Solfleet: The Call of Duty (77 page)

“Thank you,
Commander. That’s very comforting.”

“Enough of
the sarcasm, Lieutenant,” Hansen warned. “On your way.”

“Yes, sir.”
And with that, Dylan stood up, glared briefly at Royer, and then turned and
left the officers to their business. And as the door closed behind him and he
headed down the hall, he reminded himself that he was one of ‘the officers’
himself now.

Dylan stood
in front of the full-length mirror and gazed at his reflection. Dressed per his
recorded instructions in his old charcoal-gray and black Military Police
uniform, another uniform he’d held onto despite believing that he’d never wear
it again, he couldn’t help but think back to that time not so long ago when he’d
worn it every day. Those had been good years. He’d worked with a lot of good
people, some of whom he still thought about from time to time. There had been some
hard times, too, of course. The occasional loss in the line of duty of a fellow
MP or other shipmate, an idiot supervisor who didn’t know squat about how to be
a leader—of course, no one would ever be able to hold a candle to Sergeant
Carlson—a marriage that had grown steadily more troublesome as time went on.
But looking back he couldn’t help but wonder what might have been, had he never
left the Military Police.

“What are
you wearing that for?” Beth’s reflection asked, appearing behind his own as she
came back into the bedroom wrapped in a towel, her hair still damp from the
shower.

Dylan turned
around and took her into his arms. Knowing that he wasn’t going to see her for
a very long time made him sad and holding her only increased that sadness, but
he couldn’t bring himself not to hold her close. He didn’t want to leave her.
He didn’t want to let go. He wanted to hold her forever.

“My first
assignment,” he finally answered. “Believe it or not, I’m posing as a Military
Police sergeant. Ironic, huh?”

“No doubt
you were the most logical choice for the job,” she pointed out lightheartedly.

If she only
knew. “Yeah. Just lucky I guess.” He checked his watch and sighed. “I should
probably get going. There’s a transport waiting for me.”

“Any idea
how long you’ll be gone?” she asked.

Given the
details of his mission, he obviously had no idea whatsoever, but he had to tell
her something. He couldn’t just leave her hanging with no known end in sight. “If
all goes well it shouldn’t be more than a few weeks,” he guessed. Or a few
minutes. Or a few months. Or a few
years
. Who the hell knew? How
could
anyone know when time-travel was involved? Hell, he didn’t even know how he
was supposed to travel back in time in the first place.

“A few
weeks?” she whined. “What am I supposed to do for a few weeks?”

“I thought you
were going down to Earth to visit relatives for the holidays.”

“I am, but
that’s more than two weeks away. What am I supposed to do until then?”

“You could
always do some traveling,” he suggested. “You could take all your Korean
cousins to Italy, or take your Italian cousins to Korea. Or both. Or take them
all somewhere none of you have ever been before.”

“They all
have jobs, Dylan,” she reminded him. “They have to work.”

“Yeah, well,
you’re a smart girl, Beth. You’ll think of something. The admiral has gotten
authorization for you to stay in these quarters for as long as you like, so
enjoy it. This station has an artificial beach, cliffs to climb, caves to
explore, a zoo, museums, a library... There’s all kinds of stuff to do here.
And hey, maybe this thing will go quicker than I anticipate and I’ll be back in
a week or so.”

She sighed. “Maybe,”
she said, stepping away from him.

“If I could
take you with me...”

“But you can’t
leave yet,” she added, letting his last comment go unanswered. Going with him was,
after all, completely out of the question, of course.

“Why can’t I
leave yet?”

“I’ve got
something here for you from your last unit.”

She reached
into the closet and brought out a neatly gift-wrapped package, which she held
out to him. The paper was a metallic foil in Solfleet banner blue, the ribbon
and bow an equally lustrous Solfleet Marine Corps olive-burgundy—how in the
galaxy had the manufacturer ever managed to duplicate that color so closely?—and
a small card hung by a short golden thread from the base of the bow. “A courier
delivered it this morning while you were out,” she told him, “along with an
apology for taking so long to find you. Seems no one in the unit knows where
you’ve been for the last couple of months.”

“No one at
all knows,” he reminded her as he accepted the gift, “except for you, me, and a
few key people in the agency.”

