The Human Division #1: The B-Team Read Online Free PDF Page A

information from a few, crew manifests spilling onto the display.
    “Okay, I give up,” Rigney said, after several minutes of this. “Tell me what you’re doing.”
    “Ambassador Bair isn’t on our A-list,” Egan said, still scanning crew manifests. “She’s on our A Plus–list. If she was pipped to negotiate, then this mission is an actual priority, not just a top-secret diplomatic circle jerk.”
    “Okay,” Rigney said. “So?”
    “So, you don’t know Secretary Galeano like I do,” Egan said, naming the secretary of state. “If I walk into her office, tell her one of her best diplomats and her entire team is probably dead and their mission therefore a complete failure, without a backup plan already in place and ready to implement, things will be very grim indeed. I will be without a job, you will probably be without a job simply for being the messenger, and the secretary will go out of her way to make sure that the next posting for both of us will be someplace where our life expectancy will be measured with an egg timer.”
    “She sounds nice,” Rigney said.
    “She’s perfectly lovely,” Egan said. “Until you piss her off.” The display, which had been scrolling through ships and crew manifests, suddenly stopped on a single ship. “Here.”
    Rigney peered up at the image. “What is this?”
    “This is the B-team,” Egan said.
    “The Clarke ?” Rigney said. “I don’t know this ship.”
    “It handles various low-level diplomatic missions,” Egan said. “Its chief diplomat is a woman named Abumwe.” The image of a dark and severe-looking woman hovered on the screen. “Her most significant negotiation was with the Korba a few months back. She impressed them by having a CDF officer stationed on the ship fight with one of their soldiers, and lost in a diplomatically meaningful way.”
    “That’s interesting,” Rigney said.
    “Yes, but not entirely her doing,” Egan said, and popped up the images of two men, one of whom was green. “The fight was set up by a deputy, Hart Schmidt. Lieutenant Harry Wilson was the one who fought.”
    “So why these people?” Rigney asked. “What makes them the right people to take over this mission?”
    “Two reasons,” Egan said. “One, Abumwe was part of an embassy to the Utche three years ago. Nothing came of it at the time, but she has experience dealing with them. That means she can get brought up to speed quickly. Two”—she pulled out the view to show the Clarke in space—“the Clarke is eighteen hours away from skip distance. Abumwe and her people can still get to the Danavar system ahead of the Utche and participate in the negotiations, or at the very least allow us to set up a new round of talks. There’s no other diplomatic mission that can make it on time.”
    “We send in the B-team because it’s marginally better than nothing,” Rigney said.
    “Abumwe and her people aren’t incompetent,” Egan said. “They just wouldn’t be your first choice. But right now we’re short on choices.”
    “Right,” Rigney said. “You’re really going to sell this to your boss, then.”
    “Unless you have a better idea,” Egan said.
    “Not really,” Rigney said, then furrowed his brow for a moment. “Although…”
    “Although what?” Egan said.
    “Bring up that CDF guy again,” Rigney said.
    Egan popped the image of Lieutenant Harry Wilson back onto the display. “What about him?” she said.
    “He still on the Clarke ?” Rigney asked.
    “Yes,” Egan said. “He’s a technical advisor. Some of the Clarke ’s recent missions have had military tech and weapons as part of the negotiations. They have him on hand to train people on the machines we’re offering. Why?”
    “I think I may have found a way to sweeten your B-team plan to Secretary Galeano,” Rigney said. “And to my bosses, too.”

IV.
    Wilson noted the expression Schmidt had when he looked up and saw him standing by the door of Ambassador Abumwe’s conference