"No 'spose about it!" she said brightly, quoting him back to himself. That made him smile a little.
"Ols, this was her choice. She's done well, and we don't need to second guess the girl!"
"I worry, Carol," he repeated, ignoring his wife for the moment, looking down and kicking at the ground under the fence where some weeds had chosen to cluster. "This war..." His voice faded with an almost audible shrug.
Carol looked at him sympathetically. "I didn't count on a war, either, Dad. I didn't. But someone has to do this, and assuming I'm as smart as you think, maybe I'm the one who needs to do it."
She had him there, he knew.
Carol's mother had been injured on the farm when Carol was in sixth grade, and she recovered enough for 'normal' activities, but farm work was anything but normal. So, Carol picked up her share of the work, putting in hours before and after school, skipping extra-curricular luxuries like sports or band. Her parents lightened the load best they could, and made sure there was time for Friday night football games and the occasional school dance. Certainly, there was no shortage of escorts for her, and Ols Hansen found himself amused at the intimidation Carol imbued in them.
He felt a little of that now as he considered the grown woman in front of him. He saw very clearly the reflection of the woman he'd married thirty years before in her face, her inner strength. He smiled inwardly, grateful that she favored her mother and not himself.
Carol treated them to lunch at the little clapboard diner down the road, where neighbors and several old friends had somehow heard she was in town. In the afternoon, there was work to be done, and she felt a surprising joy in hauling feed and walking the corn with him. There was a quiet satisfaction in doing real work again, something with actual, tangible results. The stalls had been dirty. Now they were clean, and she had done that.
Chores complete, they saddled their horses — Sirius, Rigel, and Capella — and took a slow walk around the path that encircled the farm. At the rear of the property was a small pond, and they dismounted there to sit on the bank and let the horses have a drink.
Her father leaned back on his elbows and looked over at his daughter.
"So, Powell?"
"Yes, David. You met him a couple times up at the U."
"I remember. Decent enough looking fella, as I recall. Polite as hell."
Carol laughed. "They're polite in hell?"
"Carol!" her mother pretended to scold, laughing along.
Carol's tone changed, suddenly serious. "Yes, he's well mannered. And smart. Even better, he loves your daughter with everything he is."
Ols took off his oversized hat to swat a fly, then plunked it back on his head.
"And does my daughter love him back?"
"With everything she is."
Ols nodded. "Good, very good."
Carol pulled him up off the ground and hugged him hard, like a small child might.
"So, am I gonna get any grandchildren out of this deal?" she heard her mother ask from behind her. She turned to Laura, smiling.
"Someday, yeah, probably."
"Good. That would be nice," her father said. There was a wistfulness in his voice that she hadn't heard before.
"I love you, Dad."
"I know you do, girl, I know. I love you, too. You're as good a daughter as any man could hope to pray for."
"But?"
"But nothing. Well, maybe, but I still worry."
"It's OK, Daddy, really."
They retrieved their reins and remounted the horses to complete their walk. Her mother pulled up next to her.
"So, Weapons Officer still?"
"Yeah, it's really nice to be the one doing the shooting!"
"That's my girl!" came Ols's voice from behind.
Late in the day, Laura had a typically enormous farm dinner ready for them. They laughed their way through the meal with stories of the farm, the school, long lost boyfriends, neighborhood intrigue, and a few instances of wayward livestock. Carol had never forgotten what a chef her mother was, and she ate until she couldn't chew anymore.
They spent a quiet evening on the screen porch as she told them about her shipmates, more about Inor, and much more about David. She couldn't tell them about Beta Hydri, although she desperately wanted to. That would have to wait. She did tell them she'd be gone for a long time. Her mother, despite her confidence in Carol, fretted about that and Carol did her best to reassure her. They sat quietly on the porch long after Ols had bid them good night. As the sky turned black and Vega and Altair became obvious in the sky, they walked out into the open, enjoying the relatively cool, clear night.
