Solfleet: The Call of Duty (76 page)

“Until
recently, Commander, my daughter
has
been a delinquent. And God help me,
she still is a teenager.”

“Through no
fault of yours, sir. The delinquent part, I mean. Her mother’s death...”

“We were
talking about Günter,” he reminded her, interrupting. His wife’s sudden death all
those years ago still tore at his heart.

“Yes, sir.”

“Right. I
was about to remind you yet again that we sent your brother back to twenty-one
fifty-five,” he said, carefully controlling his tone. “We’re fast approaching
twenty-one ninety-one now. Assuming for the moment that everything went as
planned six years ago, that collection of fertilized eggs is now a large force
of thirty-five year old cyberclones.”

“According
to one theory, Admiral,” she pointed out just as she always did, holding her
temper in check as well. “But according to another theory...”

“According
to another theory they’re a large force of six year old children,” he recounted
for her. “Yes, I know.”

“Can you
honestly say that you know
for a fact
they’re
not
just a bunch of
six year old children right now?”

Of course he
couldn’t. “Of course I can’t.”

“That’s
right, sir, you can’t. No one can. It’s just as likely as not they
are
just
a bunch of kids right now. Add to that the indisputable fact that all of our
research has shown the ancient Tor’Roshans routinely used the Portals for
two-way travel...”

“Yes it has,
Commander,” Hansen affirmed. “And I reminded Professor Verne of that very same
indisputable fact last night. According to him that research includes a healthy
amount of scientific speculation, and he would know better than anyone. So the
bottom line becomes this. If the theory he subscribes to happens to be the
correct one, then Lieutenant Graves will be trapped in the past forever, alone,
never to see his family or his fiancée again. In a sense we will have
sacrificed him. And for what? Absolutely nothing because no matter what he does
back there, whether he’s successful or not, nothing will ever change for those
of us he leaves behind.”

“So you’re
definitely not going to send him back?” Royer asked, dreading what she was
beginning to believe his final answer was going to be.

“I didn’t
say that.”

Curve ball. “Wait
a minute,” Royer said, adjusting her position. “I’m tired, remember? You’ve got
me completely confused here. If you don’t...”

“My sworn
duty, Commander, is to protect and defend the Earth and her colonies against
our enemies. If there is even the slightest chance that Professor Verne’s
favorite theory is wrong and one of the others is right—a chance that the
Timeshift mission will enable me to carry out that duty—then I have an
obligation to see to it that that mission is at the very least seriously
considered.” True enough. His nightmares didn’t factor into it.

“Which is
what we’ve been doing for months,” she pointed out, even though doing so might
have worked against her efforts to convince the admiral to send Graves back.

“True
enough. But not to the fullest possible extent.”

“So then...you
might
send him,” she preliminarily concluded.

“I have to
at least consider it.”

“Even though
you don’t think he’ll ever be able to return home again? Even if you have to
sacrifice him, as you put it?”

“A couple
days ago you wanted to kill him yourself, Commander,” Hansen reminded her.

“That’s not
fair, Admiral!” she told him, upset by his choice of words. “I never
wanted
to
kill him. I just thought...”

“You’re
right, Commander,” Hansen interrupted, holding his hands up in front of him to
stop her. “I misspoke and I apologize.” After a moment’s pause to be sure he
chose his next words more carefully, he turned back toward the window, folded
his hands behind him and said, “We’re at war, Liz, and war is a very risky
business. Soldiers die. It’s unfortunate, but sometimes a few have to be
sacrificed to save many more.”

Royer
snickered. “Try telling that to the ones being sacrificed.”

“I have, on
more than one occasion.”

“You have?”

“The Battle
of Europa, Ganymede, the Martian Colonies...” He drew a breath and his gaze
fell to the floor in front of him as he noisily exhaled. “It’s the biggest
curse of command, deciding who lives and who dies. It won’t be any easier this
time.”

