Three

The room Lincoln entered had a single chair with its back to the door, placed in front of a long table with seats for five. On either side of the table stood directional lights on tall stands. Those lights were off, but they were angled towards the lone chair. The intent there was pretty obvious; anybody sitting in that chair with those lights in his face wouldn’t be able to see anything else beyond. There was a second door in the back wall. No windows, nothing on the walls. A small glossy black sphere in the ceiling caught Lincoln’s eye. Camera. Someone was watching him. Probably several someones. He hesitated by the door, uncertain of what he was expected to do. He had a pretty good guess which chair was for him, but he wasn’t all that anxious to take it just yet.

“Candidate One Seven Echo,” a voice said over a crackly speaker. “Please be seated.”

Lincoln walked confidently across the room and sat down at one of the chairs behind the table.

“In the other chair, candidate,” the voice said, clearly not amused. Lincoln smiled to himself. Everything about Selection was a mental game. Funny how they didn’t seem to like it when he played too. For a moment he thought about sliding over to the chair next to him, still behind the table, but he dismissed the idea. He’d had his little moment of fun.

When he sat down in the lone chair, just as he’d anticipated, the overhead lights went off and the bright directional lights flared, bathing him in strong white light. The lights were angled so they weren’t beaming directly into his eyes, but there was no way he could see anything else going on behind them. And apparently there wasn’t anything else he was expected to do, other than sit. So he sat there. Waiting.

And waiting.

It was almost impossible to keep track of time sitting in that bubble of light surrounded by a sea of darkness. Another part of the game, undoubtedly. Anything they could do to rattle him, or put him on edge. Anything that might make his cracks easier to see. Lincoln folded his hands in his lap and closed his eyes, focused on his breathing. Steady in, steady out. Everything else was beyond his control anyway, so he just let it do whatever it was going to do.

Some time later he heard the rattle of a door open from somewhere behind the lights. Quick footsteps clacked across the faux-tile floor. Four or five people by the sound of it. Five made sense with the number of chairs behind the table, but Lincoln wouldn’t put it past these people to manipulate even that little detail. Putting out more chairs than they actually needed, or maybe fewer. That was one of the things he’d picked up early on in Selection; they made it such a point to mess with your expectations and assumptions that eventually you came to expect that everything was a trick. Being comfortable with the uncertainty was probably one of the reasons that Lincoln had made it this far.

Chairs scraped, uniforms rustled. His interrogators made themselves comfortable. Lincoln didn’t open his eyes. Not yet.

“Candidate One Seven Echo,” a voice said. Stern, clipped, feminine with a hard edge. The same one that had issued instructions over the speaker before. Lincoln didn’t respond immediately. Just kept his eyes closed, and finished two more full cycles of breathing. They’d kept him waiting, and he’d been patient. They could wait a little longer.

“Candidate One Seven Echo,” the voice said again, louder with the fuller weight of authority behind it.

“I’m listening, ma’am,” Lincoln said. But he still didn’t open his eyes. He was listening, intently in fact, picking out whatever little details he could with his ears, knowing his eyes wouldn’t show him anything new. Two people were whispering at the right end of the table. The woman who’d spoken was at the other end, in either the first or second seat. Someone in the center of the table was hurriedly sketching designs on the table with a fingertip; most likely reviewing Lincoln’s file on a holoscreen only the user could see.

“Very well,” the woman said. “We’re going to ask you a number of questions, candidate. It is important that you answer them to the fullest possible extent, with the utmost honesty. Many of these answers we already know. Any deception on your part will be grounds for immediate release from Selection. Do you understand?”

“On my part,” Lincoln said.

“Pardon me?” she said.

“Any deception on my part, you said,” he answered. “Kind of leaves the door open for you there, doesn’t it?”

There was a pause, and though he couldn’t hear it, Lincoln liked to imagine at least one of the people on the other side of the table cracking a smile. Someone on the left cleared his throat. So that made five of them after all. Or, at least five.

“Do you understand?” the woman repeated.

“Very well, yes, ma’am.”

“Good, candidate,” the woman said. “We will begin.”