"I don't know where in the sky to look for you," Laura said finally, the catch in her voice carrying more worry than she had let on to her husband.
"Well, you can't see where we're going from here, Mom. So, just pick a star and pray for us, OK?"
Laura nodded sadly, holding back her tears as she took her daughter's arm as they looked at the stars.
"Where is Inoria?"
"You can't see it now. It'll be low in the south in the winter. It's south and west of Orion, just northwest of Rigel. Some catalogs call it 'Keid.'"
"And this new star so far away?"
"Like I said, you can't see it from here, so let's just say it's way down south and let it go at that, OK?"
"OK."
They stood arm in arm for a long time, looking up, enjoying the clear night.
"I love you, Momma. Whatever might happen to me out there, know that."
"I know, I know."
The next morning, they were up early, Carol picking up some of her old chores as if she had never been away. After a sweaty morning around the barn, they had lunch on the porch. Later that day Ols and Laura took her to the subcar station at the state road junction. She hugged them both tightly, then spent the whole trip back to Fort Eustis happier for her parents than she could ever remember. They were still as solid as she remembered, funny and loving in a way that reminded her of a movie. But unlike some old 'B' movie, this was all real, all true. They loved each other and the farm and everything that came with all of it. They had everything they needed to be happy, right where they were.
Except, she had to admit, grandchildren. For that, they'd just have to wait a while longer.
The desert near Palmyra
The Reformed Syrian Republic
Monday, August 8, 2078, Midmorning Local Time (0835 UTC)
Professor Gabrielle Este got up from her knees to take a long drink from her water bottle. It wasn't close to noon yet at this dig site, and the place already felt like a convection oven. As she stood, sweat ran off her dark eyebrows and stung her green eyes. Her long dark hair was pulled back, and as she ran her deeply tanned hands along the side of her head, she could feel the sandy grit sticking to it.
She and her team had not entirely given up on retrieving something meaningful from the chaos caused by the insanity of the first quarter of the century. The idea that in modern times such willful ignorance, such extreme ideological vanity, could even exist, let alone cause such needless damage to priceless and irreplaceable places, still galled her. The destruction might be irrecoverable, but she wasn't ready to give in to that, at least not quite yet. She was about to pick up her trowel and return to her task when her phone buzzed. Pulling it from a pocket in her desert shorts, she saw no picture, only a number and a text identification of 'Fleet HQ.' She may have been in the desert a lot lately, but she wasn't living under a rock, so she knew what the Fleet was, and with a war on she had heard of several scientists in a variety of disciplines who had been asked to provide Fleet their expertise. But, an archeologist? That seemed unlikely. She hit the 'Who is this?' button on her phone and put it back in her pocket. A minute later it buzzed to tell her she had a message. How am I supposed to get any work done? She thought to herself. She dropped the trowel, again, and yanked the phone back out. There was a video message. Video? She hit play, if only to see who was calling and what the heck
they wanted. She saw a handsome, sandy-haired man, maybe 35, a star on each collar. He looked earnestly, directly, at her.
"Doctor Este, my name is Ron Harris, and I am Chief of Intelligence for ISC Fleet. You are probably aware that we have been asking for a lot of help from academics lately, and we've been gratified by their willingness to lend us a hand. I have a new problem, a serious problem, where I think we could use your knowledge and experience. If you're willing, please call back and we can discuss getting you a briefing. Thanks for taking the call." She looked at the frozen face left at the end of the recording and decided she liked him. His pitch was brief, unrehearsed, direct and to the point. He was smart, she thought, and honest. She called back.
"Good morning Doctor Este. Thanks for responding so quickly."
"Well, Admiral Harris, calls from Fleet Intelligence don't come every day. What can you tell me?"
Harris looked away for a second, thinking, then looked back at her.
