Extinction (73 page)

Surgeon braced himself for the oncoming
woman, who flung herself into his arms and they buried their faces into each
other’s shoulders. Both were crying unabashedly. Daria pulled back just enough
so their lips could meet and she kissed her husband as though it was the first
time.

After a period of time that left most of
the observers feeling a little awkward, Daria pulled away again. “You forgot to
take the garbage out again. Dick.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too, Mike.”

“Seriously?” Seth was looking at his
friend and trying not to be obvious about visually stalking Emily as she
approached. “After seeing this side of you, I don’t know if I can ever call you
Surgeon again.”

“Surgeon?” Seriously?” This was from
Daria.

“Hey, we were all given our call signs
by someone else, not my choice.” Mike smiled. “And as long as we’re talking
about stupid names,
The Goonies
?!”

“Well,” Daria began, “we were a group of
friends who dropped down a hole and had to fight for the buried treasure.”

“Yeah, I read the report. I can’t wait
to hear about it in person, though.”

“We aren’t talking later.” Daria didn’t
care who was listening. “You’ll be lucky if you can stay conscious later.”

“Um, awkward...” Bloom was now standing
with the group.

Seth was the first to greet him. “I’ve
read your reports and I’m very impressed with your work. I’ve got a bit of a
technology background and I’d love to pick your brain later.” He extended his
hand. “I’m Seth, but they call me Cadet.”

“Ooooh, bummer.” Bloom snickered. “Jeeves
and I would be happy to go over the mission later. Just show me where we can
grab a beer and I’m all yours.”

Seth was about to say something when he
felt a light tap on his shoulder. “Excuse me, Lieutenant,” Emily began, “I’m
not sure if you remember me or not; you weren’t doing too well when we met back
at your graduation.”

How could I forget the love of my
life? My destiny? Holy God, I didn’t say that out loud, did I? Nope, still
internal dialogue. Good...

“I’m sorry, I guess you don’t. Well, I’m”—”

Seth didn’t give her a chance to finish.
“Captain Emily Riley. Of course I remember you. Thank you for being so nice to
me that night. I was actually drugged by that nice gentleman over there,” Seth
pointed to Joker who just waved and smiled back, “so I could be kidnapped for
this mission. Oh, and congratulations on your recent field promotion. Very
impressive stuff.”

Emily blushed. “Thank you. I didn’t
really do anything other than back the plays of my team.” Daria gave her a little
swat on the shoulder for being so humble. “I don’t want to intrude, but I’d
like to join your conversation with Bloom later. I’d like to hear firsthand
what you’ve learned about the warriors.”

“Of course, ma’am.” Seth cringed at his
own formal address. “We’d really love for you to join.” He cringed again at the
now excessive sense of eagerness in his voice.

“Awkward...” Bloom had his hand to his
face and looked through his fingers as though he were watching a scary movie.

“Query.” Jeeves spoke up in his
completely out-of-place British accent. “Are you stating ‘awkward’ because of
the obvious sexual interest this male human has in the captain and his apparent
inability to function properly in her presence?”

Daria pointed to Jeeves and Bloom. “Leave.
Both of you. Now.”

Without a word, they both turned around
and tried to find a spot farther along the reception line. The rest of the team
was coming down the ramp with Davies just exiting the shuttle. Davies looked
around to find Daria and when he did, he also found Mike. He was first confused
because his friend was supposed to be dead. Then he was elated that his friend
wasn’t dead. And lastly he was ashamed as the memory and imagery of him and
Daria went through his mind.

Daria saw Davies and caught the almost
imperceptible change of emotion and found herself also feeling a rush of guilt.
She would tell Mike. He deserved to know and she knew he would understand,
given the circumstances. For now though, she hoped Davies could act natural
enough to get through the moment.

Davies walked to Mike and embraced him
while lifting the only slightly smaller man off his feet. “Don’t ever die again,
jerkface.”

