Solfleet: The Call of Duty

by Smith, Glenn

  “You are correct, Lieutenant. I did not answer your question. I merely stated that the presence of conscious memories that differ so significantly from your subconscious memories is of some importance. Those memories mean something. They are there for a reason.”

  “Oh,” Dylan responded. A theory as to what that reason might be began forming in his mind. He didn’t like what that theory suggested and he hoped the professor could help him to determine the truth. “Professor, if it ever came out that I told you what I’m about to tell you, I’d probably get into a whole lot of trouble.”

  “Then perhaps you should not tell me, Lieutenant.”

  “I have to. I have a theory as to what might be going on and I’d like your thoughts on it.”

  Beth looked at her fiancé and smiled, pleased that he’d decided to trust the professor and open up to him.

  “Then I give you my word as a Cirran citizen that I will not repeat it.”

  “Thank you, Professor. I appreciate that. Needless to say, I don’t know you very well, but Beth tells me you’re not only a professor and a mentalist but also a high priest, and I do know what the word of a Cirran high priest means to the one who gives it. So here it is.

  “My commanding officers recently sat me down and briefed me on a classified mission they wanted to assign to me. They told me that if I turned down the mission, which I was given the option of doing, I would be taken directly to the medical facility, where I would be subjected to a memory-edit so that my memory of the entire briefing could be erased.”

  “Indeed? If I am not mistaken, such an act would not have been in keeping with Terran law concerning the use of the memory editing procedure.”

  “Somehow, sir, I don’t think that would have mattered. At any rate, in the end I did in fact decline the mission. Then, right out of the blue, Commander Royer asked me if I was still having the nightmares. Judging by how Admiral Hansen reacted to that, I’m guessing he didn’t know anything about my nightmares until that moment. Anyway, he told me that an episode of post-traumatic stress disorder in my medical history precluded the possibility of subjecting me to the edit. Considering what you just told me, do you think it’s possible I’ve already been subjected to one—that my memories of the battle were intentionally altered in some way and that for whatever reason the edit might be failing?”

  “My god, Dylan,” Beth said, “that’s awfully paranoid. What did they do to you at that academy?”

  “Not necessarily, Miss DeGaetano,” Min’para opined before Dylan could respond to her. “If true, that could very well explain your fiancé’s condition. That said, I have studied your world’s use of such techniques quite extensively and I have never heard of a memory-edit failing before. I am also not aware of any instance when one was carried out for reasons other than protecting the mental health of the individual patient. And yet,” He turned to Dylan again, “your mind is quite healthy, Lieutenant. And extremely sharp, I might add.”

  “Thank you,” Dylan said automatically, his thoughts light-years away.

  “Your thanks is unnecessary,” Min’para said, brushing it aside. “I simply state facts based on observation. But to answer your question, I believe it is not only possible that you have already been subjected to a memory-edit, but also quite likely. There are certain aspects of that creature that appears in your nightmares that are not totally unfamiliar to me, and its presence compels me to contemplate some quite disturbing theories of my own.”

  “What theories?” Dylan asked. “What do you think that thing is?”

  “I believe it is a creature known as a Vul-Veshtonn, a very rare and extremely dangerous creature that researchers on my world believe the other Veshtonn worship as gods. There are a number of curious differences between what I know of them and what you are seeing in your nightmares, however.”

  “What kinds of differences?” Dylan asked.

  “The exoskeleton, for example. I have never heard of a Vul-Veshtonn with such resilient skin before. Tough, yes, but not so tough as to be skeletal. And the eyes. Red instead of the pale yellow that those who have seen them always comment on.”

  “What do you think it all means?” Dylan asked, genuinely fascinated now. “Was mine a different race of Vul than the ones your people have encountered? Was it a whole different sub-species maybe? Or some kind of mutant?”

  “Any answer I might give you now would be based solely on speculation. I would prefer to investigate further so I can be more certain. When I am ready I will contact you.”

  Recognizing that he’d just been dismissed, Dylan stood up from the table and took Beth’s hand, helping her to stand up as well, then started to back away. “Please, try not to take too long, Professor,” he requested as he retrieved his jacket. “I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be on the station.”

  The professor stood up but kept his place by the table. “I will have to conduct some quite extensive research, but I will start immediately and will complete it as quickly as I can.”

  “Thank you, sir. And thank you for your time this evening.”

  “Yes, thank you, Professor,” Beth added.

  “Please understand that under normal circumstances I would not spend any more time on this issue. I am extremely busy and this has nothing directly to do with me or my usual pursuits. However, I will be here for a few more days and I do enjoy a good mystery.”

  “Then we appreciate your help that much more, Professor,” Beth told him.

  The Cirran nodded silently, and the couple left his quarters.

  Chapter 53

  Three Days Later

  Monday, 6 December 2190

  The door buzzer sounded, but before Admiral Hansen could so much as draw a breath to ask who was there—as if anyone besides Liz would come by his office first thing on a Monday morning—the door slid open and the usually much less predictable commander walked in. “Good morning, Admiral,” she mumbled, apparently having left her usual enthusiasm at home. Her uniform looked something less than immaculate, which was unusual for her, and her hair had already fallen loose, assuming she had bothered to pin it up in the first place. In short she looked exhausted. Understandable considering the long hours she’d put in over the weekend. “Sorry to just walk in on you like this, sir,” she continued, “but Vicky isn’t in yet.” Her voice sounded a little scratchy.