"Not that much. It's very far away, as you might guess. I can tell you, it's a place that's very disturbing to all of us, and we really want to understand better what happened. That's about all I can say in the open."
"That's not much to go on."
"I know, it really isn't. But that's all I can give you right now." He was sympathetic but firm, as if he realized her predicament but was constrained to do much about it.
She was surprised at how willing she found herself to consider this. But, if a one-star admiral found something 'disturbing,' that really might be an interesting challenge. Or, she reminded herself, it might be horrifying beyond belief.
"So, what do I need to do? What's the next step?"
"You'll have to sign a nondisclosure. Whether you agree to help or not, I can't brief you if you don't agree to keep it confidential."
"OK, let's assume I'll sign. What then?"
"Well, I can pick you up wherever you are and bring you here. We can be anywhere on the planet in an hour." OK, now she was really intrigued.
"In an hour? Just how anxious are you to get an archeologist on this?"
Again, he looked away, then back. "Doctor Este I needed you a month ago, I just didn't know it yet. I will send a shuttle for you this minute if you're willing to come."
"What about my work here? I'm working from grants and they're expecting some kind of results."
"Current grants will be repaid, and we'll see that you have funding to return and continue your work there, for at least a few years."
She sat back on her legs, and it was her turn to look away to think. "OK, I'll come. I will send you my location shortly. Be here in two hours."
"As you wish, Doctor. Thanks."
She smiled and clicked off the connection. She left the now-forgotten trowel where it was and walked back to the ragged tent city the dig team lived in. Once there, she sent her location to Harris. She explained to the leader of the excavation project that she had been called by Fleet and would have to leave immediately.
"I may be back," she told him, "but I should at least hear what they have to say."
Her desert dig clothing fashion closely reflected her desert dig lifestyle: hot, boring, and monotonous. So, packing to leave didn't take long. A few pairs of khaki slacks and shorts, some long-sleeved t-shirts, a decent supply of socks and underwear, an extra pair of dig shoes. That was it. Shortly after she had completed her packing she heard, or maybe felt, the Fleet shuttle arriving just outside their irregular collection of tents. She walked to the edge, facing the shuttle, and waited for something to happen. Shortly a door, or, do they call it a hatch? she wondered to herself, opened, and a figure came out, looked around briefly before spotting her, and set off in her direction. There was something familiar about this person, like she knew her or had seen her before. That's odd, she thought, I don't know anyone in — wait — is that Hansen?
The figure walked directly to her, shoved her large sunglasses to the top of her head, and reached out her hand.
"Good afternoon, Doctor Este, I'm —"
"Carol freaking Hansen," Este interrupted.
"Well, I don't use that middle name very much, but yeah, that's me. It's a pleasure to meet you." Hansen smiled, her head inclined slightly, understanding her fame, unwanted as it was, and what that did to people she met for the first time. They shook hands, and Hansen picked up Gabrielle's bag.
"Shall we?" she asked, indicating the shuttle. As they walked, Gabrielle looked at Carol carefully, taking in the uniform, assessing the actual woman against what she had read and seen. Hansen walked upright and at a brisk pace, despite the bag, and they chatted about the weather at the site. So ungodly hot they agreed. Walking on Carol's right Gabrielle could see a round ship's crest with 'Antares' at the top on her right sleeve, she'd also seen the American flag on the left.
"So where am I going?"
"Antares is right above us. You'll meet with Admiral Harris and some others there."
Gabrielle stopped short. "Above us?"
Carol stopped and looked over at her. "More or less, yeah. A couple thousand miles above us."
When Gabrielle didn't move, Carol continued, the humor clear in her voice. "So, I take it he didn't mention a ride into space?"
Gabrielle shook her head.
Carol waited a moment, then said: "I can hold your hand if it'll help."
Gabrielle looked at her, laughed, and continued on towards the shuttle. "I think I can handle it. Just surprised, But, thanks for the offer, Lieutenant."
"Call me Carol."
