by K. D. Mattis
Once she safely collected all the turtles, Asher finally took a moment to consider the state of the backyard. In her rush to save her pets, she failed to notice that the water was covering the tops of her shoes.
“Please take them inside,” Asher said as she started to run to the front of the house.
“What are you doing now?” Her father shouted the question as the storm picked up.
Asher ignored the question. She knew their house was near the top of a hill. If they were experiencing any amount of flooding, others at the bottom of the hill were experiencing far worse. She didn’t know what to do to help, but she knew she had to do something.
The storm continued to grow in intensity. Looking to her neighbor’s house, she saw their boat sitting in their driveway. She strained to see through the rain to the bottom of the hill. She couldn’t make out much until a bolt of lightning lit up the sky. While the hill wasn’t steep, she could still see what must have been a couple of feet of water covering the road and front lawns of her neighbors.
Splashing water in the distance caught Asher’s attention. She turned to see a large SUV heading her direction. It came to a stop in front of her house. Three men jumped out and ran over with umbrellas.
“Yes?” Asher asked.
One of the men extended an umbrella over the admiral and offered a hasty salute.
“Admiral, we’re here to bring you to the airport.”
Asher frowned and pushed the umbrella away. She was already soaked, so it didn’t do any good. “That’s not going to happen.”
Reaching into his pocket, the man pulled a tablet from his coat pocket and extended it toward the admiral. Asher took the tablet and reviewed the message on the screen. The raindrops sent beams of light everywhere, making the text hard to read.
Asher pushed the tablet back into the man’s hands. “I have a lot of people here that need help. I can’t just abandon them.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” said the man. “If it were up to me, I’d let you do as you saw fit. This is directly from Central Command. They’ve deemed the area dangerous and ordered your immediate extraction.”
“Fine. I’ll let my dad know we’re leaving.”
The men exchanged a glance. “I wish we could, sir, but our orders are essential personnel only.”
“What about my stuff?” Asher asked.
“We’re on it,” said one of the others as he ran up to the house.
“My footlocker is in the living room.”
Two of the men ran up to the door and knocked. Asher’s father answered a moment later and allowed them in. He didn’t even look at them as they passed. He walked over to Asher, despite the rain. The remaining soldier extended the umbrella toward him, but he waved it away.
“What’s going on, babe?”
Asher looked at her father’s feet for a moment, hoping to avoid seeing the pain in his eyes again. She couldn’t avoid it forever, so she looked up and saw exactly what she feared. His forced smile did nothing to mask his pain.
“You’re leaving again?” he asked.
Nodding, Asher leaned in and embraced her father. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“No,” he said. “You have to do what you have to do. I understand.”
“I wanted to stay longer. I don’t mean to keep doing this to you.”
Asher’s father pushed her away. “Kiddo, I had you all to myself for most of your life. The world needs you now. It’s only fair.”
The two men appeared from inside the house a moment later. Each held one side of Asher’s footlocker. They made short work of loading it into the SUV, then stood off to the side with the doors open waiting for their superior officer.
Entering the vehicle, Asher looked out at her father once more. There she was in her pajamas, once again leaving her home. Nothing about the situation felt right. She hated leaving, but she knew that her orders took precedence over her feelings.
The man to her right patted Asher’s knee in consolation. Every soldier knew the feeling of leaving home and family all too well, but Asher glared at him until he apologized.
Commander Cole met her at Johnson Space Center. The plane ride wasn’t particularly tiring, but the whole experience of cutting her leave short left Asher drained, and it showed on her face.
“Something wrong, sir?” Cole asked.
Asher glared at him, and they continued. She didn’t intend to burden him with her problems, but he prodded again.
“Do I look that bad?” Asher asked.
“It’s not that, sir. You just look like you have the world on your shoulders.”
“Sometimes I feel like it is.”
Asher led the way to the mess hall. Once again, the room was practically empty. A couple of graveyard shift workers hung around in the corner of the room watching a game. Upon seeing the admiral, they polished off the last bit of their food and made a quick exit.
After grabbing a sandwich, Asher looked to the commander and asked, “Any idea why Command wanted me back?”
“You haven’t heard?”
“About what?”
Cole leaned in close. “It’s Harris. He’s gone.”
“What? Where?”
“No one knows. Security footage shows him talking to himself before he just got up and left.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, Asher took a bite of her sandwich. “This is a secured facility. He couldn’t have just walked out.”
“That’s the thing,” Cole said. “That’s almost exactly what he did. I know he’s resourceful, but he didn’t even make it look like a challenge. He made a stop by the laundry room, grabbed someone’s uniform, and just left. He was there one minute and gone the next.”
“What did the footage show after he left his room?”
Cole shrugged. “Nothing. He doesn’t show up on any of the other cameras. They all blacked out just as he left. They were down for a full two minutes. By the time they came back up, there was no trace of him.”
