Solfleet: The Call of Duty (50 page)

With all the
red tape and cumbersome bureaucracy inherent in any large organization, most
particularly the military, it had been quite refreshing to see that in the end,
when push came to shove, the top brass could still damn that bureaucracy and
get things done. Too bad the brand new
Excalibur-II
battlecarrier and a
few of her sister ships weren’t ready for combat service yet. If anything could
ever persuade the Veshtonn to give it all up and turn tail and run, the sight
of a few of those behemoths would certainly be it.

Still, even
without those immense new wonders of modern technology, he felt confident about
their chances this time. There were never any guarantees in war, of course, and
he was certainly no expert on interstellar fleet warfare—company-sized ground
combat was the closest he’d ever come—but he did know one thing from the
official reports he’d read. Despite the advanced warning that the
Bokken
’s
discovery of the Veshtonn observation post had provided the last time, the
Coalition as a whole had still been caught off guard by the sheer enormity of
the enemy invasion. As luck or fate or whatever gods might be on high would
have it, they hadn’t assembled nearly enough vessels in the region at the time
to mount much of an initial defense. The loss of that star system, as he
understood it, had been all but inevitable from the very beginning. But this
time things would be different. This time they were ready. They would emerge
victorious—they
had
to emerge victorious, not just for the Tor’Kana but
for all the people of all their worlds—and the ‘Timeshift Resolution’ would
quietly go away and fade into oblivion so that another operative wouldn’t have
to.

After what
he’d learned in this morning’s meeting about the size of the assault fleet, he
was beginning, finally, to truly believe that.

“
Excuse
me, Admiral?
” Vicky’s voice called from above, sounding a little tentative.

So much for
the respite. “Yes, Vicky?” he answered.

“
Sir, the
uh... Heather’s school principal is on the line for you,
” she told him
reluctantly. Obviously, having worked for him for a while, she knew enough
about Heather’s track record both in school and out to realize that her
principal wasn’t calling with anything the admiral would actually
want
to
hear.

Hansen
sighed as the live-transmission light on his panel lit up and began to flash.
There was certainly no love lost between himself and Doctor Kessler, that was
for sure. That egotistical jackass had always been far too full of himself to
worry about treating anyone so far beneath his station as a mere military
officer with anything even remotely resembling civility. But what could Heather
possibly have done to get herself into trouble on the very first day of school?
It wasn’t even a
full
day of school!

“Thank you,
Vicky,” he responded as pleasantly as he could. Then he dropped his feet to the
floor, sat forward, and, setting the panel to audio only, answered the call. “This
is Admiral Hansen.”

“Mister
Hansen,
this is
Doctor
Kessler,
”
the principal began, demoting the
admiral with his tone and giving much more prominence to his own title, just as
he always did. If conceit were money, he’d have been one filthy rich man. “
I
just wanted to let you know that we’d be holding your daughter Heather over
after school for a disciplinary detention meeting with her guidance counselor.
”

Hansen sat
back again. “What happened?” he asked evenly.

“
First,
she failed to show up for her third period class, which forced several of us to
abandon our duties to search for her. Then, when one of the faculty finally
found her asleep in a maintenance closet and woke her up, she exploded into a
tirade of profanities the likes of which I don’t think I’ve ever heard.
”

“All right,
Doctor Kessler. You do...”

“
I’ve
told you before, Mister Hansen, this is an educational institution and we will
not tolerate...
”

“I said all
right,
Doctor
!” Hansen barked. Enough was enough. Wherever his
proverbial line in the sand might have been, Kessler had just charged across
it. “And I’ve told
you
before, it’s
Admiral
Hansen, not
Mister
Hansen! If I have to remind you of that one more time, I’m going to do so
in person! Do you take my meaning,
Doctor
?”

A moment or
two passed in silence before Kessler finally spoke up again, but when he did,
he did so in a much more subdued and far less confident tone of voice. “
Are
you...are you threatening me with physical harm, Admiral?
”

“That wasn’t
my intention, but the apparent fact that you perceived it that way seems to
have had the desired effect.”

