61st Multifunctional Medical Battalion HHD
546th Medical Company - HHC
Operations Offices
Fort Hood, Texas
22 June 1997
1430 Hours

Captain John Mayton walked through the door of his office, taking a left down the hallway, past the XO's office, past the First Sergeant's Office, and stopping at the unmarked door just before the stairwell that led down to the first floor where the Orderly Room offices were.

He knocked three times.

"Enter," the female voice was a smokey woman's tenor, pleasing to the ear.

Captain Mayton opened the door, moving into the office, and glanced around. Again, he felt like a small child entering a stern aunt's drawing room rather than a company commander visiting a subordinate. It had to do with everything about the office, from the surgical and medical treatment manuals filling the bookcases to the awards, decorations, commendations, and memorabilia on the walls to the items on the desk.

He had to admit the majority of it was the female Warrant Officer sitting behind the desk, wearing sunglasses despite being indoor and dressed in pregnancy BDU's that lacked any patches beyond the obligatory US ARMY over the heart.

"Captain Mayton," the female officer said, standing up. Her swollen belly jutted out, almost accusingly. She saluted, holding it until Captain Mayton returned it, then sitting down as soon as she dropped the salute.

Captain Mayton pretended not to notice that the female officer covered up the papers that were on her desk as he took a seat in one of the uncomfortable standard issue military chairs. To Captain Mayton it was the best one, since it kept the shadow boxed memorabilia behind him.

"I thought you were going to take maternity leave, Chief," Captain Mayton said, waving his hand at the room. "Imagine my shock when Specialist Kaine tells me you're in your office."

"Circumstances change," The Chief Warrant officer said, her voice going cold. "My children are being cared for by my mother-in-law as well as two of my sister-in-laws and there are things that I need to handle here."

"You were supposed to sign out today," Captain Mayton tried again. "Your delivery date is only a week away."

He could feel the Chief staring at him through her sunglasses and felt sweat bead up on his lower back. He hated that, her stare, like she was peering into his soul, finding his faults, and judging him for them.

"My children need a sense of normalcy and I need to keep occupied during this time," The Chief said. "My mother-in-law and my sisters-in-law provide that to them. They have all cared for my children when my husband I have been deployed."

"Lieutenant Colonel Sharps has stated that I am to offer you hardship leave, even a hardship discharge should you desire it," Mayton stated.

"Why?" The Chief asked simply.

Captain Mayton just stared.

She must be in denial. How can she act as if nothing has happened? Mayton wondered.

"With your husband being dead," he started.

She raised one eyebrow. "Did they find a body? The plane wreckage? Do they need me to identify what's left of his corpse via his surgical implants and dental work?" She asked mildly.

Mayton shook his head. "Well... no."

"Then he is not dead," The Chief said simply.

Captain Mayton sighed. "Chief, it's been a week. No wreckage of the plane has been recovered, no bodies. There's no way he could have survived this long in the water, even if he managed to survive the plane going down."

The Chief steepled her fingers, nodding slowly. "I've heard all of those excuses, yes," she said. "But, as I've learned during my time in the military, there's the truth, half-truths, lies, damn lies, and statistics."

Captain Mayton frowned. "Chief, there isn't any doubt. The plane's transponder cut out over the Pacific after the plane had flown into a storm. Your husband was on that plane."

"Ah yes, the 'storm' that caused it to crash," She mused. She lifted up a file folder and dropped it on her desk before opening it. "On or about 15 June Hawaiian Airlines Flight 382 left on a non-stop flight to Hawaii. Approximately three hours into a seven hour flight the plane's transponder ceased functioning. At twenty-two hundred local time Flight 382 was declared overdue. At zero two hundred 16 June Flight 382 was officially listed as 'possibly lost at sea' and Search and Rescue operations had begun."

She laid out high gloss black and white photographs as she spoke, lifting each one for Captain Mayton to see before setting them down.

"On or about 21 June Search and Rescue was called off and Flight 382 was moved to 'Lost/Crashed' and it is assumed all passengers perished in the crash," the Chief said. "The official story is that Flight 382 ran into a storm which crashed the plane."

"Which is why you need to face facts, Chief. The plane went down in a storm and," Captain Mayton stated.

