Solfleet: The Call of Duty

by Smith, Glenn

  Chaffee did so, and in less than a second the decrypted message appeared on his screen. “Okay,” he said aloud to himself. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  TO: Commanding Officer, Solfleet.

  FROM: Commanding Officer, Station X-ray One.

  SUBJECT: Request Confirmation of Orders.

  BODY: Admiral, an S.I.A. agent has recently arrived

  this station. His mission orders are, to say the least,

  unusual, and I would like you to confirm them for me

  before I allow him to proceed. Orders indicate...

  Chaffee stopped reading and rolled his eyes with a sigh and shook his head in disgust. He should have been used to it by now, he supposed. Throughout his forty-plus year career with the fleet there had been many hundreds, perhaps even thousands of days that had started out bad and grown steadily worse. But it was just too damn early in the morning to have to deal with any of Commander Akagi’s bitching.

  Actually, he reconsidered as he glanced at his watch, it wasn’t really all that early. But Akagi had contacted him on far too many occasions over the past few months for far too few legitimate reasons, most of them trivial and some of them hardly worth his attention at all, like Admiral Hansen’s periodic calls, and he’d long since grown tired of hearing from the sniveling little twerp. Due to Station X-ray One’s sensitive nature and to the very real importance of the commander’s research, he’d tolerated the seemingly constant annoyances in the past, but lately it had really begun to get ridiculous.

  Yes, he was the command fleet admiral—the overall commanding officer of the entire solar space fleet and all of its facilities. But did that mean he had to be advised of every detail of every mission that every member of the fleet was assigned to? Of course not! That’s what the joint chiefs and the myriad of division and agency commanders were for. He was too damn busy with too many other things to micromanage the whole damn fleet! If Akagi wanted confirmation of S.I.A. orders, then he could contact the S.I.A. chief to get it.

  “Computer, my authority, delete ‘Command Fleet Admiral Chaffee Eyes Only’ parameter and rescramble and encrypt the message. Forward to the Office of the Chief of Solfleet Intelligence, status unread.”

  “Confirmed. Do you request confirmation of receipt?”

  “Negative.”

  That done, Admiral Chaffee sat back to enjoy his morning coffee.

  * * *

  President Shakhar slowly rose from her chair and stepped over to the window. Gazing out over the city below, far beyond the distant snowcapped peaks and the sparkling sapphire lake, beyond even the sky itself, she asked, “Is there any possibility at all that your conclusions are wrong, Mister MacLeod? Could the both of us, you and I, be missing something? Some small detail that might change what this material you have inherited implies?”

  “Change the implication of intentionally altered records, Madam President?” he asked in response. “I remind you that Professor Min’para was murdered on a busy city street in broad daylight for this material. If he wasn’t close to uncovering something criminal, why would anyone so desperately need to silence him?”

  “They wouldn’t,” she conceded. She turned and faced him. “I was just hoping that you might say something...anything...that might give me some legitimate reason not to issue a presidential arrest order against a man who just happens to be one of the finest military officers I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.”

  As he looked at her, as he listened to her simple explanation, MacLeod realized that this predicament was much more painful for her than he’d expected it would be, and he couldn’t help but sympathize. He’d seen a few of his own friends’ careers come to shameful and premature ends over the years himself. Such a thing was never easy.

  “I’m sorry, Madam President,” he finally said. “I truly am. But I see no other alternative.”

  She sighed heavily. “Nor do I, Mister MacLeod,” she said, shaking her head sorrowfully. “Nor do I.” Then again... She turned back to the window and stared outside once more. No. No way. An absolutely unacceptable option. But still she asked, “Have you told anyone else about this? Anyone at all?”

  “I did get in touch with Professor Verne during my research, but I only told him what was absolutely necessary to get what I needed from him,” he answered, none the wiser. “Mostly I just lied to him. He doesn’t know anything about Min’para or about the allegations I’m making here, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Professor Verne wasn’t stupid. That went without saying. If something were to happen to MacLeod now, so soon after he’d gone to him for help, he’d have questions. And sooner or later he’d probably take those questions to the police. She shook her head, ashamed. It was a horrible idea and she silently scolded herself for even considering it.

  “Stop by the military magistrate’s office on your way out. There will be arrest warrants issued for both Vice-Admiral Hansen and Commander Royer by the time you get there. Once you’ve picked those up, go to the C-I-D office and advise the commanding officer there of what’s going on. Have him assign an agent to accompany you to Mandela Station.”

  MacLeod was taken aback. “To accompany me, Madam President?” he asked.

  “Yes, Mister Chairman, to accompany you. We’re talking about presidential-level arrest warrants here. The agent will have the authority to arrest, but I want you to serve the warrants personally.”

  “But I’m not a law enforcement officer...or an officer of the court.”

  “You’re not a criminal investigator either, and yet here you sit after having conducted a criminal investigation.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” MacLeod said as he stood up and started toward the door, though he was anything but enthusiastic over the idea. “And Madam President?” She didn’t turn. “Once again, I’m very sorry this had to happen.”

  When she didn’t respond, he walked out without another word.

