by Smith, Glenn
“Would you come to my office, please?”
“Yes, sir, I’ll be right there.”
“Thank you.” He closed the channel and sat back to wait for her, and realized that he was actually looking forward to spending a few minutes with her. Her office was only a short walk up the hall, but with everything that had been going on lately—his medal and promotion ceremony, the mysterious message from the alleged Lieutenant O’Donnell, and especially his ongoing struggle with Heather over her bad behavior, not to mention whatever Royer herself had been busy with lately—he hadn’t seen her in almost a week.
Elizabeth Royer was a woman much like many others he’d met over the years. She’d grown up in the fresh, clean outdoor air of the United States’ Midwestern plains and looked no older than her thirty-eight years. In fact, a physically fit and genuinely attractive woman, she actually looked several years younger than that...except for that one narrow streak of premature silver that had slowly grown into her golden bangs over the last few years, which in his opinion only complemented her natural beauty.
Nearly a decade ago, long before she’d started working for him instead of just with him, he’d considered pursuing a relationship with her on a more personal level—something he hadn’t done with anyone since his wife’s tragic and untimely death a year or two before that. He soon came to realize, however, that Royer was all business, or so he concluded at the time, so he quickly gave up on the idea. It wasn’t until several weeks after she was assigned, when her wife finally arrived on station, that he learned she was married. After that he put the attraction out of his mind and eventually grew content with their strictly professional relationship.
At least that was what he’d been telling himself for the last several years.
His door buzzer sounded. “Come in.”
The door slid aside and Commander Royer strolled in. She was wearing duty fatigues, her platinum hair was pulled straight back and tied into a simple ponytail—both rarities for her—and she was drying her hands on two or three crumpled up paper towels. “Good afternoon, Admiral,” she greeted him cheerfully as she approached his desk. “Long time no see.”
“You’re in an exceptionally good mood, considering,” Hansen commented.
“Technicians finally showed up to replace my terminal,” she explained. She tossed the paper towels into the wastebasket beside his desk, then took a seat across from him and crossed her legs.
“Doing the heavy work yourself?” he asked.
“No, but I decided that since I had to move my desk anyway, I might as well take care of a few other jobs while I’m at it. I’ll be back in my class-B’s tomorrow.”
“That’s fine,” he said, waving the non-issue aside. Then, getting to the matter at hand, he continued, “Listen, Liz. I’m sure you’re aware by now of what’s happened in the Rosha’Kana system.”
“Yes, sir, I am,” she confirmed. “I read the message first thing this morning. Any word on the whereabouts of the Victory?”
“As best we can determine, she made it to the jumpstation. What happened to her after that we don’t know yet.”
“So she did jump out.”
“Apparently.”
“Well, I guess that makes her luckier than some.”
“Luckier than quite a few, I’m afraid. Total Coalition losses have yet to be determined, but we do know that Solfleet’s losses have been heavy.” He paused for a moment and reflected on the staggering numbers that had crossed his desk earlier in the day, then snapped out of it and got back to business. “Anyway, I called you in here because there’s something I need you to do. Top priority.”
“Name it, sir.”
He could have done just that. As her superior officer, he could have told her what he needed her to do and left it at that without giving her a reason or explaining anything. But that wasn’t how he operated, especially with his own executive officer. People were just naturally more willing to do things when they knew why they had to do them.
“The Earth Security Council held an emergency session this morning. MacLeod came up to see me right after.”
“He came up here himself?” she asked, amused. It wasn’t at all like the chairman not to delegate his various tasks to his underlings, especially those that involved off-world travel.
But Hansen was in no mood to joke about it. Instead, he looked her square in the eye and told her, “They’re talking about using the Portal, Liz.”
She stared at him, suddenly every bit as serious as he was. “Using the...” she began, choking on her words. She cleared her throat, then tried again. “Using the Portal how, sir?”
“To send an agent back. Try to alter the timeline in order to avoid the Coalition defeat in the Rosha’Kana system.”
“You uh...you didn’t tell him about...”
“No, of course not,” he assured her, shaking his head, “I’ve never told anyone outside the operation about that.”
“Good,” she said, exhaling with relief. “I’m not ready to go to prison just yet.”
“Don’t worry, neither am I.”
Six years earlier, during a particularly dark time in the war, Doctor Günter Royer, one of the world’s premier biotronics and human genetic engineering experts and a man who also just happened to be Commander Royer’s older brother, had conspired with them and gone through the Portal on a similar type of mission aimed at altering the past in order to change the present. Actually, his mission had been to add to the past, but essentially that meant the same thing. He’d taken enough stolen genetic material and advanced biotronics designs with him to fast-grow and augment several divisions of cyberclone soldiers, given enough time. Unfortunately, he’d never returned from the past, assuming that he ever made it there in the first place, and as far as Hansen and Royer could determine, nothing about their present had ever changed.
And now they didn’t even know if he was alive or dead.