  “Don’t worry about it, Commander,” the admiral said. Then he looked back down at whichever hardcopy report happened to be in his hands at the moment. There were at least a dozen of them scattered across his desk. “Anything yet?” he asked.

  She locked the door and then approached his desk. “The professor has been making real good use of the station’s library computer,” she answered as she turned one of his visitors’ chairs on an angle and unceremoniously collapsed into it. She crossed one leg over the other, rested an elbow on the edge of the admiral’s desk, and propped her throbbing head up in her hand. As far as she was concerned the time for military protocol between them had long since passed. The two of them were once again acting as co-conspirators, superior and subordinate by rank but equals in a necessary game of crime and cover-up. A position they’d had several years to get used to. “He’s been eye-deep in research day and night, all weekend. Beats the hell out of me how anyone can read so much without getting a migraine.”

  Hansen noticed the deskward lean in her usually straight-backed posture and wondered if she might actually have fallen over if his desk weren’t holding her up. Then he looked more closely at her face and saw the dark circles under her glassy, blood-shot eyes as they slowly closed. She’d obviously put in a long and arduous night—a long and arduous weekend more likely—and was clearly exhausted, so he decided that as soon as she finished bringing him up to speed he’d give her the rest of the day off. And the sooner she started...

  He dropped the report he was still holding onto his desk then put his feet down, turned his chair forward, and asked, “Have you run a trace on what he’s looking in
to yet?”

  “Oh, I’ve gone far beyond that,” she answered, her eyes still closed. “I tapped directly into the circuit so I could live-monitor his research as he conducted it.”

  “How’d you manage to do that without him knowing about it?”

  “I have my ways,” she answered first. Then, thinking that might have sounded a little too much like she was hiding something else from him—that was the last impression she wanted to give him at this point—she amended, “I uh...I have a few friends in the comm-center.”

  “Of course you do.” He should have figured that. There were very few places, especially here on Mandela Station, where she didn’t have a few friends. “So you’ve been up all weekend?” he asked, already certain that she had been. “You didn’t get any sleep at all?”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Even to a blind man.”

  She sighed. “Yeah, I don’t doubt it. But it was the only way to try to figure out what he’s up to.”

  “Remind me never to try anything behind your back.”

  “Won’t have to. You already know better.”

  Hansen snickered. “You know me too well, Commander.”

  “We’ve known each other a long time, Admiral.”

  “That we have.” Time to get to it. “So, what’s the professor up to?”

  She finally opened her eyes again and looked at him, but continued leaning on his desk as she answered, “He spent most of the weekend reading through various historical records. Military and corporate conflicts of the last half century or so, medical and scientific advances beginning twice that far back, legal decisions concerning racial equality spanning damn near the past two and a half centuries...”

  “That seems like an unnecessarily broad scope of research, don’t you think?”

  “Probably by design, Admiral,” she answered through a yawn. Then she explained, “If we’re right—if the professor did a mind probe on Graves and discovered evidence of the edit, and if he agreed to help him figure out what happened to him, then it makes perfect sense that he’d keep his research as broad as possible...in appearance.”

  “Yeah, I see where you’re going with this. You think he’s onto us?”

  “Maybe not us specifically, sir, but I’d be willing to bet he suspects someone is watching him right now. He’s a very intelligent man. Given the plethora of laws that regulate the use of mind-editing, he’d know that whoever’s responsible for altering the lieutenant’s memories would have to be someone very high up in the chain of command. Someone with the means not only to keep it quiet, but also to keep a close eye on the lieutenant afterwards. He’d also realize that whoever those high-ups are would know that he and the lieutenant met last night and would therefore be watching him, too. It’s my guess that by not narrowing the scope of his research too far the professor is trying to keep those high-ups...to keep us in the dark. Keep us guessing.”

  She might have been exhausted physically, but her mind was still as sharp as nails. “That makes sense,” Hansen agreed. “So my question right now is, would his attempt to keep us in the dark and keep us guessing be successful?”

  Royer grinned. “I’m glad you asked.” But her grin faded quickly. The whole situation was too serious and too dangerous to their careers to make light of. “In each case, and in each area of research, he read through several articles or reports on a very diverse selection of subjects. But every so often he’d go back over two or three of them, then go on to something new for a while, and then go back to those same few again. He did that over and over and over.”

  “And?” the admiral asked, resting his elbows on the arms of his chair and folding his hands in front of him.

  “And...everything that he’s gone back over more than once—everything that he’s truly been concentrating on—has had something to do either directly or indirectly with cyberclones.”

  Like before, when Lieutenant Graves turned down the Timeshift mission, Hansen seemed almost to deflate as he let go a long sigh, closed his eyes, and hid his face behind his still folded hands, massaging his temples with his thumbs. “Damn it,” he mumbled.

