2 CHAPTER 1

DATE: July 8, 2245

"Remember boys and girls," I said with a smirk and a kindergarten teacher's tone, "it's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game."

The chuckles around me were quiet, knowing. The squad grinned at me, Raj especially. He wore that cruel grin of his, the one that curled up the left side of his face. It told me he could smell blood in the air. His deep brown eyes, almost black, met mine, and I knew he was ready. I could hear David taking those deep breaths of his, as he focused himself. This sort of thing was practically meditation for him. Kyle was almost bouncing in place, impatient, ready to go. I shook my head at him. He was like a kid waiting for a toy store to open.

Like my three squad-mates, my gear was already checked, re-checked, and ready to go. My goggles were secure, though the built-in heads-up display was shut down. No HUDs today, and no comms either. The goggles were simple eye protection for this run. My rifle was tucked in close, the straps holding it against my chest until I was ready to use it. The grip felt good. It wasn't my usual weapon, but I still knew it well enough. It would do the job, even if it was underpowered.

I knew that instinctively. Our weapons had all been set to low power, well below their optimum ranges, by the instructors here. We weren't supposed to know that, and we weren't supposed to be able to tell by looking at the weapons, but I knew anyway. All four of us did, and though none of us said it, we had exchanged knowing glances as the slug-throwing rifles were issued to us. I could feel it in the rifle's hum and the temperature in the grip, the moment the instructors handed it to me. The rounds they fired wouldn't go far. The instructors wanted us fighting at close range. Fine.

My body armor felt good. The vest, shoulder pads, and arm guards were fastened to me like the second skin I had come to know them as. They could take a hell of a lot more than these rifles could throw at me, but I'd still know I was hit. The rifles we were using weren't our usual plasma rifles. These were slug throwers, the sort of weapon armies stopped using back in the twenty-first century. These rifles might be two hundred years out of date, but they could fire the paint rounds well enough.

My boots were a little too tight. They were new, and pinched at the back of the heel and above the ankle. The laces were fine, and the rubber soles gripped well, but the pinching was annoying. It distracted me, took up more brain time than I wanted. It always took a few days in the field to break in a new pair of boots. I had been wearing them since they were issued, three weeks now, but just wandering around the station wasn't the fastest way to break them in, which was one of the reasons why I agreed to this little dance. We were rusty, mentally as much as anything. Working in my new boots was just a bonus.

There was a new marine reconnaissance squad on the station, and Special Operations Command wanted them tested. There were instructors here for that, but we were here, so why not? Besides, a few hours in the station's training "arena" would be good for us. We were three weeks into an indefinite leave, but Port 25 was as boring as the name implied. We had come out of a long tour of ugly on Alpha Centauri, pulled out way too early for bullshit reasons. We were frustrated, and needed the rest. Still, a United Earth Marine can only sit still for so long. A short dance in the arena was good for the soul.

I leaned in close, the other three doing the same. "Now let's fuck 'em up!" I barked, loud enough for the other squad to hear us all the way down at the other arena door.

My guys roared, a sharp unified sound that practically shook the deck, and more to the point, the other squad. We sounded like a pack of very mean dogs.

I waved at the instructors in the control room, looming high above us on its perch atop the ceiling of the massive arena. From their vantage point they could see the staging area where we stood, and the entire combat training area, just beyond the door in front of us. The walls of the training area weren't very high. What dark corners and covered rooms they could not see directly from their high perch, the installed cameras would catch.

They could control every square inch of the training room, including walls and other obstacles which could be moved about remotely. I had seen training areas like this set up as everything from a swamp, flooded with water and other goo, to a dense urban environment with multi-floored buildings. I had once seen it as a ship's interior, with labyrinthine corridors designed to confuse us, which worked all too well when they shifted the walls around us as we moved. This time in, we were not told what we were walking into, though a dense rat maze was the usual setup for this sort of session. Hence the low-powered rifles. A high-powered shot would really, really hurt if you walked around the corner and found a barrel in your face.

"Captain Mallory, weapons ready." The voice of Colonel Freeman echoed in the massive, domed room. "Weapons free, upon entry. Wait for the signal."

We turned toward the massive metal double doors. They were painted with a large yellow and black hazard sign, reminding us that beyond the doors, predators hunted. Actual details were also listed, like wearing protective eye-wear, body armor, and avoiding entry while the area was in use. All of that blew past me. I had my head in the game, and all I saw was the gateway to my next objective.

