by Smith, Glenn
Then Running Horse added, “Walters saw her step out of the shower stall ahead of you.”
Walters stopped in mid chew and stared wide-eyed at Running Horse with shock and disbelief written in big bold black letters across his face, but he was smart enough not to say anything inappropriate. The Navajo was a lot bigger than he was.
Running Horse, his victim now identified, made a point of not returning the underling’s horrified stare. “He said it looked like she was tucking in her towel, as if she’d just wrapped it around herself.” With a brief shrug, he added, “He just happened to mention it to us.”
“Oh, really?” Dylan said, turning his gaze to the young private. “You just happened to mention it to them, huh.”
With much effort, Walters swallowed everything in his mouth, then tried to defend his wounded honor. “Honest, Degger, I meant...I didn’t mean to imply...”
“So, without talking to either me or the corporal first, you drew your own conclusions based on what you thought you saw, even though there was no way you could be sure you saw what you thought you saw, then told them what you thought you saw.” Dylan could almost see the gears turning in Walters’ brain as the poor kid tried to follow his reasoning and think of something to say in his own defense, but the words just weren’t coming out.
The private exhaled heavily and finally admitted his guilt. “Yes, Sergeant.”
“That’s how nasty rumors get started, Private Walters,” Dylan scolded, his voice full of mock anger. Actually, he was glad Running Horse had brought it up. It gave him a chance to address what had happened and present his own defense without appearing too defensive. In other words, it presented him with the perfect opportunity to lie his way out of potential trouble, at least for the time being. Maybe that had been Billy’s ultimate intent to begin with. It would be just like him.
“For your information, Jeff,” he resumed, “nothing happened in there. Not a thing. But by talking to people out here in public about what you thought you saw after you thought you saw it, even though you didn’t really see what you thought you saw at all, you risked ruining our careers.”
“Yours and mine?” the younger man asked, obviously confused by Dylan’s doubletalk.
“Mine and Corporal Ortiz’s,” Dylan clarified.
“Oh.” Walters swallowed hard. “Sorry, Sarge.”
Dylan let him sweat for another moment, then said, “All right, forget it. It’s over and done with. But I hope you learned something. That was, after all, Sergeant Running Horse’s intent when he spoke up. He wasn’t just trying to get you into trouble.”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
Deciding that it was time to finally let Walters off the hook, Dylan looked at Running Horse and asked, “You weren’t just trying to get him into trouble, were you?”
“Of course I was,” the sergeant answered, stone-faced.
“You were?” Walters asked, staring at Running Horse again. “Why?”
But Running Horse didn’t respond. He didn’t even look back at him, or acknowledge the question in any other way. Then the laughter started around the table again, and after a moment, when he finally realized that they’d only been teasing him, Walters freely joined in.
He was going to fit in just fine.
Dylan glanced across the table and offered his silent thanks to Billy, then turned to Marissa. “And as for you,” he began, smiling, “drink up. You still have another one coming.”
“Yes, dear,” she responded, quietly, so that only he would hear.
“Sergeant Graves?”
Dylan looked up to find the company clerk standing a few feet to his right. “Hey, Ronny, what’s going on?”
“You must really have done it now, Sergeant,” Ronny said melodramatically. “The C-O wants to see you in his office right away.”
“Probably needs help with a command decision,” Dylan kidded. “Look what happened when no one helped him choose a favorite football team.”
“What happened?” Walters asked.
“He’s a Cowboys fan,” Dylan answered, himself a Philadelphia Eagles’ fan.
“Maybe he has cameras in the shower stalls,” Running Horse quipped, smiling again.
“At ease, Sergeant,” Dylan warned. It was a friendly warning, but serious enough to put an end to the once more renewed snickering that Running Horse’s comment had evoked. To the clerk he said, “I’ll be right there.”
“I’ll tell him you’re on your way so he has a minute to hide the helmet.”
Dylan snickered and grinned. “As if he’d ever.”