Lincoln opened his eyes.

“Candidate One Seven Echo,” said a man on the right side of the table. “What’s the most impressive thing on your service record?”

Lincoln took a breath before he answered.

“Depends on who’s looking at it, sir.”

“In your opinion.”

“In my opinion, the most impressive thing about my service record is the many fine men and women I’ve been allowed to serve alongside, sir.”

“That’s very diplomatic of you, candidate, but you’re not getting graded on humility here.”

“Utmost honesty, sir. Your rules, not mine.”

A second voice broke in; a man on the far left. That put the woman in the second chair from the left, then.

“Atmospheric and suborbital jump rated; fair number of successful zero-G operations; operational combat profiling and combat tracking; Ranger and Pathfinder quals; high marks for intelligence; and communications certs. Decent linguistics. A few medals to show off. That sound like you?”

“That sounds like just about anybody in my line of work, sir.”

“I miss anything important?”

“No mention of my wit and charm?” Lincoln said.

“There’s nothing listed in the record,” the man replied.

“Ah. Strange,” Lincoln said.

“An officer with this kind of record and this many years in the service, seems like you’d rank a little higher.”

“My greatest weakness, undoubtedly, sir.”

“How’s that?”

“Too much time in the mud, not enough polishing the brass,” said Lincoln, with a smile.

The man didn’t sound amused. “You feel you’ve been unfairly overlooked for promotion?”

“I’m not a particularly smart man, sir. I mostly go where I’m pointed. I’m certain if my betters thought I was fit to serve in a higher capacity, they would have elevated me appropriately with all due speed and urgency.”

“I should note,” the woman broke in, “there is a mention in your official record about a tendency towards sarcasm.”

“My second greatest weakness, ma’am,” Lincoln said. “Undoubtedly.”

“Any issues with subordination?” the woman asked.

“None,” Lincoln said. He flashed a smile. “At least for my part.”

“How many doors are on this hall, candidate?” one of the men asked.

An oddball question. But the image came to mind easily enough.

“Five plain ones,” Lincoln said. “And one with a little extra character.”

“Mm,” the woman responded. And then followed with, “Tell me about Royal Warden.”

The two words instantly robbed Lincoln of any sense of control he thought he had in the situation. Apparently they were done with the pleasantries and were now going straight for the throat. He did his best to maintain his steady breathing, but he couldn’t escape the sudden rush of heat to his face. Unwelcome memories threatened his calm.

“I’m sure you have all the details already, ma’am,” he said.

“I’d like your perspective, candidate.” She said it with such coolness, as if she was asking his opinion of the particular shade of beige they’d chosen for those walls.

Lincoln took another settling breath and swallowed. Gathered himself. “Royal Warden was the single greatest personal failure of my life, ma’am.”

“In what way?” she pressed.

“Sixteen of the finest souls I’ve ever known, lost. On my orders, by my direction.”

“Please elaborate,” she said.

So this was how it was going to be. Lincoln thought he’d prepared himself for just about anything. For some reason he hadn’t considered that they might rake him over the coals again for a decade-old operation, especially not in such clinical terms. But the only way through it was forward. He adopted a professional attitude, reporting on past events and trying to ignore the role he played; his shield against the memories.

“While serving in an advisory capacity to the Honduran National Defense Force…” he said, then paused to clear the tightness out of his throat. “I received intelligence of an arms shipment moving towards my area of responsibility. Our analysis determined the shipment was intended to equip elements that were actively working to further destabilize the region. Having operated in the area for several months, I was aware of extensive tunnel networks in use by those elements. The concern was raised that if the shipment was allowed to reach the network, the arms would be impossible to locate until they were being used against our allies. After consulting with local informants and senior enlisted, I dispatched a force comprised of ten Honduran National Defense Force troopers supported by six United American Federation soldiers under my command to intercept and capture the shipment in transit.”

Boone, Shepherd, Ryoko, Jimenez, Harrison, Singh. Their faces and voices flashed through his mind. Smiles, inside jokes, names on tombstones.

