inside, first as always. I always took the time to slowly strip off my armor and carefully set it down. My rifle was beside me, alongside my goggles and gloves. As I unbuckled the armor from my uniform, I felt the air rush into the gap between armor and body. It felt good. The armor was like a second skin to me, but still, it got hot under these barracks uniforms. I should have worn my field weave uniform, but that was still in the laundry.
It took a week to get clothing back from station laundry, and I would have had it two weeks ago, if we hadn't spent the first straight week locked away in cells. There was nothing less pleasant than sitting in a holding cell wearing a filthy, sweaty combat uniform, waiting for debriefings that came every few hours, and lasted for several hours each. Part of the plan was to keep us dirty and tired, as if that was going to change things. It wasn't until we'd given them our story a dozen times over, each time exactly as the last, that they finally gave us quarters, a decent meal, and barracks uniforms.
Raj sat down beside me. He was massaging his left wrist, and not looking too happy about it.
"Get hit?" I asked, "Or just getting old?"
Raj shook his head. "Nah, man. I hurt it when I dove for cover. Kyle slipped and stepped on it."
I looked it over. It was already starting to mottle and bruise up through Raj's light brown skin. He winced when I turned his arm over.
"Go see the doc," I ordered. "No arguing, Raj," I finished, cutting off his reflexive 'no doctors' reply.
That was one thing about Corporal Sandhu that I never understood. The guy came from a family of doctors. Mom was a family doctor in Vancouver, and his Dad divided his time between hospitals there and in India. Raj's sister was busy in Atlanta's Center for Disease Control, trying to cure some incurable disease. His cousin was a navy doctor on a carrier somewhere in the Alpha Centauri system, sewing together broken marines, army grunts, and aid workers. Yet Raj was so reluctant to see a doctor, any doctor, you would think he was expecting them to put him back together with extra parts or something. I never really understood that.
"Ah, give us a break!" David's voice, half annoyed and half outright angry, carried over the row of lockers behind me.
I heard him throw his armor onto the tile floor, as he spat out a swear or two in Alphacee, one of a select few he'd picked up from the locals and used when he was especially pissed off.
"Hey!" I called out. "Watch the armor. It's worth more than you are," I reminded him, only halfway serious.
I turned in time to see the petty officer approach me, obviously the reason David had started swearing in tongues. He was just some clerk I had seen buzzing around since we arrived on the station. He was older, probably around fifty-five, with closely cropped gray hair and blue eyes which had long lost that hungry, energetic look you expected from young sailors on their first tour. This guy was just a paperwork monkey on a far-off station in the middle of nowhere. I could only assume his presence meant we were going back into debriefing.
"More?" I asked evenly. "Seriously? Torginson wants another round with us?"
The petty officer looked down his nose at me. "Commodore Torginson," he said, correcting me with her proper rank as though I had forgotten, "did not send me."
I shook my head, and turned away from the officious clerk. Commodore Adela Torginson was a special investigator, sent here to debrief us after things on Alpha Centauri went all ugly. She was sent especially because she had experience with Special Forces. She claimed to have served with Delta, one of the oldest and most prestigious spec-ops groups on Earth, going all the way back to the United States Army. Whether that was true or not, we couldn't tell. Special Operations Command doesn't exactly put out a social register.
"Then what?" I asked, untying the laces of my boots. "What do you want?"
"You are to report to Admiral Bishop," the petty officer said with a tone that suggested I was unworthy of the summons. "That would be right now, Captain."
I pulled off my left boot, and massaged my aching foot. I hated when new boots pinched. As I pulled off my right boot, the petty officer cleared his throat.
I waved him off. "I heard you, Petty Officer. Tell the Admiral that I'll be in his office in ten minutes."
"Very well," he said, obviously unhappy that I wasn't going to jump and run on his say-so. "Ten minutes. You will find his office on level eight. Someone will escort you when you sign in."
He turned on his heels and walked out.
I stripped off my uniform, and headed toward the shower. I passed Kyle on his way out, dripping armor in hand and a smile on his face. I shook my head.
"You know there's a cleaning kit for that," I said with a smirk. "Hi-tech and all that good stuff."
Kyle slung the armor over his shoulder, a big smile on his face. "Meh. Water works just fine."
"Whatever," I said with a grin.
Kyle Taggart, Sergeant in the United Earth Marine Corp, veteran of three full combat tours, and four more in Special Operations. Kyle Taggart, heavy weapons specialist, the most skilled weap-tech I knew. Kyle Taggart, who washed his armor in the shower, because his instructors in basic had taught him not to rely on any technology if you didn't have to. An odd contradiction. I guess it took all kinds.
The hot water felt good on my skin. Three weeks out of the field, and each shower still felt like the first one in years.
***
As soon as I turned off the taps, I heard the laughter. Kyle and David were there, and another voice I didn't recognize. I dried off, and wrapped a towel around my waist. I rounded the corner, and there were my two guys sitting on the benches, all dressed up in their barracks grays and ready to go. I followed their eyes to the man sitting across from them. I snapped to attention.
"Sir!" I barked.
The man with the admiral's epaulets stood up slowly, and I just barely heard the crackling of cartilage as he did. His uniform was hardly standard issue, at least so far as I could tell from my vantage point, pretending to look straight ahead as I stood at attention. It was mostly black, not navy blue. There was no name tag, no division badge, no tour badges, and no years-in pips. In fact, other than the rank, the uniform was essentially blank. It was cut differently, the collar coming up much higher than normal. At its edge I saw a hint of burn scars.
The admiral himself was young, forty or so. I was thirty two and a captain. Assuming I rose through the ranks like a rocket, I would be lucky to see a commodore's bars by fifty, let alone the next step up to rear admiral. A full admiral at forty-something was impressive, which meant that name tag or not, the black haired, brown eyed man standing in front of me was none other than Admiral Orson Bishop himself. Oddly enough, I always expected him to be taller. He was barely an inch over my even six feet.
"Relax, Captain," he said with his gravelly voice. "Get some clothes on. We need to talk."
"Yes, sir," I said, and moved to my things.
"You boys go get some food in you," the admiral said as he waved them off. "Nice talking with you."
"You