  “So am I,” she whispered after the door closed behind him.

  Chapter 67

  Admiral Hansen was having one of those days. The kind of day that starts off badly and only gets worse as it drags by. The kind of day where absolutely nothing seems to go right. The kind of day that made a person whish they had never climbed out of bed. And he hadn’t even made it to the office yet.

  He’d crawled out of bed a full hour earlier than usual, intending to sit down and watch the early morning news over breakfast. He’d wanted to see if the investigative reporter looking into that Federation Building shooting that had occurred a couple weeks back—the guy was supposedly the best in the business—had managed to discover the identity of the suspect who’d died in the hospital yet. The suspect who had cost five New York City police officers their lives. He knew the chances of that were slim, but a slim chance was better than no chance at all.

  Under normal circumstances Hansen would simply have tapped into his own sources. He had them virtually everywhere and sooner or later one of them would have come through for him. They always did. But if the dead suspect was in fact Professor Min’para—all he knew for sure was that the professor hadn’t yet made it home—the last thing he wanted to do was to create a trail of inquiries that might lead the investigating authorities straight to him and Royer. Better to avoid showing any interest at all.

  So far the U.S. Marines and civilian security guards who’d been involved in the incident hadn’t been any help at all with regards to determining the dead suspect’s identity. That in itself seemed more than a little odd to Hansen. Between the four of them they should have been able to provide enough information to positively identify the suspect within the first twenty-four hours. But instead, the F.B.I. and the C.I.D and the Solfleet Intelligence agents he’d assigned to follow their progress had only hit one road block after another. Every lead had led them to a dead end.

  The more he thought about it, the more it seemed as if there was someone somewhere on the inside, working against them.

  Oh well. Hopefull
y, Commander Royer and her team would find the professor soon, alive and well and safely out of their business. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. He grinned, despite the urgency of it all. The look on her face when she’d had to come to him and report that her team had lost track of the old guy—that she’d failed—had been priceless.

  He’d managed to get a shower and pull on his uniform in peace, but five minutes after he’d started his breakfast an urgent call had come in from the midnight shift duty officer, yet another young ensign—weren’t newly commissioned officers ever assigned to the fleet or to line units anymore?—who’d been left on her own and in charge for the very first time. It had only taken a couple of minute for Hansen to convince the young officer that her situation wasn’t nearly as urgent as she’d thought it was, but as luck would have it that had proven to be just long enough to ensure that his breakfast overcooked and was ruined beyond recovery.

  He’d considered starting breakfast over again, but rather than risk ruining it twice in the same morning he’d decided instead to grab something at the officers’ dining facility. He’d headed directly there, and had been sorely disappointed in his selections. One bite of whatever kind of meat it was that had been served with the eggs was all it had taken to remind him of why he’d started cooking for himself in the first place. Even after centuries of improvements, military rations prepared in bulk still tasted exactly like military rations prepared in bulk.

  After breakfast, what little of it he’d actually eaten, he’d left the dining facility and headed down the corridor to lift 137, the one that would take him directly to his department, only to discover that some kind of malfunction had shut it down, trapping at least half a dozen flag officers between two decks. As good a place as any for a couple of them, as far as he was concerned. Maintenance crews had been hard at work trying to rescue them, but once that was done it would likely take ‘two to three days, give or take a few hours,’ according to the repair crew supervisor, for service to be completely restored. So he’d had to double back and walk three times as far to the main elevators.

  There he’d run into the station’s Military Police chief, who’d been glad to bump into him so early because there was a matter of extreme importance he needed to discuss with him. Unfortunately, he’d left the reports and supporting documents he needed to refer to back in his office, so he needed the admiral to accompany him there, if he wouldn’t mind. And of course, in the interests of interdepartmental harmony, he hadn’t minded.

  Naturally, the matter hadn’t been as important as the Military Police chief had thought it was, but their discussion had nonetheless dragged on for more than two hours.

  Hansen snapped out of it just in time to respond to a passing crewman’s greeting with a polite “Good morning,” and then glanced at his watch as he stepped into the agency’s offices, and immediately wished he hadn’t. It was a little after 1000 hours. Far too early to escape to his quarters and put this miserable day behind him, yet far too late to be wandering into his office for the first time to begin the day’s work.

  A couple of years ago it wouldn’t have been a problem. A couple of years ago he could have shown up late and still gotten his work done by the normal end of duty hours, if not earlier. But this wasn’t a couple of years ago. Things had gotten a lot busier since then, especially over the last six or seven months. The long and very costly succession of Veshtonn victories that had followed their invasion and occupation of the Rosha’Kana star system had kept the agency busier than he could ever have dreamed possible, and the renewed campaign to liberate that system was certainly no different, though Coalition forces were slowly, finally, beginning to get the upper hand out there. Intelligence reports were constantly flooding in from all directions. Teams were being assigned or reassigned almost on a daily basis. And of course, worst of all, there were the losses and the letters to grieving families that went with them. He felt as though he’d written more of those in the last six months than in all of his previous years of service combined.