“You mention local informants and senior enlisted,” the woman said. “What course of action did your superior officers advise?”

“I did not receive counsel from higher command until after the operation was underway, ma’am,” Lincoln answered.

“Because?”

Lincoln knew he was stepping out onto a tightrope. He spoke his next words with deliberate care. “Because I dispatched the force before my superior officers had time to analyze our report and provide direction.”

“You launched an operation on your own,” she said.

“I responded to an immediate threat to my area of responsibility,” Lincoln said. “Ma’am.”

The man on the left piled on. “Your detachment was supposed to be serving in an advisory role during this time, is that correct?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“But six of your soldiers accompanied the Honduran-led force outside the unit’s designated area?”

Lincoln knew what the man was looking for him to say, but he wasn’t going to take the bait.

“Correct, sir,” he said. And then added, “On my orders.”

His decision. He would own it. Lincoln waited patiently, content to let his hidden interrogators drive the conversation.

“And what was the outcome?” the woman asked.

“The force successfully intercepted the shipment,” Lincoln continued, resuming the report. He paused again, letting a ripple of emotion pass through him. “While the team was securing the shipment, an improvised explosive device in the vehicle detonated, instantly killing four troopers and two of my soldiers. When the remaining force moved to render aid, they received fire from a previously undetected aerial support element. All sixteen members of the force were killed in action. Given the loss of life, I consider Royal Warden to be the single greatest personal failure of my life. Ma’am.”

“Did you ever determine the cause for the detonation of the vehicle?”

“Not personally,” Lincoln answered.

“You read the reports,” she said.

“I did.”

“Stepping back from the personal loss,” she continued. “Your team did prevent the flow of weapons into the area. The overall mission objective was accomplished. And subsequent analysis of the shipment’s contents and the engagement provided incontrovertible proof that the Sino-Russian Confederacy was operating in the area.”

“There’s no greater failure than losing a soldier under your command, ma’am.” Lincoln said. “I lost sixteen. And none of the rest of that brought any of them back.”

“The initial order,” she said, “to intercept the shipment. Would you give it again?”

“Knowing what I do now? No, ma’am, I would not.”

“Knowing what you did then, candidate,” she clarified. “Did you make a mistake?”

“I ordered sixteen warriors to their deaths, ma’am.”

“Given what you knew at the time,” she said, and there was a directness in her words that commanded his attention; a clipped precision, looking for a specific answer. “Was it the wrong decision?”

Lincoln had wrestled with that question for years. Probably would for the rest of his life. But not because he didn’t know the answer. Because he didn’t like it.

“No, ma’am,” he answered. “It was the right decision. Given what I knew at the time.”

There was a half-breath’s worth of silence before the man on the left bit in again.

“And after your force suffered its casualties, what action did you take?” he asked, and the tone in his voice suggested he didn’t much approve of the answer he already knew.

“I’m sure that’s recorded, sir,” Lincoln said.

“Again,” the man said, “we’re looking for your perspective.”

“Several of the remaining UAF advisors scrambled to get a reaction force together and went to get our people back.”

“Who led them, candidate?” the man asked.

“The ranking officer,” Lincoln answered.

“Which was…?”

“At the time, it was me, sir.”

“You left your command post.”

“Yes sir, I did.”

“In a moment of crisis.”

“Yes sir.”

“Did you notify your superiors?” he continued.

“I did.”

“Did they direct you to pursue a particular course of action?”

“They recommended one, yes, sir.”

“And?”

“As the ranking officer in the immediate area of operation, I felt I had a clearer understanding of a fluid situation that required a timely response.”

“You chose not to follow an order, then.”

“A recommendation,” Lincoln said.

A pause. “That was not the commanding officer’s recollection,” the man said.

Lincoln shrugged. “I thought we were talking about my perspective here, sir.”

“And I thought you said you didn’t have any issues with subordination,” the woman responded. Lincoln may have imagined it, but he thought he could hear the barest hint of a smile in her words.

“For my part,” Lincoln said. “Ma’am.”

“Candidate,” said the man on the far left, “when you chose to lead the reaction force, at what probability did you estimate additional hostile activity in the area?”