Once the clerk had walked off, Dylan got up from the table and moved around to Running Horse’s side, leaned in close to his ear and said, “The shower jokes stop here, Billy. Marissa and I don’t need the C-O catching wind of any rumors.”
“No problem, Degger. Sorry.”
“All right, thanks.” To the table as a whole he said, as he straightened, “Back in a few.” Then he headed off toward the company commander’s office.
* * *
The company commander’s office sat at the end of the administration area closest to the center of the building where it was heavily protected. Dylan knocked on the door and, getting an immediate response, walked in. It was a standard setup. Government-issue desk and chair set at a rough forty-five degree angle in the far corner, flanked on either side and to the rear by the colorful Federation and Solfleet Army flags, a couple of nondescript chairs for visitors, a half-size bookshelf, a wall locker, and a large wall-mounted screen that, when it wasn’t being used as a communications monitor, showed a view of the outdoors as it would look if the screen were just a regular window. Dylan stopped two feet in front of the desk and assumed the position of attention, but since he wasn’t in uniform, he did not salute.
“Squad Sergeant Dylan Graves reporting as ordered, sir,” he said.
“Relax, Sarn’t,” the captain said. “Have a seat.”
As his accent strongly suggested, Army Captain Austin Douglas was pure Texas cowboy, with longhorn beef for muscle and steak sauce for blood. His most prized possession was a very old and heavily autographed Dallas Cowboys’ football helmet, which he proudly displayed right behind his name plate in the center of his desk for all to see. He often wore an old brown leather Stetson when he was off duty and had even been known to ride the beautiful mahogany stallion he’d brought to Cirra with him—no one had yet figured out how he’d managed that one—around the base perimeter from time to time. Rumor had it that he’d been born and raised on one of the Lone Star State’s few remaining family-run cattle ranches. No one knew for sure if that was true or not and for some reason he liked to keep it a mystery, but the less than subtle hints, at least, were there in abundance.
What was known to the troops at large was that he’d been an infantry officer ever since he completed Officer Candidate School, and that he’d been the commanding officer of Bravo Company, 111th Infantry Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division for the last year and a half. The Black Berets of 4th Platoon, 7th Marine Corps Ranger Battalion, though not actually assigned to Bravo Company, had been attached for administrative purposes to the Highly Mobile Light Infantry unit ever since their arrival on-planet, and were, as far as any outsiders were concerned, just one of the company’s four regular Army infantry platoons. So even though he himself wasn’t one of them, Captain Douglas was still technically their company commander.
“Thank you, sir,” Dylan said as he sat down.
“You been thinkin’ ‘bout applyin’ for trainin’ as an Intelligence agent, Sarn’t?” the officer asked.
Dylan snickered, then answered, “No, sir. One of their recruiting officers came to see me a couple times before the F-T-X, but I told him I wasn’t interested.”
“Was it a Lieuten’t Pillinger who came to see you by any chance?”
“Yes, sir, that’s right.”
“Well shit. If I’d’a known you’d already turned that li’l thorn in the saddle down, I’d’a tossed him
out on his boney little ass as soon as he showed his face in my office. He came out here to pester me three days in a row after you folks rolled out, right through the weekend, and he asked me the same damn thing every time, too.”
“What was that, sir?”
“He wanted to know if I thought there was a chance you might consider joinin’ the S.I.A., and he asked me to pull you outta the field so he could meet with you and explain the so-called benefits of such a career change.”
Dylan harrumphed. “I’ve gone through two career changes already. The last thing I need is to go through that again.”
If Douglas was at all aware of how Dylan had come to join the Rangers, he chose not to address it. It wasn’t relevant to the matter at hand anyway. “I tried to explain to the little piss-ant that I couldn’t just pull you out from under your L-T like that, but the boy seemed to have a little trouble graspin’ the idea that I don’t have full C-O authority over you Marines the way I do over my own regular Army grunts.”
“He didn’t happen to mention to you just exactly what it is the S-I-A wants with me, did he, sir?”