“
Well, I...
”

“Thank you
for the call, Doctor Kessler. You take whatever disciplinary actions your
policies call for. I’ll have a talk with Heather when she gets home tonight.
Hansen out.”

“
I think
we...
”

Hansen
closed the channel, cutting the arrogant son-of-a-bitch off, then sat back
again. Disciplinary detention counseling, on the very first day of the school year.
That was a first even for Heather, although the fact that she’d snuck off and
gone to sleep somewhere wasn’t really much of a surprise, now that he thought
about it. She’d been out all night with her friends, after all. Not that
serious an offense, he supposed, compared to some of the things she’d done in
the past, and an easy fix. He’d simply reinstitute last year’s school night
curfew.

And speaking
of firsts, what the hell had he been thinking, threatening the principal? The
fact that he’d only
inferred
intent to inflict bodily harm on him didn’t
matter. The principal’s mere perception was enough to make it a criminal
offense.

Stress. That
had to be it.

Nine Days Later

Earth Standard Date: Wednesday, 8
September 2190

...beep
beep...beep beep...beep beep...beep beep...

Dylan
moaned. That damn alarm clock was still going. Didn’t it ever give up? Not that
it was all that loud—he always kept it on its quietest setting—but on those
increasingly more rare occasions when only a peaceful, silent bliss filled the
realm of unconsciousness, it annoyed him just the same. And it had been going
non-stop for several minutes now. Or had it been hours? Not that it really
mattered. He didn’t have anyhere to go or anything to do. He just couldn’t find
the strength to reach up and turn the damn thing off.

He drifted
back to sleep.

* * *

...beep
beep...beep beep...beep beep...beep beep...

Still going.
How long had it been this time? A few seconds? Several minutes? Another day?
One thing was certain. Next time he had the strength to move and the will to
employ that strength, he was going to shut that damn thing off.

He drifted
back to sleep.

* * *

...beep
beep...beep beep...beep beep...beep beep...THUMP THUMP THUMP.

That was
different. With more effort than he cared to put forth he opened his weary eyes
and, after an eternal moment of dizzying disorientation, remembered where he
was—where he
really
was. The intensive care unit of the base hospital. The
ICU. That incessant beeping that had been driving him insane all morning wasn’t
his alarm at all. It was the bio-functions monitor on the wall above the head
of his bed, letting him know that he was still alive.

THUMP
THUMP THUMP
.

But what was...the
door. Someone was knocking on the door. Knowcking? Obviously not a doctor or
nurse. Maybe Kenny had come to visit again. He’d stopped by at least once every
day and sometimes twice since he’d regained consciousness, just to see how he
was feeling. God bless him. A man couldn’t ask for more loyal a friend. And he’d
been blessed with two.

Dylan missed
those days of his latter teen years. Those days when he and Kenny and their
good friend George, the third piece who’d made them all who they were as one—three
had
never
been a crowd in their case—would go out until all hours of the
night and inevitably greet the sunrise from their usual table at their favorite
all-night coffee shop. Actually, there had often been a fourth with them as
well, he reminded himself, feeling obligated to at least acknowledge the fact.
Why he felt that way, he didn’t know. That fourth friend had been the same friend
he’d joined the service with—the same friend who had later proven that loyalty
was
not
a universal trait among them.

THUMP
THUMP THUMP
.

“Dylan? Are
you awake?”

That wasn’t
Kenny. Dylan rolled his head across the pillow to see who it was who’d so
thoughtlessly roused him from his drug-induced slumber, and felt pleased to see...
“Carolyn.” Finally! After what...a week in intensive care? Eight days? Nine? He
couldn’t be sure
how
long he’d been there, but he knew it was about damn
time she showed up! He tried to lift his head up off the pillow and spit his
angry words at her like so much venom, but found that he was still far too weak
to do that. All he could manage was a feeble, “Where the hell have you been?”