"Hey, Jack," one of the instructors, Major Jonas, called out to me as she leaned against the far bulkhead. Her sneer reeked of contempt. "Don't be too rough on them. They're still new and shiny."

I shook my head. "No promises. We don't play gentle."

"Isn't that why you're stuck here to begin with?" she asked with a biting tone.

"Fuck you," I heard David mutter under his breath. Not quite enough, as it turned out.

Major Jonas pushed off the bulkhead, and took a step forward. "Say again?"

"Stack up!" I barked, cutting through the brewing argument.

We lined up at the double doors, two by two. A two-by-two stack allowed us to enter quickly and establish a full cover spread, watching for enemies from four vantage points. We knew our opponents were to our left, but you never could tell what the instructors had waiting for us inside. I took the front left, with David behind me. Kyle was to my right, with Raj behind him. We set our feet in position, one in front of the other, knees bent, ready to push forward at a good pace. We leaned into our rifles, looking down the barrels. I aimed directly at the seam between the doors, as did the others.

I briefly looked to the ready-light over the doors. After a moment, it went from red to green, and the doors slid open so fast, I felt the brief vacuum of it.

"Go go go!" I barked quietly.

We pushed in, our weapons finding their proper fields of fire. Ninety degrees each, allowing a full circle of fire. One step, two steps, down to one knee. I heard the doors shut behind us.

I blinked in surprise at the sight of the arena. No dense rat maze, no swamp, no multi-floored urban environment. It was open ground, with small, waist-high barricades scattered about. The ground was nothing but bare metal deck. The lights were bright, leaving the area free of shadows and ambush points. I could see straight through to the far wall. There was nothing overhead except the reinforced dome that protected us from the vacuum of space. That, and the control room. I could actually see two instructors watching us through binoculars, all the way at the other end of the arena, and high above us.

More to the point, I could see the other squad. Their entry door was one hundred meters downrange, and they had barely moved from it at all. They were looking about, clearly as surprised as we were. They stood there, unsure of what to do.

I looked for the nearest cover. Two barricades, simple gray metal things like those used to block traffic, presented themselves as a likely first step. I didn't even have to point. All four of us saw it. Besides, if I pointed, I might as well yell out my plan to the other squad.

"Two and two," I muttered just loud enough to be heard by the three sets of ears around me. "Fire and move, then hold. Go!"

We pushed forward and left, downrange toward the other squad. We each fired several rounds, the paint rounds kicking slightly as they left my rifle. The sound was mostly fake, speakers built into the rifle to simulate the sound of a real plasma rifle's rattle and bark. The rifles were set on low power, and I could actually see the rounds traveling through the air. They struck the ground about halfway downrange. Fifty meters absolute range. Great. That meant an effective range of half that much. I might as well throw the rifle at them.

I heard David's rounds whip past me as he fired over my shoulder, sure about where I would be, and were I wouldn't. This was nothing new for us. Five years together, and we knew each other well enough to do this blindfolded. I could barely hear the footfalls of my squad, and certainly no rattle of equipment, which was all well secured to our bodies. I heard Kyle mutter to Raj, and they split off from us, moving right, toward their own barricade ten meters away.

The only loud sound we made was our firing, answered by the yelling from the far side of the arena. The other squad dove for cover, yelling at each other in confusion. These were not new recruits, newly shaven kids out of school. These were seasoned troops. Marines couldn't even apply for recon training until they had one combat tour under their belt. These four were scattering like recruits on their first field exercise. What sort of people were they recruiting into Recon these days?

No time to think about that, not now. I reached the barricade and took a knee, my rifle barrel just over top of our cover. David took up a position to my right. I looked past him briefly, toward the other barricade. Kyle and Raj took up their positions. Raj fired off two rounds, and I saw one of the other opposing marines scurry back into cover. Kyle looked at me for a moment, awaiting orders.

"Too easy, Jack," David sneered. "Something's up."

I shook my head, listening to the enemy squad telegraph their plans as they yelled and pointed in full view of us. "Yeah. Let's do this by the numbers and get it done."

I turned to my right, and David inched back enough so my hand signals could be seen by Kyle and Raj, though remain hidden behind the barricade. I let the spring action in my rifle sling pull the weapon against my chest, and started signaling with both hands. Simple, yet effective. I suppose the instructors were expecting a lack of comms to be a problem. That was more insulting than anything.