“One hundred percent, sir.”

“Seems high,” another woman said, further to the right. Her voice was higher pitched and softer around the edges of her words, like she’d said something encouraging.

“Seems accurate, ma’am,” Lincoln responded. “Given the outcome.” The scene flashed through Lincoln’s mind, familiar from too-frequent mental rehearsal. The approach on the rutted road. Immediate incoming fire. The hard impact of a round punching his collar bone. They’d given him a little ribbon for that.

“You responded emotionally,” the man in the middle said. “Let your desire for vengeance override protocol.”

“My people were down in the field, sir.”

“And your solution was to put more lives at risk, including your own, the ranking officer,” the man said; his tone was neutral, offering neither commendation nor accusation.

Lincoln started to respond, but stopped himself. If they wanted an answer, they could ask a question. He didn’t feel the need to explain himself to a bunch of people who didn’t even have the courage to show their faces in an interrogation.

“Candidate?” the man on the far left said. The guy that had it out for him.

“Sir,” Lincoln answered.

“No answer to that?”

“What was the question, sir?”

“Did you or did you not needlessly put additional lives at risk?”

“No sir, I did not.”

When the man responded, he sounded surprised. “You’re saying you did not put additional lives at risk?”

“I did not do so needlessly, sir.”

“Your intercepting force was already dead,” the man continued. “Were you unaware of that fact?”

“No, sir.”

“Then what did you hope to accomplish, other than reckless vengeance?”

Lincoln took a breath, steadied himself.

“Did you ever serve in the field, sir?” he asked. There was a heavy pause.

“That’s not relevant, candidate.”

“That’s what I thought,” Lincoln said. The man made a noise somewhere between a grunt and a cough, but there came a sound of a quick motion that silenced him. Someone laying a hand on his shoulder or arm, perhaps.

There was a moment of silence, three, maybe five seconds at most.

“You majored in history,” the man on the far right said, changing the subject. “Why is that, do you think?”

The question was jarring; it seemed so out of place, like the man hadn’t been listening to anything they’d just been discussing. The old crazy uncle at Thanksgiving, opening the door to his own little world. It gave Lincoln cognitive whiplash.

“I beg your pardon?” said Lincoln.

“At university, why did you choose to study history, candidate?” the man asked, enunciating his words.

Lincoln blinked while his brain ground its gears to change direction.

“Well, sir,” he said. “I figured if I was going to go to war, I’d better get some idea of what I was in for.”

The man grunted.

And as wild as those first few grueling minutes proved to be, they were just a taste of the hours that followed. Lincoln didn’t actually know how long he was in that room, answering questions about every single aspect of his life. He quickly discovered there was no way for him to predict what they might ask next, no way to prepare; one moment they’d be discussing happy childhood memories and the next, the most brutally horrific moments of his years of service. And they covered everything. How they knew so much about him was beyond Lincoln. Details about his parents, his sisters, his schooling, about childhood memories that he couldn’t be sure even he remembered accurately. If he’d been able to think clearly, it might have been frightening. Instead he just felt numb. Drained. Having to answer for what felt like every single decision he’d ever made in his life, and some he hadn’t even been able to choose for himself. It was no wonder Cadre Sahil had sent him in with such concern.

He was in the middle of answering a question about one of his first days in basic training when the woman in charge cut him off mid-sentence.

“Very good, candidate,” she said. “You’re dismissed.”

Lincoln sat stunned, mouth still open with an unfinished word. He clamped it shut and then licked his lips.

“You may exit the way you came in,” she added.

It took a moment for the meaning of the words to filter through the mental fog. When it finally did, Lincoln nodded and got to his feet. In standing, he felt something he’d never experienced before. A strange combination of disassociation from himself with a painfully intimate sense of exposure. All his secrets laid bare, as viewed through the lens of a neutral observer. Something like feeling embarrassed for someone else’s public humiliation.

His body automatically found its way to the door, without any conscious direction. Of everything he’d been through during Selection, somehow this had been the worst. And he wasn’t even sure he was feeling its full effects yet. He’d been through psych evaluations with his own people before, and one interrogation from someone else’s people. This… whatever this had been, was something on a completely different level. More like Judgment Day.