“Far as I can tell they wanna rope you into bein’ one of their covert agents,” the captain answered, stating the obvious. “Anythin’ beyond that, I have no idea. Hell, Pillinger wouldn’t even admit to that much.”
Dylan shook his head as he gazed past the captain’s shoulder at the Solfleet Army flag. Then he asked, “Why me?” He’d meant it to be a rhetorical question, but the captain threw an answer out anyway.
“I imagine it’s ‘cause you’re a damn fine Marine, Sarn’t.”
“There are a lot of fine Marines in the Corps, sir.”
“Well, look here,” the captain said as he leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know much about this whole situation, but I already hit the greens with your new L-T a few times. I think I can safely say that he’d be willin’ to let you go, but only if it’s your choice to go. I know he’d hate to lose you, but I think he’d be willin’.”
“He’s not going to have to worry about it, sir.”
The captain grinned. “Well good. I’m glad to hear it, and I’m sure he’ll be pleased as punch to hear it, too.”
“If they happen to contact you again, sir, you can tell them once and for all that I am absolutely not interested.”
The captain sat up in his chair again and, still grinning, said, “If they contact me again, Sarn’t, I’m gonna sick your lieuten’t on ‘em. When you Marines are back here in my A-O, I can do shit like that.”
Dylan smiled. “Yes, sir.”
“All right, Sarn’t. That’s all I needed you for, and I know you’re tired. Thank you for your time. You’re dismissed.”
“You’re welcome, sir,” Dylan said as he stood up.
He snapped to attention, then turned to leave, but just as he reached the door, the captain said, “Oh, and don’t you go and forget to buy that pretty little filly her second cup o’ coffee, now, ya hear?”
Dylan turned and stared at the captain’s completely expressionless face for a moment, then responded with a rather apprehensive, “Yes, sir.” Then, once he was sure the captain wasn’t going to say anything more, he left his office.
* * *
By the time he returned to the table with two fresh cups of coffee in hand, everyone but Marissa had gone. He set one down next to the empty mug in front of her, then took a seat across the table. Earlier, when the others were there with them, no one would have given the fact that the two of them had been sitting next to each other a second thought. But now that they were alone, it wouldn’t have looked right.
If she took offense, she gave no outward sign of it. “What did the C-O want?” she asked.
“That Lieutenant Pillinger guy from Intel came to see him about me a few times after we rolled out to the field. He just wanted to know what was going on.”
“Jeez, doesn’t that little twerp understand the meaning of the word ‘no’?”
“Apparently not.”
An uncomfortable silence fell over them, during which they both took several slow, cautious sips of their still too hot to drink coffee. Then, after looking around to make sure there wasn’t anyone within earshot, Marissa lowered her voice and said, “I want so badly to kiss you right now.”
Dylan shot her a ‘what-the-hell-are-you-doing-saying-that-in-public’ look and quickly glanced around, then gazed at her without actually giving the question a voice.
“I wish you could come up to my room and stay with me for a while,” she added.
“Marissa...”
“I know,” she said as she gazed sadly into her mug. “You can’t. You have to go home to your wife and pretend to love her.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
Dylan drew a deep breath and let it out, slowly, then asked, “Would it make you feel any better if I told you that I want to stay with you?”
She looked up at him again, with just the slightest of smiles. “A little. Maybe.”
“Well I do. But you’re right, of course. I can’t.”
“Of course.”
After another brief, uncomfortable silence, she asked, “So what are we going to do about this, Dylan?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly, shaking his head. “I’ve been asking myself the same question.”
“Don’t transfer me,” she said abruptly. “I couldn’t take that. Not now. Not after we’ve finally been honest with each other.”
“I’m not going to transfer you,” he assured her. “I’d be lying if I told you the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but to tell you the truth I don’t want that any more than you do, for a number of reasons. We’ll just have to figure out something else.”
