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“Good Make that part of yourforward You have full authority to offer aht be useful”

“I’ll pass it down the ranks,” Overstreet said He began gently pushing Singh back up the corridor toward their little convoy of carts

“The other thing,” Singh said “I think it would be appropriate to make a complete audit of the security protocols Call it a supplemental security review”

“I can do that if you’d like, sir,” Overstreet said “Can I ask what function the revieould fill?”

Hecalled on the carpet? This was also the fallout of letting Tanaka go There would be a period where his people trusted him less Suspected that he would blas that weren’t their fault

“We need—” he began, then caught himself “I need to look over the coe simply because we are here, with these people, and not in a classroom at the academy I don’t kno yet, but I think it’s inevitable I a you to tell me not only e do but why And whether you think it should be altered”

“Comprehensive, then,” Overstreet said, but he sounded more pleased by the implied trust than put out by the extra work “I’ll see to it Back to the office, sir?”

Singh alht stopped him

“No,” Singh said “No, take ”

On the ride to the Association of Worlds’ offices, Singh thought back to his letter ho space meant they’d won the as optimistic Or simplistic, at least Laconia could absolutely control access to the worlds through the gates, but every single world could decide this didn’t overnor on every world, and a Laconian naval ship in orbit and Marines patrolling the streets, every individual ht decide they personally had not been conquered Establishing the enifications into greater and greater granularity, and every grain was a potential renegade Medina was just ainto everywhere Political opposition considered as fractal geometry

He had been sent as a governor, and the nment actually was Not just a bureaucrat to oversee the s of the station and the traffic it controlled He was creating the te every other human world into a new Laconia Seven Belters had decided that killing a single low-level officer orth risking all their own lives That wasn’t a rational position An ene The colony worldsa few hundred people with rifles onto a transport ship and trying a suicide attack on Medina made sense He only needed to hold the station for a few more weeks until the Typhoon arrived and rendered any such foolhardy attack plan irrelevant Carrie Fisk could help to carry the e that would dissuade any such error before it could happen

The office complex occupied by the Association of Worlds sat inside the drum section of Medina, surrounded by farmland It consisted of three blocky structures of prefab fiberglass sheets, painted a gentle off-white, and sporting the interlocking honeycon was intended to syate network For the headquarters of an organization whose goal was the centralized governance of thirteen hundred worlds, it looked cheap, shabby, and hastily erected Nothing like the overnment of mankind

Carrie Fisk occupied an office on the third floor of the largest of the three buildings She had a lot of eht-green paint on her fiberglass walls He wondered what their firstwould have been like if he’d co all of this, hewith her at all

“Mada her hand in his own “I’lad you could take the time to meet with me on such short notice This is Major Overstreet, the Marine commander on Medina”

Carrie shook his hand, and gave Overstreet a baffled nod “Of course, Governor, anytih sat, Overstreet did not “Tea?”