too, sir," David said with a smile.
"Hey," I called out to my guys. "Where's Raj?"
David gestured to the door. "He said he was heading down to the sickbay."
I nodded. "Okay, cool."
David and Kyle hefted their gear bags, slung their rifles, and headed off. The admiral waited for me to get dressed before continuing.
"I didn't expect to see you down here, sir," I said as I laced up my boots. "Not exactly the place I expected to meet the Chief of Special Operations Command."
He nodded, sitting himself down on a bench across from me. "Nor are these the circumstances under which I expected to meet someone with a record as impressive as yours." He wasn't scowling, but he certainly wasn't smiling, either.
I nodded grimly. "No sir," I said, agreeing with him.
"Is it true?" he asked. "There are a lot of rumors out there. There always are, I suppose." He sighed and turned to his right, as though he were looking at something in the far distance. "I hate rumors. I would rather hear it from the source. Did you do what they say?"
I sighed, as well. I had been answering that question a lot. First it was the rangers and medics who recovered us from the ground, then my commanding officer on the troop carrier, then Commodore Torginson, over and over again in that tiny debriefing room of hers. Even after that, the questions still came. Everyone wanted to know. Did we do it? The quartermaster couldn't even issue us our bunks and blankets without asking. The cooks in the mess hall asked. The clerk running the canteen asked. Everyone asked. Everyone who was authorized to know go the truth. Most others were reminded about the secrecy of the matter. A select few were told to just fuck off.
Admiral Bishop was a hard one to hear the question from. This was the legendary CO of Special Operations Command. If half the stories about him were true, he probably leaned to the left when he wore all of his medals, just from the weight. He was the sort of marine you heard about everywhere you went, always more legend than man, as though the marines had a living patron saint, right out of some old religion or something. The story was, he had so many tour badges, medals and other pretty hardware for his uniform, it was easier to list the few things he hadn't done, than all the things he had. That accounted for the blank uniform. Admirals get to be as eccentric as they want, but this one had earned it five times over. His name and reputation meant more than anything he might put on his uniform.
Now, he was asking that same question.
I shook my head. "No, sir."
"No sir, it is not true?" he responded. "Or, no sir, I am not answering?"
I grimaced. I could almost feel him sizing me up, every word I uttered the answer to a character assessment. "No sir, we didn't do what they say."
"What did happen, then?" he asked instantly, barely giving me time to finish my sentence.
I shrugged. "Sir, all of this is in the report. As I'm sure you read in our statements, just like we explained to the commodore over and over, none of us have any idea what brought that building down. It certainly wasn't us. No amount of debriefing, interrogating, or encounters with Psy-Ops is going to change that."
He looked to his right once more, with that same far off look. "As a matter of fact, I have not read the reports. I am not privy to them. The same goes for your little training exercise with the fine people in Psychological Operations. Even if I were in the loop on all of that, I would still ask the question."
I nodded. "Yes, sir. Do you want me to start at the top?"
He waved me off. "As I said, there are a lot of rumors. I just wanted to meet your men, talk with them, and see what sort of marines they are. I also wanted to meet you, look you in the eye, and ask you directly. For now, the details can wait."
"Sir, is this investigation that serious?" I asked. "If they asked you to come all the way out here, how hot are things getting for us?"
He shook his head, gazing once more to his right. "I have no idea, Captain. That is not why I am here. If this was about the investigation into your squad's actions, I could follow all of that from my office on Europa Station. While I am enjoying not looking out of an office window and seeing Jupiter for once, Port 25 is pretty far out of my way for nothing but a battlefield misconduct investigation."
I nodded. "Sir, why are you here?"
Admiral Bishop smirked slightly. "Most senior officers would never dare ask me that, let alone a mere captain."
I took in a deep breath. "Most admirals wouldn't ask to see a mere captain, decide they couldn't wait ten minutes, and then track him down in a locker room."
Bishop inclined his head. "Fair enough." He paused for a moment, before continuing. "The truth is that I am no longer in command of Special Operations. I gave up that post almost a year ago."
I sat up a little straighter on my bench. "Sir?"
He waved off my surprise. "It was not publicized, though we tend not to make big announcements about Spec-Ops, anyway. Certainly, information like that does not get wide release, considering what I do now."
"And that is, sir?" I asked carefully, unsure if I really wanted the answer.
He reached into his pocket, and removed a small circular device. It reminded me of a woman's compact. He set it down on the bench, and tapped its top. It beeped twice. I recognized it as a jammer. It would keep listening or video devices from picking us up. That particular model was so effective, if someone nearby had artificial eyes or ears, they wouldn't work.
"I work in an advisory capacity for something called Project Pocket Watch," he said, quietly.
I shrugged. "I've never heard of that."
"Nor has anyone else outside of a very sequestered group of engineers and physicists, and of course some naval personnel" he said quietly, now guarding his voice.
"Some new bomb?" I guessed out loud.
He shook his head. "No, captain. Far from it. In fact, it is an exploration tool."
I waited silently for the admiral to continue. What did a legendary admiral from Special Operations need with a captain from Marine Recon, on a project involving exploration? There were marine units specially trained to accompany deep exploration ships, and though we had similar training, that wasn't what I or my guys signed up for. When the admiral didn't continue, I said all of this.
He nodded his understanding. "I get that, but once you hear the story, I think your involvement will become somewhat clearer."
He reached back into his pocket, and pulled out a small hand-pad. This one was small, and designed for security. It was no bigger than a pen. He tossed it to me. I unrolled it, the paper-thin screen unrolling like an ancient scroll. Once the hand-pad was fully unrolled and it clicked into place, stiffening, the screen turned on.
On the display was a picture of a ship in space dock. It was narrow and tall, almost flat, resembling nothing so much as a space