Death, then judgment. Seemed about right.

When he exited the room, there was a young woman waiting for him. First lieutenant, last name of Kennedy.

“This way, sir,” the lieutenant said. Lincoln followed in a haze. It took about thirty seconds for him to realize she’d called him sir. Not candidate. He wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a terrible one.

The lieutenant led him to a narrow office, motioned him in, and then closed the door behind him without entering herself. An intense woman sat behind a too-small desk in the middle of the room, staring at him like he was grossly late for an appointment. The name plate on the desk read “Lt. Col. Coralie R. Martel”.

“Candidate One Seven Echo?” she asked, as soon as the door was closed.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, saluting. She stood and returned the gesture as if she was swatting a fly away.

“Captain,” she said, “the unit would like thank you for your time and commitment. You’ve shown yourself exceptional amongst the truly elite, and that’s an accomplishment you can and should be proud of. You’ve been designated non-select and at this time your service in the unit will not be required...”

Lieutenant Colonel Martel said a whole lot more after that, but it all sounded like static to Lincoln. Even when she stopped talking, he stood stunned.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a too-long pause. “…what?”

“You’ve been designated non-select, captain.”

He blinked at the words. “… I didn’t make it?”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Captain Suh. Less than one percent of candidates are placed, and when you’ve made it this far into Selection it usually comes down to variables well outside of your control. Your previous areas of operation, your language proficiencies. They’re looking for a very particular fit.”

There was no way there had been enough time to make the final decision. He’d barely finished his last evaluation. Or had they decided while he was still sitting in that room, answering for his whole life? Had the decision been made even before that?

“A transition officer will be contacting you shortly,” Martel continued, “to help walk you through your next steps. For now, Lieutenant Kennedy will lead you back out. You can return to Housing to pick up your belongings.”

Lincoln stood staring at the woman, mind struggling to process what was happening.

“That’s all, captain. You’re dismissed.”

She sat back down at her desk and turned her attention to the embedded display. Lincoln’s mind swirled with a million questions, and he struggled to find the right starting point. While he was in the process of trying to pick one, somehow he ended up leaving the room and being escorted out of the building.

He found himself standing on the front steps of the facility, blinking at the afternoon sun. Men and women in uniform streamed across the courtyard in front of him on business of their own. A Wednesday. For everyone else, just another Wednesday. For Lincoln… what? Death, judgment, found wanting.

Hell.

Everything seemed too bright, too loud, too fast. For fourteen weeks, he’d endured with only one goal. A goal he knew he’d reach, as long as he just kept enduring. And now here he was, out of the race, an inch short of the finish line. Out on “variables well outside” of his control. No one had mentioned anything about that before.

“Captain Suh,” a voice said from his right. It’d been so long since anyone had called him that, he didn’t even think to respond at first. “Captain Suh?”

Lincoln turned his head to find Lieutenant Kennedy standing a few feet away, looking at him with expectancy.

“Yeah?” he said.

“Sir, we have a vehicle waiting for you, if you’d like to come with me.”

“Oh? I had not been informed of that courtesy.”

“Yes, sir,” she said.

“Is this usual treatment for the castoffs?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t know about that, sir,” she said.

Lincoln grunted. He was tired. Tired right down through the middle of his bones. But it wasn’t that far of a walk back to the housing facility, and he didn’t love the idea of being carted around like some invalid, just because he hadn’t made the cut.

“Well, if it’s all the same to you, Lieutenant Kennedy, I think I’d prefer the walk.”

“Due respect, sir,” she answered, “it’s not the same.”

He looked her straight in the eye, and she held his gaze. She had some steel in her, for a junior officer. After a moment, she stepped closer and leaned forward.

“Five minutes of your time, sir. Ten at most.”

Unusual behavior to say the least.

“I’m not much for conversation just now, ma’am.”

“How are you for listening?” she said.