  “Admiral,” she continued tentatively. “I’m almost afraid to ask, but I have to. Should the professor get too close...”

  “No,” Hansen interrupted, glaring up at her. “Absolutely not.”

  “But, sir...”

  “I said no, Commander!” he exclaimed, grasping the arms of his chair and leaning slightly forward. “I will not cross that line...for any reason!” He folded his hands again and then, forcing himself to speak in a calmer tone of voice, suggested an alternative. “Manipulate the records. Delete some of them and replace them with false ones if you have to. Whatever it takes to throw him off track, I don’t care, but do not harm him in any way. I don’t even want him threatened. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly clear, sir.”

  “Good.” Hansen paused for a moment to calm down, then asked, “Anything else?”

  “Yes, sir. Lieutenant Graves.”

  “What about him?”

  “Assuming we’re successful in misleading the professor, do you really think Graves will just drop the whole thing and get on with his life? I mean, we don’t know how much of his true memories he might already have recalled, either on his own or with the professor’s help. What if he’s remembered so much that he just can’t bring himself to simply let it go?”

  “Assuming we’re right about the professor probing his mind in the first place,” Hansen qualified.

  “Can you think of any other logical reason why Miss DeGaetano would have gotten the two of them together, Admiral?”

  No. Unfortunately, he couldn’t, so he quietly considered her question for a few moments. What if Graves had remembered so much that he couldn’t bring himself to simply let it go? Unfortunately, only one possible answer came to mind and he didn’t like it. Stefani O’Donnell had already shown them what one upset and determined soldier with access to intelligence information could do on his or her own these days, and Graves held a higher level of access than she did. Hansen didn’t need to be taught that lesson twice.

  “Commander,” he said, “sometimes you’re too smart for my own good.”

  “Sorry, sir. I’ll try to be more stupider in the future.”

  Hansen grinned, then asked, “So what do you suggest?”

  “I could take up heavy drinking.”

  The admiral snickered. “I mean concerning the lieutenant.”

  “Short of what I alluded to before?” Hansen didn’t have to answer. His sudden, infamous laser beam stare served quite sufficiently to let her know that to even think about suggesting that again would be very unwise. “I wasn’t going to, sir,” she assured him.

  “Then what?”

  She straightened in the chair. “Send him back, sir. Send him on the Timeshift mission.”

  “He’s already declined...”

  “Make it an order, Admiral. Don’t give him the choice to decline. And supplement that order with some follow-up instructions, in case he fails.”

  “What kind of follow-up instructions do you have in mind?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Something like... If he fails to prevent the Excalibur’s destruction, then he’s to remain in the past and try whatever else he can think of that might change the course of the war and save the Tor’Kana. If he fails again, then he fails, and he goes on to try something else.” She considered reminding the admiral about having Graves look for Günter as well, but the time didn’t seem right for that somehow so she decided to forgo it. At least for the moment.

  “Those are pretty vague instructions, Commander.”

  “I haven’t actually thought that part all the way through yet, Admiral,” she confessed. Then she explained, “I realize those instructions might keep him in the past for a very long time, but at least he’ll still be alive. He’ll have a clear-cut mission with a specific goal and the freedom to pursue it as he sees fit, and we’ll
still be rid of him. We won’t have to worry that he might uncover certain events from our past. Events that I’m sure you’d prefer to keep buried as much as I would. On the other hand, if he succeeds and returns to the present, then hopefully things will have changed for the better and we’ll no longer have anything to hide.”

  Hansen swung his chair around, turning his back to her, stood up and stepped over to the window to look down on the Earth as the first golden rays of the morning sun skipped across the peaks of the Appalachian Mountains. “When I sat in on that meeting between the president, Chairman MacLeod, and Professor Verne a few months ago the professor talked about a few of the more popular theories surrounding the idea of time-travel, including the one that you, Günter, and I based our actions on six years ago. Of the theories he discussed, he believed one in particular to be the most plausible, and it wasn’t the one we counted on back then. I’ve given a lot of thought to what he said and as much as I don’t want to agree with him, I think I have to.”

  “Which theory was that, Admiral?”

  “One that equates time to a river. The river’s course can be diverted at a given point, forcing it to flow along a different path, but the water that’s already passed that point remains unaffected. It continues to follow the old course, unchanged, until it eventually dries up.”

  “Right,” Royer said, nodding her head. “I’ve heard that theory. “Even so, I’m not really sure I understand exactly what you’re trying to say.”

  Hansen faced around, but stayed by the window. “I think you understand perfectly well what I’m trying to say, Commander,” he said. “But I’ll spell it out for you anyway. According to this theory, if we send the lieutenant on this mission and he’s successful, it still won’t change anything for us. He might create an alternate timeline for himself from that point forward, but in our timeline we’ll still lose this war.”

  Royer was surprised to hear those words coming from the admiral, given his previously apparent commitment to the mission. Despite the spirited discussions they’d often had in the past over the whole Günter situation, she’d thought that he believed in the Timeshift mission totally, from the very beginning. So she asked him, “Admiral, if you never believed this mission could succeed, then why...”