“I love you, too, buddy, but even my
wife didn’t hold me this long.” Mike slapped his friend on the back as he was
put on his feet again.

The small group grew as the operators
from both groups mixed and were introduced to one another. By the time the president
made his arrival at the door, no one was paying attention to the shuttle any
more. The president laughed a little to himself as he heard the protocol
officers from all three groups complaining about how their hard work had gone
to waste and that no one was even paying attention. Exactly, the president thought,
this is the way it should be.

~

Hours later, Daria and Mike were walking
to the general debrief that had been set up in the largest conference room the
ship had. The conference room was more of an auditorium with its stadium
seating, monitors everywhere, and personal datapads placed on every seat
waiting for their intended occupants.

The general debrief was going to be huge
and necessarily time consuming. Every member of both ground teams, along with
key personnel from Surgeon’s infiltration ship, would be debriefing the
Coalition president, Nortes empress and Detrill emperor, along with their
respective staff members. After the general assembly ended, the plan was to
have a much smaller briefing two days later with the key team leaders and ship
commanders who would be leading the next phase of the assault.

As they walked, Daria looked to Mike. “I
still don’t understand what all of the faked deaths and kidnappings were for.
Special Ops guys get deployed on secret missions all the time. Why all of the
theatrics?”

Mike sighed. “It’s been explained to me
a few times, and I still don’t get it myself. I was pretty angry to say the
least when I found out what they were putting you through. The short story is
that they were so afraid of what was going on in the outer colonies, they
didn’t want to risk any security leaks whatsoever. They went to extremes to
ensure that nothing about this mission got out.”

“Well, we all know that ‘Military
Intelligence’ is the most profound oxymoron in the universe.” Daria gripped her
husband’s arm a little tighter as they exited the lift and walked into the
conference room and took their assigned seats.

As the rest of the team members entered
the room, Daria saw that there were quite a few people she knew from the
various trainings, deployments, and duty stations she’d been a part of over the
many years. She also saw that Emily and Seth were paired together and looking
like two pre-teens at a junior high dance.

As more operators entered the room,
Daria saw one who instantly caught her eye and tugged at a very old but always
prominent memory in her mind. She stood and seemed almost zombie-like as she
approached the man who had already taken his seat.

The man looked up at her and squinted a
bit as though he thought he should be able to place her face but was unable to.
Daria reached down and placed her palm on the man’s chest and whispered, “Reaper.”

Reaper’s mind clicked the puzzle pieces
together and stood to embrace the woman who had grown up so much from the
little girl he had met in the electronics store many years ago. “Your father?”

“Alive, because of you.” She embraced
her father’s savior and her inspiration. “They told me you didn’t make it!”

They separated and looked at each other.
“I didn’t. I died in the ambulance. Twice. Once more on the operating table.
I’m kind of a glutton for punishment that way.”

Mike walked over. “Holy Christ. I never
put two and two together! This,” he pointed to his friend, “this is
THE
Reaper you told me about?! I never even thought to ask after I met him. I guess
there was just so much stuff going on with this mission from the get-go that I
didn’t think about it.”

“Aren’t you getting a bit old for this
kind of stuff?” Daria brushed her fingers through his hair as though she were
looking for gray hair.

“Whoa there, missy, I was sixteen when
we met.” Reaper ran his fingers through his hair in a subconsciously defensive
gesture. “I was in the delayed entry program and had already gone through corpsman
school on my summer break. I’m not THAT much older than you, or your husband
for that matter.”

“We are going to have a long talk after
this debrief. I need to show you pictures of my dad and stepmom.” Daria gave
him another quick hug and then went back to her seat with her husband in tow.

Daria and Mike were chatting about
Reaper and the coincidence of everything, when the lights dimmed a couple of
times to signal the debrief was about to start. Security teams for the
dignitaries came into the room and took their places in locations that seemed
to be an attempt at being discreet. More than one of them looked ill at ease
considering the company they were in. The security forces were no match for any
one of the operators in the room, not to mention an auditorium full of the
guys.

