough to put on the scale and be weighed fairly against thirty years of principled service.

“I’ll be on the flight back to Pallas at the end of the week. But many of these kids will die. Yours and mine. Our side and theirs. Let me do this one thing before I leave. We can try to put a stop to it.”

“You know how I feel about the Pallas way,” Dahl said.

“I am asking you to trust me.”

Dahl looked from her to Haimo and back. Idina was happy to see the first tiny flicker of doubt crossing Haimo’s expression when the Gretian police captain looked at him with something like pity, as if he was already dead.

“I do believe I need some coffee this morning,” Dahl finally said. “I did not get enough sleep last night. Too much time spent digging through debris for dead colleagues, you see.”

She turned and left the room. The door closed behind her with a soft click that seemed very loud in the silence that followed in her wake.

Haimo looked at Idina again, and the contempt returned to his face. He pursed his cheeks and spat onto the floor next to his chair. Then he sat back as far as his tether allowed and smirked.

Idina had lost any sort of sympathy she had once felt for him due to his age. He’d been shown the road map to the sort of ruin that was waiting for him at the end of the path he had chosen to tread, and he had not taken the chance to step off. Instead, he had quickened his pace. Dumb kid or not, twenty people had died last night, and his deception had been instrumental to their deaths. If he wanted annihilation and ruin, she would give him a taste of it.

She pulled her kukri from its sheath. The blade made a faint ringing sound as she drew it free and stepped in front of the interrogation table. She raised her arm and brought the kukri down on the table with all the force her anger would let her muster. The monomolecular edge bit through the steel surface with an almost melodic pitch as her blow cut the tabletop apart before Haimo could finish blinking in surprise. He recoiled with a yell. She kicked the halves of the tabletop aside. They were still attached to the floor with bolts, so she had to give each half a few kicks to bend them out of her way, but it felt good to stomp something with her boots until it broke. Haimo tried to retreat backward, toppling his chair over in the process, but the tether would only let him get a step or two before it pulled taut and yanked him down on his ass.

Idina swung her kukri in a short arc in front of Haimo. This time, he let out a frightened scream. The blade came down between his legs and chopped through the steel tether and the eye hook that anchored it to the floor. The tether snapped, and the sudden release of tension sent Haimo sprawling on his back. She stepped in front of him. He raised his shackled hands in front of him in an instinctive gesture of defense. She knew that if she aimed her swing well, she could sever both of his arms in one stroke without much effort. All she felt right now was pure, cold, silvery rage.

She pointed the kukri at the earbud Haimo had thrown against the wall.

“Pick it up now.”

He didn’t seem to have any trouble comprehending the meaning of the Palladian words even without the assist of a translator AI. He scrambled to a sitting position, then scooted back until he was up against the wall. When he had made it as far away from Idina as he could, he got to his feet, his face rigid with fear.

She nodded in the direction of the earbud, her kukri still pointed toward it. Haimo made his way around her, as far along the wall as he could, and walked over to the earbud. Then he picked it up and moved to put it into his ear. Once it was seated, Idina nodded with grim satisfaction.

“If that leaves your ear without permission, I will pound it back into your skull so hard that it will remain a permanent part of your head forever,” she said. “Now pick up the chair and sit down on it. Don’t open your mouth unless you are answering a direct question, or your tongue will be the next thing on that floor. Understand?”

He nodded without looking at her, still all but paralyzed with fear. It took him a few moments to pick up the chair with his shackled hands and put it upright to sit down on it. Once he was seated, she took a step forward to close the distance and crouched down in front of him to bring their eyes to the same level. He flinched when she held up her kukri between them.

“This is what will happen now,” she said with certainty. “The Gretian police captain will come back into this room in a few moments. When she does, you will tell her everything you know about the people who did this. You will answer every question without lying or evading. If I think that you are not telling the truth—or gods forbid, if you start talking tough again—I will claim Alliance jurisdiction over you. Then I will haul you off to the brig on Sandvik Base, where I will