That didn’t have much appeal either. Maybe she had some weird thing for guys who’d just had their hopes and dreams destroyed. Lincoln was just about to blow her off, but something in his gut checked him. She was too professional, too focused. And it wasn’t like he had much of anywhere else to go today, or to do. He gestured for her to lead the way. She nodded and swiveled around, leading him towards a nearby avenue. He followed along after her, watching her move. She was all sharp angles and precision; a projection of confidence and certain intent. Wherever she’d come from, it was obvious to Lincoln that Lieutenant Kennedy wasn’t a typical first lieutenant.

She led him to a plain white vehicle that was parked right along the thoroughfare. It was one of the smaller four-seat affairs with darkly tinted windows, and it hummed to life as they approached.

“You’re not planning to do anything untoward to me, are you, lieutenant?”

Kennedy stopped at the side of the car and turned back.

“Not me,” she said with a smile.

The door slid open. When Lincoln saw who was sitting inside staring back at him, he physically flinched and immediately hated himself for it. He’d reacted that way because the man sitting in the car was a legend in the special operations community. It just so happened that the man in the vehicle also bore heavy scarring, his bald head and face mottled with scar tissue that stretched down his neck into the collar of his impeccable uniform. The disfigurement wasn’t why Lincoln had flinched, but he knew it would be the man’s first impression of him.

“Captain Suh,” the man said. “I’m Colonel Mateus Almeida.”

“I know who you are, sir,” Lincoln said, snapping a salute.

Colonel Almeida returned the gesture with easy grace and an undisguised prosthetic hand.

“Got a bit of a reputation, do I?” he said.

“A bit, yes sir.”

Almeida gave him a broken grin. “Only the worst parts are true.”

“I doubt that very much, sir.”

“Well,” he said, “I hear the worst parts are also the best parts.”

Lincoln smiled. “That may be. What can I do for you, sir?”

“You can get in my car so I don’t have to sit here staring up at you.”

Lincoln nodded and slid into the rear-facing seat. The door slid closed, and Kennedy walked away as if she’d had nothing to do with any of it.

“Alberton, 109,” Almeida said. The vehicle pulled away from the curb, headed to an address on the other side of the base. The opposite direction from Housing, where all of Lincoln’s gear was. “Don’t worry, captain, I won’t make you stare at me for long.”

Lincoln wanted to apologize, or to explain himself to the man, but he couldn’t find the words. He just said, “It’s an honor to be sitting here with you, sir.”

Lincoln was no stranger to the physical realities of combat and trauma. He’d seen plenty of both. Colonel Almeida’s injuries had clearly been severe; he’d lost an eye, an arm, and most of his face to a white-flamed fireball with a shrapnel heart. But the colonel’s career in the field had ended at least a decade prior, probably closer to two. There’d been more than enough time for reconstructive surgery to have patched him up so perfectly that no one would ever have known he’d even seen combat. The fact that he didn’t even have a simple synthetic dermal covering for his prosthetic made it clear that his appearance was a conscious choice.

The colonel furrowed his brow. “And here I thought you were a straight-shooter, no-nonsense type.”

“I do try, sir.”

“Well try harder, son. My face is a wreck. You know it. I know it. If you’re going to come work for me, it’s better to get it out of the way now so I don’t have to listen to you trying to talk around it all the time.”

“I’m sorry?” Lincoln said. Almeida had him completely wrong-footed.

“I look more like a Martian terrain feature than a man, eh? What do you think? Gimme the truth, boy. Always the truth with me.”

Lincoln didn’t know what the colonel wanted from him, and his mouth formed the words without ever checking with his mind.

“I’ve seen worse, sir.”

The colonel chuckled at that. “Close enough! Though if that’s actually true, I feel sorry for the poor kid that got blown up worse than me.”

“Oh, he wasn’t blown up, sir,” Lincoln said, and he finally risked a smile. “Just ugly.”

Almeida grinned at that. “Then I feel sorry for his mama.”

“Colonel, I have to ask your forgiveness sir. I guess I’m a little behind. You mentioned something about me working for you?”

“I did.”

“This is the first I’m hearing about it.”