"Gabrielle, more usually, Gabe."
Carol looked at her in surprise. Gabe was a funny nickname for a woman, but a particularly incongruous for one as delicate in appearance as Gabrielle Este. She was obviously tough underneath, Carol knew, but her slight build and thin face made her look like anything but the hardened desert researcher she was.
"OK, Gabe it is."
Antares
Earth Orbit
Monday, August 8. 2078, 1500 UTC
The ride up to Antares was short, less than an hour, and smooth. Gabrielle and Carol sat together in the back of the shuttle and made small talk about Ohio and how funny it seemed that Gabrielle was at Ohio State and Carol had grown up in Lancaster. So close, but so far apart. Gabrielle was older by a decade, having done her undergrad in her home state of Iowa then completed her Ph.D. work at Arizona State before settling into post-doc research and teaching in Columbus. She had spent perhaps eight summers working in the field, be it Egypt, Iraq, Syria, or elsewhere. Wherever she went, it was always hot and dusty, and Gabrielle would be home for a week before she really felt clean again and there was no grit under her feet in the shower.
The shuttle docked at a forward attachment point on Antares. Carol guided her down the long passageways, finally turning into the Intel section. There stood Ron Harris, who smiled and reached out a hand to her.
"Welcome, Doctor Este. Thanks so much for coming."
"My pleasure, Admiral. Hard to back down when Carol Hansen is picking you up."
Harris smiled, a wry, slightly conspiratorial grin. "Well, we use what advantages we have, you know? Actually, she asked to do it."
"Sir!" Carol objected, "That was our secret."
Gabrielle turned to Carol, hands out as if to ask 'what gives?'.
"I read your bio. I wanted to meet you, and we could really use your help. And, yeah, I know I have a famous face and name, not that I like it much, but I thought you might feel more comfortable coming with me than with, say, this knucklehead."
She indicated her XO, James George, who looked at her with mock offense.
"Keep that up Hansen, and you'll be famous for your court-martial."
Harris decided it was time to move on. "If you comedians are done, can we get back to work?" He turned to George. "Where is Cordero?"
"Just arrived, sir. Be here shortly."
Gabrielle looked surprised. "Greg Cordero? The lost language guy?"
Harris nodded. "That's him."
The Fleet personnel all looked at one another. She's about to find out they all thought together.
Greg Cordero appeared in due course, and he and Gabrielle greeted each other warmly. Cordero was tall and quite thin, with dark hair and eyes and complexion that matched his Latin roots. He had a bright, quick smile and animated features. Carol liked him immediately, as did Harris. This was someone they could work with.
Harris handed the academics a tablet with the nondisclosure statement. They each read it, signed, and handed it back.
"You're aboard Antares because about a month ago this ship found what we call a blue dot, an Earth-like planet." He paused to take a breath. "On that planet, we found evidence of what we think is a genocide by our enemy."
Carol picked the narrative up from there, her tone even but carrying the gravity, the ghastly details of what they had seen. "We found evidence of the eradication of a modern, spacefaring society, something like the 1970's level of technology. It appears they put up a determined resistance to the enemy but were eventually overcome."
"What kind of creatures are we talking about?" Greg asked. "Somehow I'm not thinking slime molds or tube worms."
"There are a lot of skeletons around, Doctor Cordero, which we will study later. Meantime, we found some images in structures that seem to be residences." She flipped through her tablet and then showed Este and Cordero the same striking image she and Jack Ballard had shown CINC: a being that looked something like a cross between a simian and some kind of feline. It had patterned fur that was white and brown with areas of black, but the most shocking feature of the image was how the multi-colored human-looking eyes looked out from the image with obvious intelligence.
Gabrielle thought to herself. It's a portrait, pure and simple. This, what — Person? Animal? Creature? — sat down and had its picture taken just like my great-grandparents once did. She was enthralled.
"Beautiful..." Gabrielle said quietly.
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