'Forward sweep,' I signaled silently. 'Fire and move in turns.'

Kyle and Raj nodded, as did David, who watched out of the corner of his eye as he scanned our forward field of fire, shooting every so often to keep the enemy focused on him and not me. I turned back toward the front, and David inched up against the barricade. This would be over quickly, once we started moving.

The other squad seemed to pull themselves together, and had decided to make a stand instead of pushing forward. Rookie mistake, but predictable and understandable. Most soldiers, confronted by what seemed, and in this case certainly was a superior force, tended to dig in and try to hold their ground. It was a natural instinct, really. Let the bad guy come to you, and theoretically, you can control the field. Without the variable of movement, you can focus on shooting, and watching the attackers' movements. Again, very natural. Also very foolish.

Recon Marines, like most Special Forces for the last several centuries, were trained to stay on the offensive. Holding ground is not what we did. We took ground, no matter how much the bad guys wanted to keep it. Push hard enough and fast enough and your enemy eventually panicked and lost composure. Or, you know, died trying to hold their position. Whatever worked.

David and I moved first. We swept right, around the barricade. Our steps were quick, but not overreaching. Not a run, but a fast walk. Each step was sure and methodical. No rushing. As soon as we started moving, Kyle and Raj opened up, laying down heavy fire. Short bursts only. Two shots, reassess, two more shots. One looked while the other fired, creating an endless stream of fire from their position, yet allowing one set of eyes to watch. It also allowed reloading to be accomplished without too much interruption of fire.

We fired as we moved, but only a few rounds each. These were not plasma rifles, but paint-round guns; they used physical ammo, and we didn't have a lot of it. My target ducked down behind her barricade, even though rounds were not coming anywhere near her. The other squad hadn't realized how low their weapons were set, yet. I waited for one of them to squeeze off a shot and figure it out, but they seemed too scared to do much of anything.

David and I took up our new position, and immediately started firing, angling our rifles upward in order to squeeze a little more range out of them. Kyle and Raj stated moving, just as we had. They fired a few rounds as they moved. They also angled their shots upward, but still, nobody was throwing a round more than fifty meters or so. Even from our new position, that was still slightly short of our targets. I shook my head and sighed. Maybe one of them would slip on the paint spattered on the deck in front of them.

Just as Raj and Kyle reached their new barricade, two of the other marines dashed across our view, left to right. They were moving at a full run, and dove behind a nearby barricade. We were so close now; there was no more cover between us and them. Two were still near their entry door, with David and me across from them. The other two dashing marines were now directly downrange from Kyle and Raj.

I signaled for everyone to wait. The other squad was hiding, though I could hear their hissed orders, that sort of yelled whisper you get when you need to speak to someone far away but don't want to be heard. I couldn't make out the words, but obviously, they were planning something. If they ever got their heads together, they could drag this out. We would have to charge them, one way or the other, since they obviously weren't coming out after us.

I looked to my right, and gave the signal for a 'hydra' maneuver. Both pairs would move in at the same time. We would lay down heavy fire as we moved, spacing ourselves out into a jagged line, two groups becoming four equally spaced shooters, though still focused on our respective pair of targets. It would make it harder to hit us, as they expected us to still be moving in pairs. That moment, that split second while they readjusted to four moving targets instead of two tight groups, would give us all the time we needed to end this.

We stood up as one, David and I circling our barricade to the right, Kyle and Raj to their barricade's left. Our fire was constant, but not wild. The blue paint splattered the top and side edges of the enemy barricades, or flew just over top of them. We closed in on their positions. I moved toward the left side of our target barricade, and David the right. Kyle and Raj did the same for theirs.

We were so close that if one of the enemies picked their head up, they would take a round. It would probably hurt. A lot. With half of my rifle's clip gone, twenty rounds left, I sped up. We moved into a careful run as we swept in for the kill. I rounded the barricade, firing four rounds downward, as did David from the other side, our shots crossing paths but far enough away to avoid either of us shooting the other. We fired directly into... nothing!

"What the fuck?" David muttered.

The barricade was empty. I saw that the barricade Kyle and Raj had charged was likewise devoid of targets. Before I could say anything, I heard rounds whip past my head. Two struck the barricade, and I dove behind it, bumping into David as he did the same. The fire was coming from the right, past Raj and Kyle.