“I’ve a got a new command, captain. Working in the 301st Information Support Brigade. I’m heading up the 519th Applied Intelligence Group.”

“Congratulations, sir,” Lincoln said. “I’m afraid I’m uh… I’m not familiar with the unit.”

“Really?” Almeida said with mock surprise. “But we have patches and everything.” He gave it a moment and a crack of a smile before continuing. “On paper, the 519th is a support group, but it is in reality a special mission unit. It was officially formed only in the past few months, but we’ve been operating for oh, I dunno, about three years now. You work in the right circles. Ever hear mention of Grey Aegis?”

Lincoln shook his head.

“Victor Dawn?”

“No sir.”

“Element Five?”

“Oh,” Lincoln said. “Those guys.”

Almeida dipped his head. “Those guys.”

“Not great with names, are they?”

The colonel shrugged. “I had to change it so often, I never really put a lot of thought into it.”

“That’s great, sir, but I’m not sure why you’d want to talk with me. I’m not an analyst. Intel’s never been my main department.”

“The 519th isn’t a traditional intelligence apparatus.”

“Sure,” Lincoln said. “They’re applied intelligence.”

“That’s right.”

Lincoln shook his head. “I don’t know what that means.”

“We can kill a man from orbit without spilling the cup of coffee on the table in front of him. But all the precision in the world doesn’t matter if we don’t know what cafe he’s sitting in,” Almeida said. “The one lesson from the McLaren Incident that everyone should have learned, is that we can’t keep our people off the front lines and expect to stay ahead of the curve. Information is only part of the problem; usually we have too much of it. We can see just about everything, but ninety-eight percent of the time we can’t tell what we’re looking at. Not until after the fact. That’s what happened with McLaren. Had all the pieces, didn’t know how to put them together until the bad guys showed us.

“I need people with field experience, people who are familiar with violence and the what-comes-before. People with the instincts to recognize the pre-incident indicators, and who can do something about it. I need people to tell me what we’re looking at, before it happens.

“Ultimately, we’re problem solvers, captain. Quiet ones. Intelligence collection’s part of the game, but we maintain the capacity for direct action operations as well. And that’s about all I’m going to tell you. Until you come work for me.”

Lincoln smiled at the use of the word until. “For the 519th.”

“That’s right.”

“Which I know nothing about.”

Almeida nodded.

“Not giving me a lot to go on, sir.”

“Get used to it. The ability to operate on incomplete information is a requirement, captain,” the colonel said. “I expect my people to be comfortable living in that reality. You’ll be making a lot of high-stakes decisions on partial data, some of it likely false. You’ll have to act decisively, and you’ll have to make the best of the consequences, come what may. But…” Here he held up a hand and ticked off the points as he mentioned them. “Some highlights of the job: pay’s not great; most sergeants will have command of more people than you; you’ll be in the Information Support Brigade, which makes you sound like the biggest weenie on the planet. Oh, and, if you do the job right, a bunch of other people will always get the credit. It’s pretty much a career-killer.”

Lincoln blinked at the job description. A moment later, he added “… and the downside?”

“Responsibility.”

“How much?”

“A world’s weight, at least. I need a team leader. Someone I can put in the field and trust do the right thing without a lot of handholding. We move fast. The nature of our work requires it. I need someone who isn’t afraid to figure things out on the fly.” The colonel leaned forward. “Someone who isn’t afraid to act on a clearer understanding of fluid situations that require timely responses.”

Almeida let the phrase hang in the air, an echo of the very words Lincoln had used earlier that day. Had Almeida been in that room? Or did he have people reporting to him? Either option had uncomfortable implications.

“I’m honored that you’d consider me, sir,” Lincoln said. “But I’m sure there are a lot of other individuals out there better suited for that than me.”

Almeida shrugged as he sat back and cleared his throat. “It’s currently a list of one, captain.”

“That is flattering, sir, but I would expect someone of your caliber to have a, uh…” Lincoln paused, searching for the most diplomatic word he could think of, “… more robust set of options available.”