“Wow,” Asher said between bites. Somehow, she had forgotten to grab a drink on her way to the table, so she stood, pushed some quarters into a machine, and returned with an orange soda. She took a sip and grimaced. The soda was flat. “So, I’m here because of a security breach? That seems more like a—”
“Security team issue?”
Nodding, Asher looked over at one of the televisions. It was on a weather channel and showed a large patch of red crossing over the area around her home.
Cole continued, “The problem is that he was talking to himself before he left. I haven’t been able to hear the audio, but Command seems to think it’s important. May I say something? In confidence?”
Again, Asher nodded, still only half paying attention.
“This has to be between you and me, but I heard something was going on with one of the doctors. I don’t know any specifics, but right after Harris left, so did the doctor.”
“Wait, what?” Asher asked. “Do they know where he is?”
“They do. They found him dead in his apartment not even an hour after they started looking for him. From what I understand, he was in pretty bad shape.”
Asher froze. She couldn’t see any signs of jest in the commander’s face.
“I’m sorry. Run that by me again,” Asher said.
“The doctor is dead.”
“Do they think Harris had anything to do with it?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think they have any proof, but I’m sure he’s the primary suspect at this point.”
For a while, the pair sat in silence. Every so often, Asher looked over at the weather broadcast. The storm was so strong and so intense. She landed hours ago, but the storm still raged on.
“Cole,” Asher said, “did you get a chance to view the transcript of what Harris said in his room?”
Cole shook his head. “No, sir. I tried, but I don’t have a high enough clearance.”
“For a transcript?”
Standing, Cole shrugged. “I figure that
if I was meant to read it, they’d have given me access.”
“Maybe. Still, strange that you wouldn’t have the clearance.”
Back in her office, Asher tried several times to pull up the transcripts she was after. Each time she was greeted by the same red and white warning screen telling her that she didn’t have the necessary clearance. She picked up the corded phone on her desk and placed a call.
“This is Robinson, Central Command. What can I do for you, Admiral?” The voice on the other end of the line came through clearly but sounded worn out.
Asher spoke carefully. She didn’t want to seem too eager. “Yes. This is Admiral Asher. I was looking for the transcript from the security feed of one of my men’s stay in the Space Center’s hospital. When I try to access it, I get a warning that I don’t have clearance. I need that fixed.”
The sound of typing poured through the phone as Robinson performed a search. He spoke up after a considerable delay. “No, sir. No mistake.”
“I see,” Asher said. “Thank you.”
“Is there anything else I can do for you, Admiral?”
“No, that’ll be all.”
13
A shuttle bus took Asher, Commander Cole, and Commander Gibbs out to a large hangar in the middle of a giant field. The closer they drove to it, the brighter Cole’s face went. For the first time in a long time, Commander Cole expressed genuine joy about something.
When they pulled up, the group filed out of the bus and walked as a single unit toward the massive door of the hangar. Asher removed a piece of cloth from her uniform pocket.
“Cole,” Asher said, lifting the cloth.
“Is that necessary?” the commander asked.
Asher handed the cloth to Commander Gibbs, who then wrapped it around Cole’s head and covered his eyes.
The hangar door opened slowly, driven by a powerful motor. Cole heard the din of hundreds of people rushing around.
As Cole and the officers stepped into the hangar, people kept on moving without skipping a beat. The group made their way to a ladder positioned on the side of the ship. Each step was steep, certainly a hazard to the blindfolded commander, but his fellow officers made sure he kept his footing as they ascended into the ship.
Guided by his shoulders, Commander Cole found himself pushed down into the command chair. A smile crept across his face as his hands traced the stitching of the fabric on his chair. It wasn’t fancy, but the craftsmanship was excellent. Soft enough to be comfortable, but not so soft as to inspire laziness.
“Ready?” Asher asked.
Cole nodded as Commander Gibbs pulled off his blindfold.
“Wow,” Cole said.
The Commander looked around the bridge. It was very similar to his old ship, the Guardian, but he noticed some key differences. The tactical control panel to his left had more buttons and switches than before. Standing, Cole took a few careful steps. The floor was the same material as his old ship, but his regular shoes made a different noise than the magnetic shoes he wore while in space. It threw him off. He could move much quicker with gravity’s assistance, but it wasn’t quite the same, and wasn’t quite as good.
While he moved to the piloting controls, Cole imagined floating in the air. The soft sound of the soles of his shoes broke the illusion a bit, but he managed. He was back on his ship.
Turning to offer Commander Gibbs a high-five, Cole froze and left the commander hanging. The expanded space behind his chair drew his focus. A few quick steps took him to the table and monitors in the back of the room.
“What’s this?” Cole asked.
Asher nodded to Commander Gibbs who said, “It’s a Combat Information Center. The ship’s rated for longer missions away from the Explorer now, so the CIC is a necessity.”
“Really?” Cole asked as he traced the edge of the table with his hand. “What’s the crew compliment?”
Asher chimed in. “Startup requires two. One to handle the manual controls in engineering and another in the pilot’s seat. Regular missions will have the usual ten. A full complement of fifteen is used for extended missions.”
