Solfleet: The Call of Duty (53 page)

Sergeant
Graves should not have been having those nightmares.
Some
nightmares, yes,
but not
those
nightmares. Not the nightmares he’d described to her.
Nightmares of explosions and of heavy gunfire, of close-quarters firefights and
hand-to-hand combat, of killing the enemy and of comrades being killed—those
were normal for any combat veteran, especially after being so seriously
wounded. For Graves, nightmares that reflected what were, as of yesterday, his
conscious memories of the battle. His subconscious should
not
have been
showing him what really happened.

And yet at
the same time,
consciously
, he apparently remembered everything exactly
the way he was supposed to—unless he’d lied to her. She considered that
possibility but quickly rejected it. He was still off balance and out of sorts,
badly wounded and half strung out on pain killers. Had he been lying to her she’d
have seen right through it. No, he was remembering everything exactly the way
he was supposed to...consciously.

And that
fact pointed directly to her problem. Although his conscious memories had been
reshaped exactly as planned, the edit had completely failed on the subconscious
level. And now Sergeant Dylan Edward Graves, the best candidate for the
Timeshift mission, the man whom she herself had recommended to Admiral Hansen
for the job, was a security liability. “Damn it,” she mumbled under her breath
as she approached the main gate. The procedure had supposedly been perfected
years ago. What the hell could possibly have gone wrong?

She nodded
and smiled politely to the tall, lanky young Military Policeman standing post
at the gate as she approached him. Not the same quiet, inquisitive looking corporal
who’d been there when she arrived, and unless she’d suddenly gone half blind he
couldn’t have been a day over eighteen years old. He nodded slightly in return
and stared at her—was that lust in his eyes?—as she walked past him and exited
through the pedestrian gate.

She glanced
back for a quick second, just enough to see him out of the corner of her eye as
he stared after her and licked his lips. She could almost feel his unblinking
eyes stripping off her skin-tight jeans and she grinned as she continued on her
way. Despite the fact that she harbored no real interest in drawing
that
kind
of attention from men, younger or older, it still gave her ego a nice boost to
know that one so young could still find her so pleasing to look at in that way.
How might he react, she wondered, still grinning, if she went back and identified
herself to him? It would probably be pretty funny. Lucky for him she wasn’t the
kind of person who went out of her way to embarrass people in that way. Well,
not without a good reason anyway. Besides, she was still trying to keep her
presence on planet as quiet as possible.

Speaking of
pleasing to look at! Royer abruptly stopped and froze in place like some kind
of statue. Across the street and just a short distance ahead an attractive
young woman with long golden blond hair had just come out of a small shop and
was walking toward a nearby bus stop. She was wearing a short black pleather
skirt that revealed a lot of leg—and what very nice legs they were, too—a deep
forest green blouse, and a pair of those black knee-boots like the ones the
admiral’s secretary often wore. As a matter of fact, the whole outfit looked
like something Vicky would wear, and this girl definitely had the body to pull
it off.

And in
another life, Royer mused, she wouldn’t have minded the chance to pull that outfit
off of her nice and slowly, one garment at a time.

The girl
reached the bus stop and took a seat on the bench facing the street, and when
she crossed her right leg over her left Royer caught a glimpse of white between
them and got a good long look at what appeared to be a smooth, firm thigh. Her
heart started pounding in her chest and she felt a stirring deep inside that
until that very moment she’d only ever felt with Karen, and she knew right then
that if she weren’t a married woman...

But of
course, she
was
a married woman—a
very
married woman—and as she averted
her gaze and resumed walking she scolded herself for letting her thoughts drift
in that direction, even for a moment. She loved her wife very much and missed
her terribly. “I need to get home to Karen, and soon,” she whispered under her
breath.