The female soldier held up one finger, stopping Captain Mayton in mid-syllable. She laid down another picture. "Which I find interesting, considering these satellite scans."

Captain Mayton frowned, standing up and moving up to the desk. When he looked down, he saw nothing but grey with long white lines in places.

"These are satellite scans from the route that Flight 382 would take, at the time that the plane would have flown through that area," The Chief said calmly. "Do you notice anything?"

Captain Mayton shook his head.

"Exactly. Clear visibility to the Pacific Ocean. The nearest storm front was three thousand miles away," The Chief said. She tapped her finger on one of the pictures. "This picture was taken at the exact time that Flight 382 should have passed within the lens aperture of the surveillance satellite. Note there are no contrails nor are there storm clouds or even the jet itself."

"Perhaps it crashed prior?" Captain Mayton suggested.

The Chief shook her head. "No. This was taken right after the transponder went offline," she tapped another. "Here you can see the jet, in this shot where it was still broadcasting its transponder codes."

She leaned back in the chair, folding her hands over her swollen belly. It was so round the bottom of the BDU top fell to either side, exposing the dark OD green stretch material of the top of the maternity pants.

"How did you get access to these photographs?" Captain Mayton asked, staring at the pictures on her desk. All of them had a NAVINT seal in the corner.

The Chief shrugged, her thick muscular shoulders heaving underneath her uniform, reminding Captain Mayton that his shoulders were considerably thinner and not as broad. That the woman was so muscular that she appeared deformed at times.

"I have friends in the Navy," she said simply. "I asked, they were kind enough to provide me with unclassified photostats of the flight path according to timestamps. Notice there's no wreckage in the scans either."

Captain Mayton stared at the pictures, which she'd laid in a diagonal, according to timestamps. He saw what she meant. There was no storm, the jet wasn't in the next picture, and there were no speckles in the water.

"So you are going to stand there and tell me, to my face, that I need to give up on my husband when they haven't been able to even provide me with a stand-in corpse?" The Chief asked. She pointed at the wall behind Captain Mayton and despite himself, the Captain turned and looked.

Shadowboxes containing bayonets, M1911A1 .45 pistols, two shadowboxes that contained M3 Grease Guns, all were on the wall. The weapons on crimson velvet, a few medals in each, and brass plaques with the name of the military operation they'd been earned at.

"That wall pales next to my husband's operations," The Chief said. "My husband has been involved with clandestine activities since his first duty assignment. Activities that the current administration finds embarrassing now that the enemy they locked him in combat with has collapsed," she stood up, waddling over to the wall. She reached up and touched a shadowbox containing a Bronze Star, an M3 Grease Gun, and sporting the plaque reading "OPERATION SHIELD STRIKE, 1992". She traced the letters of the brass plate. "This is not the first time my husband has had his own government attempt to kill him."

She turned around and stared at Captain Mayton.

"I'm not going to go on leave and walk away from my duty just because someone decided to try to kill my husband, Captain," Chief said. "They weren't the first, they certainly won't be the last. I learned a long time ago that not only are there those who would gleefully murder my husband but those same forces would eagerly murder, harm, or threaten myself and our children to hurt him, Captain. I spent my time making allies and cultivating favors to protect my family so that I can help protect my nation."

Captain Mayton watched the Chief waddle back to her chair and sit down, rubbing her belly and sighing. She smiled, a cold merciless thing.

"What do you want, beyond trying to send me home on maternity leave?" She asked.

"I'm just worried about your mental and physical well-being," Captain Mayton said.

The Chief stared at him for a long time before slowly nodding. "I believe you," she said. She smiled, this time a warm thing. "I wondered, briefly, Captain, if someone had attempted to get to you. Instead, I see that you're worried I'm in denial."

Captain Mayton nodded. "I worry about my troops, Chief," he said gently. "Your time in this unit has not been easy and your husband has been injured several times just in the year and a half you've been here."

She rubbed her swollen belly, nodding.

"If you aren't willing to go home, if you've made arrangements for care for your children, and you feel that you would rather stay on duty until you give birth then I'm willing to let you continue working, Chief," Captain Mayton said.

The heavily muscled Chief Warrant Officer Three nodded, still smiling.

The door opened and Captain Mayton jumped as he turned to look at the doorway. He missed the Chief's hand dropping under her desk as he stared at the three people in the doorway.