While the three of them had proceeded according to what they’d felt at the time to be in the best interests of Earth and her colonies, their actions had nonetheless violated at least two of the Earth Federation’s highest laws. The first was the law banning travel through the Portal for any reason, which, like the Portal’s existence itself, was classified as ‘Top Secret,’ and whose violation carried a possible death sentence. The second was the Brix-Cyberclone Cessation Act of 2162, which had put an immediate stop to all human cloning and enhancement programs and permanently outlawed any subsequent resumption of them. In addition, they’d violated one or more standard laws against willfully endangering a private citizen. In fact, it might even have been possible to charge them with Manslaughter, although proving such a charge in court would likely have been difficult at best.
“So what’s the mission, Admiral?” Royer finally asked. “What exactly is our agent going to have to do once he or she arrives wherever or whenever they’re going?”
“They haven’t worked out all the details yet. MacLeod just wanted to give us a heads-up as quickly as possible so we could get started on selecting someone.”
“Selecting someone?” she asked. “That’s not going to be easy without having at least some idea of what skill sets the mission’s going to require. We have thousands of agents with widely varied experience. How do we know who’s best suited to go? What kind of experience is going to be the most valuable?”
“We don’t know. Not yet.”
Royer exhaled loudly again, but she found no relief in it this time. “What exactly do we know, sir?” she asked. “What do you want me to do?”
“We don’t know much,” he answered honestly. “Review our agents’ service records and compile a list of the ten most likely suited for the mission.”
“You want me to review all our agents’ records, sir?” she asked, a little disconcerted.
“No,” he answered, shaking his head. Obviously, that would be a monumental task. “No, not all of them. Disregard all those who are married and/or have children. In fact, I
want you to exclude everyone who has dependants of any kind. Parents, siblings, I don’t care what. See how large a list that leaves you with, then narrow it down as you see fit.”
“Yes, sir, but that’s still going to take a while.”
“You have until one week from today, Commander. I need those ten names no later than next Wednesday morning the twenty-eighth. You can work from home if you want to. In fact, I’d prefer it if you’d work from home. The fewer distractions, the better.”
“Then I’ll do that, Admiral. Thank you.”
“That’s all, Commander.”
“Yes, sir.” She stood up, but before she turned her back on him she asked, “May I ask you what you think about all this, Admiral?” She knew Hansen to be a passionate man, especially where the wellbeing of the personnel under his command was concerned, and she’d always found it easier to know how to approach her assignments when she knew where he stood on a particular issue.
He considered her question for a moment, then answered, “Without knowing your brother is all right, I hesitate to send anyone else through unless it’s our absolute last resort. But when the time comes, if the order comes down, I will send someone through.”
She gazed down at her feet for a few seconds, then lifted her eyes back to his and asked, somewhat hesitantly, “Any chance that person might be assigned to search for Günter as well?”
Hansen gazed at her for several moments. Difficult though it might be, someday she was going to have to let him go. Then again, he knew what it felt like to lose someone. Where was the harm in trying, if the opportunity presented itself? “I don’t have a problem making that a secondary mission, Liz, assuming our agent doesn’t go back to a point in time beyond what Günter’s target was.”
Royer nodded, then turned and left Hansen’s office.
* * *
She went back to her office first, to delegate all of her routine daily and weekly tasks as well as her other current, more sensitive assignments to a few of her closest and most trusted subordinate officers. After all, there was a war on and the galaxy wasn’t going to stop spinning and wait for her to return to work. Then, as those officers repeatedly assured her that she had nothing to worry about, she reluctantly left for home.
As she made her way toward her quarters, all she could think about was the daunting task that lay ahead of her. The agency employed more than ten thousand sworn, credentialed covert agents—closer to eleven or twelve, if she counted those who served in administrative positions along with the active field operatives—the majority of whom did not have dependents of any kind. Theirs wasn’t exactly a career conducive to a happy and successful family life. Hansen had given her a week to complete an assignment that could easily take two or three if not more, and although she’d be working from home, she knew she was facing some very long and tedious days ahead.
Chapter 14
Eleven Days Later
Sunday, 1 August 2190
Sweating profusely and writhing in agony on the deck, while at the same time crying for his slaughtered family, Federation Vice-President Jonathan Harkam somehow still managed to reach out and grab the front of Hansen’s jacket in his quivering, blood-stained fist. He pulled him closer, bared his clenched teeth and spat streams of red saliva over his chin as he grunted against the pain, then stared up at him through red, swollen eyes.
“Please!” he managed to force through the pain. “Oh God, it burns! Make it stop!”
Hansen took hold of Harkam’s wrist with both hands and tried with all his strength to pull free of his desperate, vice-like grip, but the dying man only tightened his grasp to the point where Hansen thought he heard a finger snap and pulled him closer. “Mister Vice-President,” Hansen responded as calmly as he could. “I can’t just...”
“Yes you CAN!” the dying vice-leader of the unified free world roared.
“Do it, Major.”
Hansen whirled around as far as the vice-president’s grasp would allow and glared wide-eyed at...at the squad sergeant—the only one of his men who’d managed to survive the attack with him.