Raj and Kyle were running towards us, firing as they did. I looked behind them. The other four marines were set up at a barricade close by, which was oriented ninety degree off from the others. They had cover as they fired across the width of the arena. We did not. I scurried for cover, exposed along the side of my barricade. The edge of it was barely forty centimeters across, but it would do for the moment. David rushed for cover as well, but there was none. I fired from the downrange side of the barricade's edge, and David from the right. Rounds peppered the deck in front of us, and the wall behind us.

Kyle and Raj weaved left and right as they ran, the fire coming fast and furious from behind. Only bad aim kept them from taking several rounds in the back. They managed to find cover much as we had, which was not much at all.

"There," David said, pointing to my left.

I nodded. "Yeah. Cute, huh?"

"Not so much," he replied grimly.

There was a hatch in the deck, which the other squad had used to move to their new position. We hadn't seen it on our approach. Nice ambush. Obviously, these marines weren't as green as I'd thought. They had played us. The confusion, the shouting, the panicky orders, it was all a ruse. They knew we looked at them like they were fresh meat, and they played it up.

Mostly, we had been cocky. I rebuked myself, swearing at my stupidity. Three weeks off the line, and already we were losing some of the edge we relied on. All the paper work and interviews and the rest of that crap shouldn't have mattered. We were letting it all get in the way of our job.

"Not cool," I muttered to myself. "Really not cool."

"Is it me," David commented, "or are their rifles firing straighter than ours?"

I listened to the thwack of paint rounds strike the wall behind us.

"Yeah," I replied. "We're being screwed with."

"What, and no dinner first?" Raj huffed from his nearby position.

"I know," I replied, firing a burst which forced the other squad down behind their cover. "No romance, anymore. What happened to good manners?"

"Let's teach them some," Kyle called out anxiously.

I could see in Kyle's eyes that he could see the endgame in his head. He got this focused look when that happened, like when a person looks into a crowd and sees someone they know. There was this look, as something inside clicked. Kyle got that when he saw an opening.

"You see it?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Hell, yeah!" he replied, firing a few rounds back at the other squad of marines. "Let's go get some!"

He signaled his plan. He would sweep left toward a barricade that was oriented left-right, beside the opposing marines' barricade. I would sweep in from up-range, to the marines' left, our right. David and Raj would move forward, taking what cover they could along the tip of the barricade Raj and Kyle had hurried away from moments ago. If our two center guys threw enough rounds at the other squad, they would be forced to stay low and fire at our flankers. Very quickly, our two chargers would be on top of them, and then we would finish things.

I reloaded, putting in a fresh forty-round clip in the rifle. As I pulled back the cocking handle, the round jammed.

"Malfunction, malfunction!" I hissed.

I set about fixing the rifle. As I did, the other three laid down enough withering fire to give me time. I pulled out the magazine, and put it back in my ammo pouch. I cocked the weapon twice, once to free the jammed round, and the other to clear out anything that might have broken off the round itself and caused the jam in the first place. A bent round, cheap piece of crap, fell at my feet. I pulled the trigger, making sure the firing mechanism still worked. It did. Then the magazine went back into place, and I cocked the weapon. The round went in properly this time.

I nodded 'ready' and dashed right. My three squad-mates moved as well. We all fired heavily, and Raj made the first kill. The enemy marine's helmet exploded with a spatter of blue paint, and I heard him yelp from the force of it. He dropped out of sight.

I broke into a run, as did the rest of us. The other three marines fired wildly, undisciplined fire as they held their weapons over the barricade. They might as well have taken a handful of rounds and thrown them at us, for all the good such stupidity did them. They might have been playing us earlier, but obviously they'd run out of clever ideas. Kyle, ever the marksman, knocked the rifle out of one of their hands, covering it in blue paint.

At that point, the other two marines stood up and started firing, obviously trying to cover some sort of retreat, or perhaps to jump down into the below-deck hatch which had brought them there. No such luck. I caught one of the marines in the left shoulder, and she went to one knee to avoid more fire. The last of the four must have taken ten rounds from us, and ended up flat on his back when he tripped over the paint-covered weapon of his buddy.

Just as we reached them, weapons still at the ready, the loud end-of-exercise buzzer sounded. We stopped, and lowered our weapons as Colonel Freeman's voice rang out.

"Weapons on safe," he said in a voice that echoed throughout the arena. "Stand down."