Cole stopped moving around the CIC for a moment. “So, if we have extended mission capability, does that mean we have bunks?”
Nodding, Asher led the group past the CIC. In a tight hallway, they passed a small office area, some maintenance access panels, and ended in an open room with curtains lining the walls. Cole wasted no time and ripped back the curtain revealing a padded area of only a couple feet. A sleeping bag hung from the wall, attached by hooks.
“This will do,” Cole said.
The tour continued for some time. Cole never stopped poking his head into every corner he could find. They attempted to navigate the access tunnels, but gravity made it difficult. They ended the tour in the cargo hold. A door spanning the entire width of the room extended down to the floor. The group walked down to a team of fourteen men and women in uniform. Upon seeing their new commanding officer, the corpsmen snapped to a salute. Asher put them at ease a moment later.
Cole shook hands with each of his corpsmen. While he was pleased to see a few that he recognized, most of the faces were new to him. He knew he’d have to take the time to get to know them, but for the moment he decided to keep walking so that he could get a good look at his ship from a distance.
“What did you do?” Cole asked as he took in the full view of his ship.
“What do you mean?” Asher asked.
“This is hideous. The old Guardian was beautiful. This one’s…lumpy.”
Laughing, Asher pointed to one of the lumps to which Cole referred. “It won’t win you any beauty contests, but you’ll appreciate those lumps if you’re ever under direct fire. The alien weapons could cut right through the old hull. They’ll have to work to cut through this one.”
“Yeah, but my ship used to be svelte. This one’s so much larger.”
“It is,” Gibbs said, jumping in. “It’s nearly twice the size of the old one. They’re making modifications so the Explorer to accommodate it.”
“I don’t like it. Not the outside, at least,” Cole said.
Gibbs pushed the man in the arm causing him to stumble slightly. Gibbs had apparently forgotten about his fellow commander’s wounds. The push revealed them and Cole stumbled.
“At least you have a ship in good working order,” Gibbs said.
Waving, Asher signaled one of the corpsman to step forward with a bag. From the bag, Asher pulled a bottle of champagne.
“Commander,” she said, “the ship is yours. It needs a name. It’s the first of a new class of ships, so whatever you name the ship will also be the name of the new class. Pick something good.”
The bottle tossed between Gibbs’s hands several times as he thought. There were so many possibilities, but only one struck him as worthy of his ship and his legacy.
“Sir,” he nodded and stepped up to the hull, “say hello to the Guardian Two.”
The bottle of champagne shattered against the hull, an experience Asher missed out on with the Explorer. The crew of the new ship clapped and sent a ripple of applause to most of the workers in the hangar.
Asher and Gibbs left Commander Cole to his new ship.
Nursing a deep bruise, Asher made her way to the infirmary. She didn’t like admitting weakness, but having watched Cole stumble, she knew it was her responsibility to address her injuries. She couldn’t keep pretending nothing was wrong when her knees kept giving out on her.
A man in a lab coat entered the room and spent several minutes pouring through the admiral’s charts. While he was part of the Space Corps, he didn’t bother observing any of the usual decorum. Asher was his superior officer, but she was also his patient, and he treated her as such, much to her chagrin.
“How many workouts did you miss while in space, Asher?” the doctor asked.
She wasn’t sure, but Asher said, “Not many. Missing a few couldn’t be avoided.”
“You know how important the wo
rkouts are, right?”
“Yes.”
Asher didn’t appreciate the doctor’s tone, but she understood he had a reason to chastise her. She had done so to her own crew in the past. She never intended to skip her workouts, but when she had the time to get them in, she often had mountains of paperwork stacking up as well.
“We have a problem here.”
Looking to the doctor and cocking her head, Asher asked, “What sort of problem?”
“The bad kind.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough,” the doctor replied. “Really and truly, it would be in your best interest if I grounded you.”
“For how long?”
“Indefinitely. This isn’t a problem that’s just going to go away with some physical therapy. Therapy will help, but it won’t fix anything.”
Asher felt a lump growing in her throat.
“Is there any way you could do your job from the Space Center? At this point, that’s our best option.”
Shaking her head, Asher said, “No. There’s too much of a time delay and too much interference in communication. It’s best to have someone up in space coordinating things.”
“I see.”
For a while, the pair sat in silence. The doctor kept flipping through her chart while Asher looked to the ground. A part of her wanted to pretend that nothing was wrong, but the effect of her failing knees was growing worse.
“Here’s how it is,” said the doctor. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on in your legs. You’re passing all the tests as far as I can tell, except when you don’t. It’s like your legs just decide that they don’t want to listen to the signal your brain is sending.”
“What’s causing it?” Asher asked.
The doctor dropped his folder on the counter. “What isn’t causing it? You’re skipping workouts, you’re constantly exposed to radiation, and you’re constantly exposed to zero gravity. None of that’s good for you.”
Leaning forward, Asher placed her hands on her chin. “I didn’t skip many workouts. If I could get them done, then I did.”