“He’s the vice-president for God sake!” he reminded him.
“He’s suffering, sir,” the sergeant pointed out. “There’s nothing more we can do for him now.”
“I can’t just kill him!” Hansen insisted.
“Yes, you can.”
Gasping for every breath, Harkam jerked Hansen hard, drawing his attention back to him. “Please, Major!” he pleaded, crying openly now, barely able to speak through the agony anymore. “Do it!” He coughed suddenly, spewing a foot-high fountain of dark, red-brown blood that barely missed Hansen’s face when he recoiled, then splattered back over his chin and his suit coat. “Do...it,” he begged once more.
“You’ve got to do it, sir,” the sergeant told him. “There’s no other option.”
Hansen knew in his heart that the sergeant was right. Harkam’s entire family had been brutally slaughtered and the vice-president himself had been pumped full of...of whatever it was that damn beast had pumped him full of. If the poor man’s cries were to be believed, then he was literally burning to death from the inside out.
He drew his sidearm and slowly pressed the muzzle to the vice-president’s temple. He drew several short, deep breaths and licked his suddenly very dry lips. But he just couldn’t bring himself to squeeze the trigger.
“It’s the humane thing to do, sir,” the sergeant pointed out.
“DO IT!” Harkam shrieked through the pain, his tears tinted red with blood. Then he suddenly started shaking Hansen violently back and forth as he lost whatever control he’d been clinging to and convulsed, screaming and crying even louder than before. “OH GOD!” he screamed, spitting and coughing up blood. “DO IT!”
“Do it, sir,” the sergeant repeated.
Hansen closed his eyes and turned away. “Forgive me,” he whispered. Then he drew a long, deep breath, and squeezed the trigger.
Hansen woke suddenly but realized immediately that he was safe in bed—that it was only the nightmares again. They’d haunted his sleep every night for the last two weeks, and quite frankly he was starting to get used to them. He’d even accepted the presence of the unidentified squad sergeant who’d first appeared the night before he learned of the Coalition’s devastating loss at Rosha’Kana, although he was still a little curious about where that sergeant had come from in the first place.
A sudden, rapid knock-knock-knock on his door diverted his train of thought.
“Dad, are you up yet?” came Heather’s muffled voice from the other side. “Come on. Breakfast will be ready in two minutes.”
Breakfast? Since when did Heather get up and make breakfast—especially on a Sunday morning? She must have wanted something.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” he told her. Then, as he sat up and dropped his feet to the floor, he remembered. Two weeks had passed since she’d gotten caught stealing again at Nigel Worthington’s store. Actually, two weeks and a day had passed, but the way he always measured it in regards to handing out punishment... She’d gotten herself into trouble on a Friday, so her two weeks had started that Saturday and had run through the entire Saturday two weeks later. At any rate, her punishment had come to its end.
He stood and stretched, then changed into a pair of shorts and a tee shirt and headed into the kitchen, where the mouthwatering aromas of cinnamon French toast, spicy Italian sausage, and fresh brewed coffee overwhelmed him seconds before he got a look at what she’d prepared.
“I’m really impressed, Heather,” he told his daughter, who had actually dressed decently for a change, when she greeted him with a rare smile.
She must really have wanted to get out of their quarters for a while. Not that he could blame her. By grounding her he’d essentially grounded himself as well because he’d had to stay home in order to enforce it—except for normal duty hours, of course, during which he’d simply posted a guard outside their door—so he knew exactly what it felt l
ike to spend every evening for over two weeks at home. He’d had to do it more than a few times over the years, and he knew that as a young teenage girl, it had to have been doubly hard for her.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling even more brightly as she set his plate and his coffee down on the table. “Consider it an apology for all the trouble I’ve caused you over the years. Especially with Mister Worthington.”
He took his seat, leaned over his steaming plate and took a big whiff, then looked at his daughter and said, “Smells like a good apology to me. I accept.”
Heather gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then set her own plate on the table across from him and sat down. “Helping the police bust that guy last week means yesterday was my last day grounded, right?” she asked hopefully as they started to eat.
“That was our deal, yes,” her father answered as he chopped the sausages into bite-sized pieces with his fork. Then he asked, “Why? Have you already made plans for today?”
“Nothing’s confirmed yet, but Corrine called me this morning and asked if I could go to the beach with her. Is it all right?”
‘Nothing confirmed’, he reflected with a grin. She’d been around military people so long she was starting to talk like them. He asked, “You’re actually asking my permission?”
“Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do, Daddy?” she asked in return.
“Yeah, I’m just not used to it.”
“Well, get used to it, because I realize now that it’s a matter of respect and that I should have been doing it all along, so I’m going to be doing it from now on.”
She was really laying it on thick. Either that or—dare he hope?—she really had finally seen the error of her ways. He decided to give her the benefit of the doubt, as usual, and told her, “Yes, you may go to the beach.”
She smiled, jumped up, and hugged him again. “Thank you, Daddy.”
“You’re welcome, Princess,” he responded, hugging her back. “Have a good time, but please, don’t come home too late.”