Royer didn’t
know what to say to that. Hell, there was nothing she
could
say. She’d
gotten to know the admiral fairly well over the years, but she hadn’t known he
once commanded a combat unit. She’d always assumed he’d served in Security and
Intelligence his whole career, and neither he nor anyone else had ever
indicated otherwise. At least not to her. Until now. But what could she say?
The fact that he’d never talked about it probably meant that he didn’t want to.
Probably best to just leave it alone.

“Sounds to
me, Admiral, like you’re trying to convince yourself I’m right—that we should
go ahead and send the lieutenant on the mission.”

“Convince
myself?” he asked. He shook his head. “No.” He lifted his eyes to the Earth
once more. He’d made his decision. “No, Commander, I don’t need to convince
myself. Not anymore. Despite the fact that your words have seemed to contradict
your position once or twice, you are right. I know that as well as you do. I
just don’t like it.”

Royer stood
up. “Would you like me to tell him, sir?”

“Yes I
would, Commander.” She started to turn. “Stand fast.”

She stopped
and turned back. “Sir?”

“I’d like
very much for you to tell him, but that responsibility is mine, not yours. Do
me a favor though? Go get him and bring him back here?”

“Certainly,
sir.” She started toward the door again, but stopped halfway there and turned
back once more. “You know, sir, in war soldiers aren’t always the only ones
sacrificed.” Hansen turned his head slightly, but didn’t face her as she
continued. “In World War Two, for example, British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill once sacrificed an entire town to prevent the Germans from learning their
code had been cracked.”

Hansen
hesitated another moment, then turned his back on the window and asked, “What
are you getting at, Commander?”

“You’ve made
it very clear, sir, where the line is that you won’t cross, and it’s certainly
not my intention to test your patience on that subject any further.”

“That’s
wise,” he assured her.

“But I have
to ask you, sir... What should we do about Miss DeGaetano? She is, after all,
the lieutenant’s fiancée, and she was with him and Min’para the other night. Introduced
them to each other, in fact. She obviously knows what’s going on.”

Hansen
sighed. Just what he needed, yet another loose end to clean up. But that was
the nature of the business he and the commander had gotten themselves into all
those years ago. He’d known that from the beginning. They both had. Now they
had to deal with it. “You are definitely too smart for my own good.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Don’t be.
Your thoroughness is one of the reasons I’ve kept you around all these years.”

“Damn. I
thought it was my sparkling charm.”

“Yeah, that
too. Anyway, I don’t think the lieutenant would say anything to her about the
mission itself. It’s classified top secret, and as far as he knows it’s
sanctioned.”

“Agreed,
sir. But the other matter...”

“...does
present us with a problem,” Hansen finished for her.

“Yes, sir.
It does.”

He turned to
gaze out the window again. Somehow he found it easier to issue bad-tasting
orders that way. “Put some eyes and ears on her, Commander. Have her followed...discreetly.
Monitor all of her communications, activities, etcetera. You know the drill.”

“Yes, sir,”
she responded quietly, pretty sure she knew what he must have thought of his
own orders.

“Observation
only, Commander. I don’t want her movements restricted or her personal life
interfered with in any way without my authorization. It’s bad enough we’re
about to steal her fiancé away from her, probably forever. I don’t want to hurt
the poor girl any more than I absolutely have to.”

“Yes, sir.”
With that, Royer left the office to fetch Lieutenant Graves.

He stood
there, staring down into space, and then back up at the Earth. Was it his sense
of duty to Earth and the Coalition that had led him to decide to send the
lieutenant back, or was it really his nightmares that were motivating him?
Could he possibly be that selfish?

* * *

Sometime
later—Hansen had lost track of time and had no idea how long he’d been standing
there staring out his window—the door opened again. “I’m here with Lieutenant
Graves per your request, Admiral,” Royer said, announcing their arrival.

“I take it
you wanted to see me, sir?” the lieutenant asked, obviously not pleased.

Hansen
grinned. Apparently, Liz had been less than polite in delivering his invitation
to the lieutenant. “Take a seat, Lieutenant,” he said. Dylan did so. “Did you
and Miss DeGaetano enjoy the festivities the other night?”

“She enjoyed
them, sir. I tried to, but I find the harsh reality of what’s happening to the
Tor’Kana to be a little distracting.”