I let my rifle hang, and looked up toward the tower. I could see that none of the instructors were watching us anymore, at least not from the window. I nodded. They were already on their way to the debriefing room, where they could discuss this new squad of theirs.

"Okay guys," I called out. "Let's get out of our gear."

The other marines were picking themselves off the deck, the one wiping the paint off his face. The eye protection only went as far down as the nose, but we had covered him from his stomach to the top of his head. His teeth were blue, but he wasn't exactly smiling.

"Good try, marines," I said with a nod to the other team. No reason to be a poor sport about it. We won, so we could afford to be nice.

The woman among them, who I could see was their captain, nodded her thanks as she pulled off her gloves. She was no more happy about the lose than her squad-mates, but that was understandable. It was never fun to lose these exercises, even if you walked in knowing you didn't have a chance. In a way, I felt bad for her. They should have been working with instructors, not used as fodder on an experienced unit like mine. All we were doing was sharpening our claws on them. Of course, that was life. We won, they lost. We always won. That's how it always ended for us, on exercise or in the field. We always won.

As I watched her wipe the paint off of her shoulder, I caught sight of her unit patch. Taggart saw it as well. She wasn't Marine Recon at all. She was with Psychological Operations. They messed with the heads of the enemy, and kept close watch on ours. I could feel my blood pressure begin to rise.

"She's a skull-fucker," Taggart muttered.

"This whole damned exercise was a test," Raj said with disgust. "We're being watched, even in here."

"Yeah," I said with a sigh and a shake of my head. "Yeah, we are."

***

I sat down on the locker room bench, the warm mist from the showers reaching me from around the corner. Kyle was already 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 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 got 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 carrier on its side. About midway along, the hull angled up thirty degrees, as if the ship builders hadn't built her straight. At its midpoint, right where the ship "bent," was a circular bulge. I had the thought in my head that it was some flat, mechanical snake swallowing an apple. At the front of the ship, one at the top and one at the bottom, the hull extended outward; two pylons, like fork prongs. It was a bizarre looking ship. Along the side, the name was painted. I zoomed in to read it. UES Saturnus.

"Interesting name, sir," I muttered, louder than I had intended.

"Oh?" the admiral replied with a smirk.

"Saturnus," I said, pointing to the picture screen. "Latin for Saturn. The Greeks called him Kronos." I shook my head. "Sorry, sir. Lieutenant Forres, whom you were talking to earlier, he's into that stuff. On a really long, boring flight a couple of years ago, he gave us the history of the universe according to the Greeks and Romans."

The admiral smirked again. "Go on," he said quietly.

"Um, well, Saturn was the father of Jupiter, or Zeus. Zeus became ruler of Olympus by overthrowing his father. He imprisoned Saturn and the rest of the Titans. Well, most of them, at least for a while, I think. I dunno. David's the guy to talk about this stuff, really."

"Keep going, captain," the admiral was watching my mind work, putting the pieces together. I tried to connect the name of the ship, Saturnus, with the name of the project to which it was obviously connected. Project Pocket-watch. It took me a minute.

I went on. "Zeus eventually released a few of the titans."

"Such as Saturnus," the admiral chimed in.

I nodded. "Yes, sir. He released Saturnus from his prison, and made him ruler of some island or another. Saturnus, Kronos in Greek, is where we get our word 'chronology' from. He was the master of time. Zeus released him because he ultimately understood that he couldn't control time himself, so he put Saturnus where he could keep an eye on him, and control time that way."

The admiral tapped his left forefinger to his temple. "And there you have it."

"Excuse me, sir?" I caught my breath, held it. "Wait, what? No way."

The admiral gestured to the hand-pad. "Scroll to the next image."

I did. The picture was replaced with a schematic of the ship. At its center, at that mid-ship bulge, was a bizarre contraption around which the entire ship was obviously designed. I was nowhere near good enough with anything so highly technical to really understand what I was looking at.

"Some sort of new jump drive?" I asked, already knowing that wasn't it. Still, it was better than what I had the feeling I was about to be told, which made no sense at all. Even my squeak-through pass of high school physics told me that much.

"A jump drive? No, that would hardly fit in with our little story about the gods," Bishop replied dryly. "Put bluntly, it is a time machine."

I can only imagine what the expression on my face was like. It was probably just as bizarre as what came out of my mouth, something one does not usually say to an admiral.

"What the fuck?"