  He and his staff always had a lot to do. A full day’s work really was a full day’s work, if not more. So now, unless he wanted to work straight through dinner and well into the evening, he was going to have to find a way to squeeze this full day’s work into little more than half a day. Of course, if he did work late, that would leave Heather to cook dinner again, and that wasn’t a bad thing at all. She’d turned into quite the gourmet chef lately.

  He sat down at his desk—had he said ‘Good morning’ to Vicky? Had she even been there?—and noticed that the incoming message indicator on his terminal was flashing. The time/date stamp indicated that the message had come in a few hours ago. “Receive and play message, full audio-video mode,” he said.

  “Message is scrambled and encrypted. Please provide decryption access code.”

  “Hansen, Icarus. Vice-Admiral. Alpha one dash one nine one beta alpha.”

  “Access code accepted. Message is text only,” the computer advised him.

  “Display at this location.” The message immediately appeared on his screen.

  TO: Commanding Officer, Solfleet.

  FROM: Commanding Officer, Station X-ray One.

  SUBJECT: Request Confirmation of Orders.

  BODY: Admiral, an S.I.A. agent has recently arrived

  this station. His mission orders are, to say the least,

  unusual, and I would like you to confirm them for me

  before I allow him to proceed. Orders indicate that he

  is to go through. This is highly irregular. Please

  confirm. Say again. Please confirm. Standing by.

  Hansen leaned back in his chair and sighed. As if the day hadn’t been difficult enough already, now he had to deal with the growing conflict within his own conscience all over again. Not to mention with that annoying Commander Akagi. This was the last thing he’d expected to happen. He’d thought that once Lieutenant Graves left the station, that would be it. There would be no turning back—assuming Captain Sedelnikov got him to Window World safely, of course. While it was true that Commander Akagi was an egotistical and self-righteous man who thought himself more than just a little bit superior to everyone else, Hansen had never even considered the possibility that the little twerp might actually have the gonads to interfere in an S.I.A. matter. Yet he had done just that. And in doing so he had unwittingly provided Hansen with one final opportunity to abide by the president’s decision and cancel the Timeshift mission. One final opportunity to save his already tenuous career.

  He thought about it very seriously for several minutes. He was usually a man who stuck to his guns no matter what once he made up his mind about something, but this time...this time he couldn’t be so sure. He’d been wrestling with second thoughts almost from the beginning.

  At least Admiral Chaffee hadn’t read the message before forwarding it to him. If he had, the decision would already have been made and the day would have gotten a whole lot worse for him than it already was, real fast. Chaffee would have sent a message canceling the mission and he’d most likely have been thrown into the brig by now. But Chaffee hadn’t read it, so none of that had happened.

  Yes, he was definitely having one of those days, but perhaps the fates were giving him a chance to make it a little better.

  He tapped his comm-panel’s ‘call’ button. “Admiral Hansen to Commander Royer.”

  “Royer here, sir.”

  “Where are you right now, Liz?”

  “On my way back from a meeting with the station X-O. Less than a minute away.”

  “See me in my office, please.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll be there in about two seconds.” She stepped through the door before Hansen could even close the channel. “What’s going on, Admiral?” she asked as she approached him.

  “This message just came in this morning,” he told her, pointing at his screen. “Take a look at it, Commander.”

  He scooted his chair to one side, making room for
her as she walked around his desk to stand at his side. She read the message, then looked down at him and asked, “Have you sent him a confirmation message yet?”

  “Not yet,” he answered, staring at the screen.

  When he said nothing further, she asked, not without some measure of doubt, “May I assume, sir, that you intend to do so?”

  He folded his arms across his broad chest and considered his answer for a few moments. Then, looking up at her, he told her, “I’m not so sure we should go through with this mission anymore, Commander.”

  Royer stepped out from behind his desk, allowing him to move back to his rightful place. If she was going to...to question his resolve, and perhaps even his fitness to command, looking down her nose at him while invading his personal space was not exactly the best way to do it. She took a seat directly across from him and paused for a moment to gather her thoughts and carefully—very carefully—consider her next words.

  “I realize, sir, that you’ve had your doubts about this mission from the beginning,” she pointed out as tactfully as she could. “Especially since the president chose not to authorize it. But I’ve never known you to second-guess your own orders once you’ve issued them.”

  “You make it sound as though I’ve never made a mistake.”

  “Well, we all make mistakes, of course. But I’ve never known you to give an order unless you were sure it was the right one. Consequently...”

  “I know, Commander,” he agreed. “But you’ve got to admit that these particular orders are highly unusual.”

  “Granted, sir, but they also happen to be necessary. This mission is absolutely essential to the survival of our world.”

  “Not necessarily, Liz,” he countered. “The tide of battle in the Rosha’Kana star system is beginning to turn in our favor. If we do in fact prevail in that campaign and return the Tor’Kana to their world...”

  “For how long, Admiral?” Royer asked. “If we do drive the Veshtonn out, how long do you think they’ll stay out? They know as well as we do how vital the Tor’Kana are to the Coalition’s survival. How much time to rebuild our forces do you think they’ll give us before they turn around and invade that system all over again?”