“You hid it
well enough, just as we had to. You see, there still aren’t very many of us who
know about the Tor’Kana situation. If word got out...”

“Yes, sir, I
know,” Dylan said. “Panic. You made it very clear that it’s classified.”

“Yes, I did.
Anyway, Commander Royer and I have discussed further the matter of your first
assignment and made some decisions. As of this morning I’ve decided to
reconsider your mission assignment choices.”

“There’s
another choice, sir?”

Hansen
finally turned his back on the window and started to answer, but then he noticed
the lieutenant’s appearance and held back. Rather than report in uniform, which
would have been the appropriate thing to do, he’d pulled on a pair of old jeans
and a button-down shirt that he hadn’t even tucked in.

And Dylan
knew exactly what the admiral was looking at. “She barely gave me enough time
to throw
this
on, sir.”

The admiral
looked at Royer and told her, “Another five minutes wouldn’t have made a
difference, Commander.”

“Sorry, sir,”
she responded. “I’ll keep that in mind next time.”

Setting the
issue of the lieutenant’s appearance aside, Hansen looked him in the eye and
said, “No, Lieutenant, there’s not another choice. There’s only
one
choice. You’re going back.”

“I’m... Wait
a minute, Admiral. You gave me a choice. You said...”

“I know what
I said, Lieutenant, but now I’m saying something else. The only constant in
military service is change. You’ve been a soldier long enough to know that.”

“Yes, sir,
but this is...”

“You’re
going, Lieutenant. That’s a direct order, if it needs to be.”

Dylan stared
deep into the admiral’s eyes. He’d given Professor Min’para’s words a lot of
thought over the weekend and was convinced that he’d already been subjected to
a mind-edit. Further, he felt sure that Commander Royer was the one directly
responsible for it. And he could see clearly now, as he’d only suspected earlier,
that something serious was bothering the admiral. But what? Aside from the memory-edit,
what were the admiral and the commander trying to hide from him? What was it
that they were so afraid to reveal?

Whatever it
was, it was up to the professor to discover it now.

“You know,
Lieutenant, there is one other possible benefit to this mission that we didn’t talk
about before,” Royer said.

“What’s
that?” Dylan asked doubtfully.

“In addition
to saving your father’s life, not to mention the entire Coalition, you may also
save the lives of your Ranger squad.”

Dylan
thought about that for a moment. He had to admit she had a good point, and that
might have been enough to make him change his mind if it had mattered anymore.
It didn’t, of course. The admiral had just given him a direct order to, for all
intents and purposes, disappear. He had no choice but to obey that order. At
least for now. But later? Later might be another story entirely. What would
they say, he wondered, if he told them that he knew they’d subjected him to a
memory-edit? Might the admiral let him off the hook?

Or might
Royer kill him where he stood?

Better to
keep his mouth shut until he knew the answer. “Well,” he finally responded,
throwing up his hands. “If you’re going to make it a direct order, I guess you’ve
got your man.”

Commander
Royer grinned. “Outstanding,” she said.

“That may be
your opinion, ma’am,” Dylan told her flatly, “but I have a fiancée who I’d
prefer not to leave behind, and who I’d very much like to still be engaged to
when I return.” Addressing Hansen, he asked, “May I ask
now
how you
propose to send me back, Admiral?”

Royer
reached into her jacket and took out a small envelope, which she handed to
Dylan. “These are your identicards and instructions. You may use the reader in
my office down the hall to review them. You’ll find the equipment you’re going
to need in a small bag next to my desk. The bag is yours to keep, but...”

“Well that’s
mighty generous of you,” Dylan cracked.

“...but don’t
take it back with you,” Royer finished, ignoring his remark. “The company that
manufactured it didn’t exist until a few years ago. You won’t need it anyway.”

“Understood.”

“Any
questions?” Hansen asked.

Dylan
snickered. “Hundreds, sir, but I’ll start with, ‘What if,’ etcetera.”

“We
obviously can’t plan for every contingency,” Royer answered for the admiral. “But
I know you to be a man who thinks fast, Lieutenant. You’ll know what to do if
you run into any difficulties back there.”