A short thin man wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts, a Seattle Seahawks jersey, and a pair of sandals, his dark hair cut short and a pair of John Lennon glasses covering his watery eyes. A tall man in BDU's entered next, immediately looking around and shifting to the wall. Lastly came a short woman with her black hair in a pixie cut.

"Who are..." Captain Mayton started.

"Timmons," The Chief said, standing up. "Kingston," she moved around the desk, holding her arms open. "Bobbi," She gathered up the ridiculously dressed man in a hug that made the man's face turn red. She then hugged the tall man in BDU's before putting her hands on the small woman's shoulder.

"Can I hug you, Bobbi?" She asked gently. Captain Mayton was surprised to see that the Chief had tears streaming down her face from under her sunglasses.

"Of course," the small woman said, reaching out and hugging the larger woman.

"I'm glad the three of you came," The Chief said, waddling back behind her desk. She waved vaguely in the direction of Captain Mayton. "That's my CO, Captain Johnathon Harker Mayton, commander of HHC."

Each of them nodded, murmuring a greeting. Captain Mayton felt off center as he shook each person's hand.

"Might I ask who the three of you are?" Captain Mayton asked when he sat back down.

"You may refer to me as Assistant Director Timmons," The short man said, taking off his Bodycount baseball cap, the logo referring to the heavy metal band lead by a former gangster rapper. He tucked the cap in a pocket. "I'm with the CIA."

"Commander Kingston, US Navy SEALS, sir," the large man said.

"Ms. Smith-4439," the suited woman said. Captain Mayton realized she was leaning on a cane.

Captain Mayton looked at the Chief Warrant Officer, his eyebrows raised and eyes wide with shock.

"They're old friends," The Chief said. "I've known them about ten years."

All three nodded.

The CIA agent turned to the Chief. "Why are you here, Chief?"

She shrugged. "I have nowhere else to go. My troops need me. The Army needs me."

The agent's fingers twitched slightly and his nostrils flared.

"Chief, Heather, I told you that I need you somewhere safe until I figure out what happened," he said slowly.

The Chief shrugged. "I'm in the middle of the largest military base in the Free World. I'm surrounded by over five-thousand soldiers, tanks, helicopters, MP's, hell, there's even Rangers out at West Fort Hood. I'm pretty safe."

Again the CIA agent's fingers twitched.

"Heather, have you considered that he's dead?" The short woman asked, moving slowly behind the desk and touching the heavy woman's shoulder.

The woman glanced at Captain Mayton, then shook her head. "He's alive. I know he's alive."

"How, Chief? How do you know?" Commander Kingston asked.

She looked at each person, staring at them for a moment before moving onto the next one.

Captain Mayton shivered slightly as the temperature in the room seemed to drop. He felt goosebumps erupt on his skin and could faintly smell the scent of apple blossoms.

"Because Aine told me he's still alive," Chief Warrant Officer Three Heather Cromwell said. "Not dead, not Chernobog, but alive even if he is beyond her reach."

"Where is he?" The short man asked, leaning forward slightly. "Did she say?"

Cromwell nodded. She took off her sunglasses and Captain Mayton felt the familiar sense of dread at the sight of those glowing purple eyes.

"She said he's returned to where he was born, to where he was forged," She said.

The man shook his head. "Atlas?"

Cromwell shook her head. "I don't know. Maybe?"

The SEAL went to parade rest, rocking back and forth on his heels. "Blackbriar Ridge?"

The short woman with black hair shook her head. "Alfenwehr?"

Cromwell shrugged. "I don't know. She wouldn't tell me more than that and that he doesn't have our permission to die. You know how she is."

They all nodded.

Captain Mayton looked at them all. "He's still alive?"

"He doesn't have permission to die," The CIA agent said softly. "Damn. I hadn't thought of that," he shook his head. "I'll send assets to check the likely places."

"Thank you, Timmons," Chief Cromwell said.

Timmons stepped around the desk, putting his hand on her other shoulder. "If he's alive, we'll find him, Heather."

Chief Warrant Officer Three Cromwell looked at the four people gathered in her small office, placing her hand over her swollen belly.

"We know you will," she said.

survive

survive

survive