Their conversation moved on to other things as they shared what little time they had. Then, once both their mugs were empty, they stood together, traded a knowing look, which was all they could risk in such an open area, and said their good-byes. Another few seconds passed between them before Dylan reluctantly excused himself and went back down to the locker room to grab his laundry bag.
That done, he headed for home.
Chapter 22
The third report had turned out to be a special supplement to the first, and had been filed by the commanding officer of all Solfleet forces assigned to the Caldanran system—the system Sergeant Graves was currently assigned to, and for which Commander Royer would be departing this very morning. As it came to a close and the wall screen shut off, Admiral Hansen propped his elbows up on his desk and rested his chin atop his folded hands with a sigh. The situation was even more critical than any of them had realized. They were going to have to do something. Fast.
Veshtonn scout ships had been probing the Caldanra system’s outermost boundaries for over three and a half years, ever since the Caldanran Intervention, conducting small hit and run raids, probably for the purpose of gathering intelligence on the strength, locations, and reaction speed of Coalition defenses in the area. The Veshtonn were nothing if not patient. Until recently, Coalition space forces, led in that particular region by three Solfleet carrier groups, had managed to hold them off with little difficulty. But the Veshtonn had had over a month now to establish a firm foothold in the neighboring Rosha’Kana star system and build up their forces there. Their intrusions on Caldanra had gone much deeper into the system lately and their offensive actions had been much more bold and aggressive. Now Hansen understood why.
The war between the Cirrans and the Sulaini dated back at least half a dozen millennia, if not more. The actual reasons for their mutual hostility were unknown to outsiders, buried deep in ancient myths and legends that neither side talked about. What was known was that both peoples were the descendants of a single species as human as Terrans themselves who had originally evolved on Cirra and had broken into two major warring factions at some point in their ancient history. Through thousands of years, the two sides had never learned to live in complete peace with one
another. Even the Sulaini migration a century ago to the only other habitable planet in the system had done little to quell their conflict.
In fact, as far as Hansen knew, the only thing in their history that had ever put a stop to their fighting was the heavy iron claw of total Veshtonn domination, under which both worlds had suffered for nearly eighteen years. But in the four years since the Coalition had liberated their system, the acts of violence between them, though still relatively small in scope, had begun to pick up again, both in frequency and in severity.
Now, it appeared, proof of the long suspected covert cooperation between the Sulaini government and the Veshtonn had been discovered. The Sulaini had begun making concessions to their old enemy in return for their support. No doubt the Veshtonn had their own agenda, separate from that of the Sulaini, but as far as the Sulaini were concerned, their old enemy was now their ally.
So the two Caldanran worlds were once again teetering precariously on the very brink of interplanetary war. In fact, knowing that the Veshtonn were poised to take advantage of any opportunity that might arise, the Cirrans’ memory of what it had been like to live under their brutal rule was probably the only thing preventing them from retaliating against their aggressive brothers. But memory could be fleeting, especially in the face of active aggression. There was no way of telling just how long their better judgment might hold out, now that the Sulaini had made a move against them.
Hansen sighed again. A shooting war in the Caldanra system would not only jeopardize Solfleet’s facilities there, but would also significantly degrade the overall effectiveness of Coalition forces throughout the entire sector. That in turn would provide the Veshtonn with a huge tactical advantage. Once hostilities commenced, the enemy would soon be able to advance almost at will through the system and would likely retake that entire sector before any Coalition counterattack into the Rosha’Kana system could be mounted.
If that happened—if the Veshtonn were given the opportunity to rebuild their forces in the Caldanra system and then combine them with those already occupying the Rosha’Kana system, Solfleet would stand little if any chance of slowing their advance toward Earth to the extent that he, the president, MacLeod, and everyone else involved in planning the Timeshift mission were counting on. As a result, their timetable would likely be shortened drastically, perhaps by as much as four months. There wouldn’t be near enough time to prepare Sergeant Graves for the mission. They’d have to send someone else, and Hansen really didn’t want to have to do that.