After everyone was seated and ready, the
president stood. “It is nothing short of extraordinary that you are all here
today. Let us take a moment to remember those who could not be here with us
because they made the ultimate sacrifice so the rest of us could be.”

The screens in the room all came to life
with the picture of the general along with a short bio on the side of the
screen. “The general.” The president chuckled. “I’ve met with the man many
times in my life and I don’t think I’ve ever called him by any other name.” The
group let out a small laugh in return.

The screens continued to show images of
each person lost from the ship’s crew and both Special Forces teams. The president
spoke every one’s name and added a one or two sentence anecdote for those he
personally knew, which was surprisingly quite a few of them.

When the presentation was over, the
debrief started in earnest. Introductions of the VIPs were made before the
dialogue began. Not everyone was expected to give a detailed account; a
specifically arranged outline was followed and presented primarily by the
ship’s captain, Seth, Emily, Wilks, and Mike. Other operators would add bits
here and there as they felt it was appropriate but none took up any more time
than was necessary to make their point.

The debrief took almost five hours with
four well-placed twenty-minute breaks. When it was done, the empress made a
brief speech of gratitude to the men and women of the Coalition for their
actions and for what they were about to do. The president allowed the empress’ speech
to be the last word as he stood and gave a slight bow to her before leaving the
room. After the dignitaries left, the group broke up of their own accord and
left in mostly the same groups they arrived in.

The rest of the night drained the ship’s
stock of alcohol and a shuttle was actually brought from the president’s ship
to resupply the crew. Daria spent the night with Mike, Emily, Seth, Bloom,
Wilks, and Reaper. Jeeves had been sent to the holodeck to make friends with
the computer there and go over training scenarios that would help them practice
fighting the warriors; Bloom seemed a little sad that his new friend was exiled
from the land of organics.

The next day was spent as an informal
debrief time for the operators of both teams to get to know one another and
break into specialty-related groups to go over specific information. The now
much larger group of operators also scheduled workout time in the holodeck to
practice old skills and learn new ones.

Daria and Reaper were kept busy that
afternoon while they checked out the multitude of injuries that were going around.
The two groups were testing each other, trying to push the limits but not going
too far. If the injuries started to get bad, Daria would put a stop to the
excessive training. But for now, everything was fine and the injuries were to
be expected.

That night the alcohol stock held its
own as most of the operators felt like their one night of letting loose was
enough for now. It was time to get serious again and their training today was a
good reminder of how you didn’t want to feel on a mission after a night of too
much fun.

Daria and Mike were in his cabin again. She
hadn’t even set foot in the one that had been assigned to her and Emily. Space
was at a premium on the ship so most people bunked together, officers and
enlisted alike, but Mike’s position on the mission granted him his own space
and Daria was thankful for that.

Daria decided to tell Mike about her and
Davies. Mike’s eyes welled up but not with anger or sadness; it was an emotion
that even he couldn’t explain.

“God, I’ve showered with him before.”

“You are such a shit head.”

“It’s just, well, are you ruined now?”

“I’m seriously going to kill you if you
don’t stop.” Daria was trying not to smile but Mike was actually making her
feel better about it.

“Look, I can’t be mad. I was dead. I
actually thought about it once and figured if this mission took too long I’d
come back to find you guys together. Given what you were going through on that
mission, I can understand having a moment when you both needed that.” Mike
brushed her hair aside and looked into her eyes. “But in all fairness, when we
get back, I’m nailing that freaky hot blonde at Starbucks who always gives me
extra whipped cream for free.”

Daria smiled back. “If we’re trying to
be fair, then you need to pick someone from your mission like I did. Maybe
Joker or Cadet?”

“Shut up.” Mike kissed his wife and they
made love a few times before finally going to sleep.