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 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,