And then, as
though a light bulb had suddenly snapped on in her brain, she realized who it
was she’d just been gawking at. She looked at her again just to be sure, but
she knew she wasn’t mistaken. Stefani O’Donnell, the agency’s own fugitive from
the law, was sitting right there, not fifty feet away, as plain as the day was
bright. What the hell was she doing on Cirra of all places? And why was she out
in public, in broad daylight, so close to a Solfleet facility? She hadn’t even
tried to disguise herself. She had to know she was wanted by Solfleet
authorities. Not a very smart thing to do.

O’Donnell looked
toward her, so Royer quickly turned away and ducked into the nearest shop...and
realized immediately that she’d just made the second of two very basic
mistakes. “And that wasn’t a very smart thing for
you
to do,” she
mumbled, referring not only to the way she’d been standing out in the open and
staring at O’Donnell—the first mistake—but also to the way she’d dashed out of
sight, which had been the surest way to draw attention to herself. She’d been
spending too much time behind her desk lately. Her skills were getting rusty,
and making mistakes could be dangerous.

She stepped
back, away from the door and the large storefront window, moving out of the direct
sunlight while still gazing out at O’Donnell, hoping to determine whether or
not she had recognized her and fled. It didn’t matter that they’d never
actually met face-to-face. As deputy chief of the agency, her official portrait
hung prominently displayed alongside Admiral Hansen’s and about a dozen other officers’
and politicians’ on the walls of every facility that fell under S.I.A. command.
That included the field office on Europa, where O’Donnell had been stationed
before she went AWOL and got herself arrested.

“Excuse I,”
someone behind her said in a deep, heavily accented voice. “You would like
drink some?”

Royer turned
around and found herself standing in some kind of combination newsstand and
whatever-the-Cirrans-drink-to-wake-up-in-the-morning shop. Its quiet, small
community atmosphere was typical for such establishments, including those she’d
frequented in the past, like most of her favorite coffee shops back home in the
Midwest. It seemed a little out of place here in the city, though. Several
racks of printed newspapers and magazines—she could smell the fresh ink—lined
the walls. Tables already set for customers, who at the moment were very few
and far between, filled the dining area, and a lone apron-adorned waiter stood
about five feet in front of her, holding a tray full of cups of...something...in
his hands, staring at her like she had three heads. A native, she knew
immediately. Not from his accent—all known alien races, not to mention the vast
majority of the Earth’s own population, spoke heavily accented English—but
rather from his eyes. Those beautiful violet eyes that all Cirrans were blessed
to be born with. All Sulaini, too, for that matter. She so loved their color.

“No, thank
you,” she finally answered. “I uh...I was just talking to myself.”

“You was
talk to you?” the waiter asked, smiling, looking amused and confused at the
same time. “You spirit must be strong agitate.”

“Yeah, you
could say that,” Royer responded with a grin of her own.

“You would
like drink some to calm you spirit?”

“Thank you,
that’s very kind, but I don’t have time right now. Maybe later.”

The waiter
shrugged his shoulders—the Cirran equivalent of shaking the head—and said, “You
Terrans, always much fast.” And with that, he turned and walked away.

“Yeah, that’s
us,” Royer quietly agreed as she turned back to look out the window again. “Always
in a hurry.” O’Donnell was still there, thank goodness—still sitting on the
bench.

Speaking of
always being in a hurry, whatever she was going to do—however she was going to
take O’Donnell into custody—Royer knew she was going to have to do it quickly,
before the bus showed up and whisked her away. But what exactly
was
she
going to do? What would be the quickest and quietest way to make the arrest?
She could stay out of sight and call for the Grainger MP’s to come grab her but
that would draw a lot of curious attention from the locals that she really didn’t
want to draw. Besides, there was always a chance the bus might show up before
the MP’s got there, despite the fact the base was so close.

Maybe that
wouldn’t be such a bad thing, she considered. She could let O’Donnell get on
the bus and then have it intercepted down the street. At least that would cut down
on the number of witnesses. But not by enough, she decided. No. She was going
to have to do it herself, quickly and quietly, without drawing
any
attention,
and then get out of sight as fast as possible.

And to do that
she was going to have to walk right up to her without being seen.