“And the few
hundred other people who saw us sitting with Hansen and Royer at the banquet Friday
night.”

“Yeah, well,
I’m just another face in the crowd to them. Most of them probably wouldn’t
recognize me again if they bumped into me outside the agency’s offices.”

He sat down
on the edge of the bed and stared at the package in his hands. Whoever had
wrapped it had done an excellent job. The folds looked perfectly symmetrical,
the seams ran along the edges of the box, and whatever adhesive the person had
used wasn’t visible anywhere.

He opened the card. It read:

To Squad Sergeant Dylan
Edward Graves.

We’ll never forget you, Degger. Best Wishes for the
Future.

The few
surviving members of his squad had signed their names under a heading that read
‘Graves’ Grunts,’ just below the message.

Dylan half
smiled. ‘Best Wishes for the Future,’ it said. How ironic.

He closed
the card and set it aside, then unwrapped the box, being careful not to tear
the paper so he could rewrap it later. Inside he found a holophoto
displayer-frame laying on a thin layer of crisp green tissue paper. He tapped
the frame to activate the screen and discovered that a large number of photos
had already been programmed into its memory, so he started looking through
them. Some were snapshots taken during various company recreational activities
his platoon had participated in. Others were from the last minute going-away
party they’d thrown for him just hours before he left, including one shot of
the entire company standing in formation for the crack of dawn awards ceremony
that had preceded it. Another was a shot of him standing with the other squad
leaders, including Kenny, who’d since been promoted to Gunnery Sergeant and
appointed to the platoon sergeant’s position. But the last holophoto was the
most significant one of all, and he knew the moment he saw it that it was the
one he’d set as the frame’s default display. It was a shot of him standing with
his squad in full combat gear. A shot that had been taken during the last FTX,
just days before that fateful mission.

Despite the
fact that he was a grown man—despite his rugged training and his
battle-hardened heart—tears welled up in his eyes. He stared at the picture for
long, silent moments. At his friend Running Horse, who’d recovered from his
wounds and returned to duty. At Frieburger, Baumgartner, and Doc Leskowski, who’d
somehow made it through the ordeal without a scratch. All four of them were
driving on under a new squad leader. Who that squad leader was, he didn’t know,
but he hoped that one of them had been promoted to the position. He felt guilty
for not having kept in touch with them better, even though he hadn’t had the
option to do so.

He gazed at
Marissa, who’d miraculously survived her wounds as well, but whose service to
the Corps had ended. She’d cut off all contact and started a new life for
herself. He’d heard through the grapevine that after a series of cosmetic
surgeries her beauty had been completely restored. He could only hope that her
internal scars had healed as well. He said a quick, silent prayer for her and
asked God to take care of that if he hadn’t already. And then he stared at the
others, each one in turn. The Rangers who’d stood their ground against
impossible odds—who’d made the ultimate sacrifice under his leadership.

Finally,
Dylan wiped away his tears and blinked his eyes a number of times, hoping to
erase all evidence of his rare emotional release. Once his eyes had cleared, he
took the frame out of the box and set it on the bed beside him, then carefully
opened the tissue paper to find a beautifully arranged commemorative plaque
underneath it. Full-sized duplicates of his various medals were mounted on a
velvety matte-black backing in the shape of a diamond with the gold, silver,
and blue Solfleet insignia badge in the center. Duplicates of all his ribbons
were mounted beneath them, just as he wore them on his uniform, flanked on both
sides by a pair of glistening, gold and silver-plated Marine Corps crests.

“The courier
had a message for you, too,” Beth told him, speaking quietly so as not to spoil
her fiancé’s moment of somber reflection.

“What did he
say?”

“He said
they
said that everyone gets a party when they leave, but they wanted to do
something different for you—something special for proving them wrong. Whatever
that means.” Dylan grinned, but when he didn’t immediately offer an explanation,
she asked, “So what does it mean?”

“When I was
assigned to the unit the squad resented my appointment as their sergeant
because it kept one of them from being promoted to the position,” he explained.
“They also found out I was a brand new Ranger, not to mention a new marine,
which certainly didn’t help.” He snickered. “I thought they were going to
mutiny before the end of my first day. They told me I’d never cut it and backed
up their prediction with a pile of federals. Three months later I had my sports
car.”