Carolyn
stepped into the room, closed the door behind her, and approached his bedside.
Her eyes looked red and swollen. She’d been crying. “How are you feeling?” she
asked as she took hold of his left hand—the one without all the pins and braces
stretching from the base of his neck to below the elbow—and sat down on the
side of his bed, being careful not to jostle him too much. She didn’t make eye
contact.

“It’s not
that painful anymore,” he lied. Truth was he was still in constant pain, though
the drugs did a lot to take the edge off. And sure, he was angry as hell at her
for not coming to see him a lot sooner, but that was no reason to make her feel
any worse, any guiltier, than she must have already felt. He would never do
that to her. Not that it made any difference, though. Modern medical science
being what it was, even a layman would realize that any injury requiring the
use of devices such as those attached to him now was a very serious one indeed.
“It’s mostly in my head at this point.” With all the selflessness and empathy
he could muster, he added, “Seeing you eases it some.” Then he asked, “What
took you so long to come by?”

“You know I
don’t like hospitals,” she answered too quickly. And he knew right then that
she hadn’t come just to visit. She had something specific to say, and whatever
that something was she’d probably spent hours rehearsing it over and over again
in her mind.

“Coming here
was a real struggle for me,” she continued. “It’s not that I didn’t want to see
you. I just...I just didn’t want to see you like this.”

“That makes
two of us,” he joked, managing a slight grin. But the humor seemed totsally lost
on her.

“I’ve been
doing a lot of thinking,” she added.

“About what?”
he asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

Her eyes
fell to the cold, immobile hand she cradled in hers. “About us.” She placed his
hand gently onto his stomach, then got up and went to the window by the foot of
his bed. She opened the blinds to gaze outside. The bright sunlight that poured
into the room made Dylan’s head throb.

“I can’t
handle it anymore, Dylan,” she said quietly, almost choking on the words.

She was
clearly on the verge of tears. How long it had been since he’d seen her cry,
over anything, Dylan couldn’t even remember. Despite his anger—despite all the
trouble they’d been having, he wanted to hold her. He wanted to comfort her the
way he used to when their marriage was young and alive. But of course he was
helpless to do anything. Hell, she probably wouldn’t have let him hold her
anyway.

“Every time
you’re sent out on a mission I find myself wondering if I’ll ever see you
again,” she told him, “...if you’ll come back to me in one piece.” Tears
finally filled her eyes and flowed freely down her cheeks. “This time you
almost didn’t.”

If that was
true—if she really did worry like that—then why, every time he returned home
from an extended absence, did she always act like she wished he’d stayed away?

“
Almost
disn’t,” he emphasized. “But I did come back.” He couldn’t think of anything
else to say.

“Oh yeah,
you came back,” she caustically admitted. “Broken, burned and bloodied, and in
a stretcher...but you did come back.” She paused and sniffed. Then, as if she
were intentionally trying to hurt him, she added, “But most of your squad didn’t.”

That cut him
deep and he suddenly found himself fighting back tears of his own.

She closed
her eyes and bowed her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice full of regret. “I
didn’t mean to...” She paused, took a deep breath, and then looked back out through
the window again. “What about the next time, Dylan,” she continued, “or the
time after that? How long before they send you home in a box, or before there
isn’t enough left to send home at all?”

“Carolyn,
you...”

“How long!”
she cried, cutting him off.

She paused
another moment to regain her composure, then went on. “I know I’ve been a real
bitch since we came out here and that I haven’t let you get close for a long
time. I’m sorry for that. And I’m sorry that I hurt you, but...”

Dylan
sighed. “Carolyn...”

“No!” she
interrupted, turning her back and taking another step farther away from the bed—away
from him. “No, I don’t want to hear it. I can’t.” She looked down at her left
hand, hesitated a moment, then faced the bed again. “I’m sorry,” she said as
she pulled off her wedding ring and tossed it onto the blanket. “It’s over,
Dylan. I’m divorcing you.”