Royer
sighed. The only way to sneak up on her would be to approach her from behind,
but how was she going to cross the open street in full view of her target
without being seen? The only alternative was to go out the back door, if the
shop even had one, and circle around both blocks, but that would take time—time
that she might not have. No. She could lose her that way. She was going to have
to cross the street in full view.

The farther
away from O’Donnell she could get before she crossed, the less chance of seeing
her O’Donnell would have, so when Royer finally stepped back outside she turned
away from her and headed back toward the base to put some more distance between
them. Then, when she decided that she’d gone far enough, she crossed the street
and started back the other way again, walking at a leisurely pace and staying
as tight against the storefronts as she could in order to stay in the shade and
out of O’Donnell’s peripheral vision...she hoped.

Barely two
minutes later, as she drew to within ten meters or so of the bench, she turned
her face away from her target as much as she could without actually taking her
eyes off of her, just in case she suddenly looked in her direction again.
God!
She was even more beautiful than she’d first realized!

She passed
behind the bench—she’d done it!—then circled around the far end and gazed
straight ahead, across the street, as she sat barely a foot to her lovely
target’s right. Out of the corner of her eye she saw O’Donnell glance at her,
or at least in her general direction, then turn away again as if everything
were okay. It was a perfectly normal thing to do. Anyone else would have done
the same thing. The important thing was that she apparently hadn’t recognized
her.

Royer stole
another look at the younger woman’s gorgeous legs and licked her suddenly dry
lips as she considered what to do next. Perhaps under different circumstances
the two of them might have gotten together for dinner and... She purged those
thoughts from her mind—she
really
needed to get home to Karen—and,
having finally decided how best to proceed, stared straight ahead and asked, “How
are you, this morning?”

O’Donnell
looked at her—no doubt this time—and answered, “Fine, thank you.” Then,
apparently wanting to be pilot in return, she asked, “How are you?”

“I’m fine,
too,” Royer answered, still without looking at her. “It’s a beautiful day.”

“It
certainly is,” O’Donnell agreed, looking up at the sky.

Royer took
advantage of O’Donnell’s momentary inattention and glanced around to make sure
any bystanders who might happen to be close enough to hear them talking weren’t
actually paying them any attention.

O’Donnell
looked back at her. “Excuse me, but...have we met before?”

Royer finally
looked her in the eye and answered, “No, we haven’t met.” Then she leaned a
little closer, prompting O’Donnell to lean slightly away, lowered her voice to
a near whisper, and said, “But if you try to run, I’ll shoot you in the back
without a second thought.”

O’Donnell’s
mouth fell open and she inhaled sharply as she withdrew further. “What did you
just say to me?” she asked, obviously dumbfounded.

“I said it’s
a beautiful day, and if you try to run, Crewman Stefani O’Donnell, I’ll shoot
you in the back.”

“Who the
hell...” O’Donnell started to ask. But then a look of total recognition
suddenly washed over her face and her jaw practically fell into her lap. “Oh my
God,” she said as her face turned three shades of red. “You’re Commander
Elizabeth Royer, aren’t you?”

“In the
flesh,” Royer confirmed, “and you, my dear, are under arrest.”

O’Donnell’s
gaze fell to the sidewalk in front of her as she sighed heavily. “Shit.”

“Yeah,
deep
shit,” Royer pointed out, “and you’re ass is right smack in the middle of it.”

O’Donnell’s
eyes began to tear. “I don’t suppose there’s anything I can do to get out of it,
is there?” she asked without looking up.

Royer
started to answer automatically—she’d certainly been offered bribes before—but then
hesitated. ‘...anything I can do to get out of it...’ the girl had asked. What
exactly had she meant by ‘anything?’ Was she hinting at a willingness to pay
her off in exchange for her freedom, or was she offering something else? Was
she perhaps offering to...

O’Donnell
looked up at her. “Ma’am? Did you hear my question?”

“Yeah, I
heard it,” Royer answered. Then she asked, “What exactly are you hinting at,
Miss O’Donnell?”