Beth
frowned. “You kept the money?”

“Of course
not. I put it into the company recreation fund. They took it out again, with
the commander’s permission, and bought the car for me before I knew anything
about it.” Sadness washed away his grin. “Marissa had seen me eyeballing one
just like it in Tarko City. Using some rather underhanded means I found out
that buying it was her idea.”

Beth watched
as that blank expression return to his face. The expression she’d first seen
that night in the garden and had come to recognize as the face of a man whose
thoughts were drifting away, into the past. She let him have a few moments,
then cleared her throat to get his attention and asked a question that had been
on her mind since the first time she heard the woman’s name. “Should I be
jealous of Marissa?”

“What?” he
asked, focusing on her. “Oh, no. Not at all. Marissa was a good marine and a
good friend and colleague.” He’d promised never to lie to her, he reminded
himself. “I mean, to be honest, there was some strong chemistry between us, but
we never really started anything. She was one of my immediate subordinates, after
all. Besides, I was a married man at the time. That made two strikes against
any romantic relationship we might have wanted.”

“But if
things had been different?”

“If things
had been different then we might have gotten together,” he told her
matter-of-factly. “I won’t lie to you about it. But you should know that I’m
over that. I’m over her. I was never in love with her in the first place. But I
do
love you, with all my heart.”

She smiled. “Okay.”
Then she glanced at the wall clock and groaned. “I hate to say this, but you’d
better get going.”

He looked at
his watch again, set down his gift, and stood up. “You’re right,” he said,
taking her by the waist. “I love you, Beth.”

Beth raised
her arms and folded her hands behind his neck. “Try not to be gone too long.”

“I’ll be
back as soon as possible. I promise.”

He pulled
her close and kissed her, then reluctantly let her go. Then he grabbed up his
crew bag, slung it over his shoulder, and led the way out through the living
room. He keyed open the front door and stepped into the corridor, but he couldn’t
resist the urge to turn back and gaze on her again—to look at her just one more
time. She just stood there and stared back at him until the door slid closed between
them.

Dylan
sighed. He missed her already.

He hated
good-byes. They always seemed so...permanent.

Hanger deck
four. Finally. While it was true that Dylan had been stationed on Mandela for a
year earlier in his career, that assignment had ended almost eight years ago
and he’d only been back a few times for relatively short stays since then, so
his memory of the station’s layout was a little rusty. Even with the computer’s
aid, finding the hanger bays hadn’t been easy.

The
environmental status panel next to the heavy airlock hatch indicated that the
bay on the other side was fully pressurized with an Earth-normal atmosphere, so
Dylan walked right in. Dressed as he was as a Military Police sergeant, his
arrival drew a few curious but brief glances from some of the flight deck crew,
aircraft mechanics in particular, but for the most part they conspicuously
ignored him. There was just something about Military Police troops and aircraft
mechanics that didn’t seem to mix. A sort of rivalry so old that it had become
almost traditional.

Three
massive vessels in various states of disrepair were berthed on the other side
of the half-meter thick transluminum bay wall to his immediate right. He
stopped to take a closer look. He’d always known that the ships of the fleet
were massively huge, of course, but having never seen the outside of one from
so close up before, he hadn’t realized just how enormous they really were, and
the sight of three of the mammoth vessels docked side-by-side was overwhelming
to say the least.

The ship on
the left was the starcarrier
U.E.F.S. Victory
, minus her lower portside
jump nacelle, which had obviously been lost in what Dylan imagined must have
been a fierce battle. What little remained of its twin support structures didn’t
amount to much more than a mass of blackened, twisted frame struts and mangled
hull plates. The upper nacelle hung partially torn away from its forward
support structure, canted at an odd angle, and twisted laterally along its
length—probably damaged when its lower twin was destroyed. Much of the hull was
pitted and scarred, no doubt having faced a rain of enemy fire. Several of the
gun emplacements around her perimeter had been damaged or destroyed as well,
and her lower scanner array was all but gone. The battle had clearly been a devastating
one, but despite the vessel’s condition—despite her wounds—the
U.E.F.S.
Victory
had obviously lived up to her name. Otherwise she never would have
made it home.