The colonel rumbled with a chest-deep chuckle. “Yeah, OK, so there might be a few other folks in line. But you’re at the top. And first. I haven’t offered this opportunity to anyone else yet, cross my heart.”

Lincoln looked down at his own hands, clasped in his lap. Most of his career had been in more traditional special operations forces, and while he’d certainly done his best in every one of them, he’d never considered himself to be a superstar or a stud. He could have easily rattled off the names of fifteen men and women who’d be better suited to lead a Special Mission Unit, as far as he was concerned.

“And what makes you think I’m the right one for the job?” Lincoln asked.

“I don’t think. I know. And I know because it’s my business to know,” Almeida said.

“Can you be a little more specific?”

The colonel scratched his nose with his prosthesis, a gesture that would have looked completely natural if not for the gunmetal grey surface of the hand. “I’ve been at this a long time, captain. If you hang around the halls long enough, you hear names picking up buzz. Rock stars in a community of superheroes.”

Lincoln’s eyebrows went up at that. He’d never gotten the impression that anyone knew who he was outside his immediate circle of peers.

“And,” Almeida said, “I’ve never once heard anyone talking about you.”

Lincoln let out a single, involuntary bark of a laugh. “Easy, colonel, you keep talking so nice, I might start getting uppity.”

“Well, you’ve never been in the spotlight, never been singled out by the brass for exceptional contribution. Seems you’ve even been passed over for promotion at least once, maybe more. And yet, somehow, when I ask around, every team member you’ve ever worked with puts you in the list of folks they’d call in a heartbeat if they needed to get something done. There’s a pattern to your career, captain. The reason you don’t pop up on anyone’s radar is because not many people know how to measure what you do. You make the people around you better. That’s what I need most. A leader who gets things done and doesn’t need a lot of attention or pats on the back for doing it.

“Bottom line, I believe in you, Captain Suh.” Those were powerful words coming from such a man, particularly after Lincoln’s recent failing. “But we can’t wait for you. I’m looking for men and women who can seize the initiative. I thought that was you. If I was wrong, no harm done. Better to find that out now.” The colonel brushed some lint off his pant leg with the back of his prosthetic hand and then continued. “But I can tell you this. The unit you just volunteered for? Wherever they’re going, you’ll be there first. In some cases, to prepare the way for them. In more cases, to keep us from having to send them at all.”

“The unit I just failed out of.”

“You didn’t fail.”

“‘Non-select’. Same thing.”

“No, you did not fail, son,” Almeida said, “I had you selected.”

Lincoln looked back at the colonel. “You did what now?”

“I selected you.”

“You selected me… out of Selection?”

“Cheaper than setting up my own program. Budgets, you know.”

A knot of emotion coiled and then bloomed in Lincoln’s chest; relief, bewilderment, anger. He hadn’t failed after all. And yet, the outcome remained the same. He ran his hand over his mouth, stroked his chin. When he spoke, he tried to keep his tone neutral and wasn’t completely successful.

“I just spent fourteen weeks slogging through that course so you could pluck me out at the last second…? What if I say no?”

“Then you get out of here and by the time you walk back to Housing, a very apologetic second lieutenant will be there to explain about the unfortunate clerical error that led to your premature dismissal. And no one will have any recollection of us ever having this conversation. But you’re not going to say no, are you?”

“All due respect, sir, I died and then got resurrected a couple of hours ago,” Lincoln said. “And that was the easiest part of my day. Easiest part of my last three months. I don’t know that I’m in the right frame of mind to make any career decisions just now.”

“I already told you, son. There’s no career in this. Just a job that needs doing, with precious few people qualified to do it. You might not be sure of yourself, but I am. You’re the right one for the job. But I’m only going to ask you once.”

Lincoln glanced out the window again. He was used to doing things a little outside of normal. He sought it out. It’s why he’d been attracted to special operations in the first place. Some people thought it was a high-risk occupation; Lincoln had come to consider it one of precisely calculated risk. Every man and woman he’d served alongside in the teams had been willing to risk it all, but the ones who had excelled had developed a habit of leaving absolutely nothing to chance.

But this was so far from normal it wasn’t even on the same planetary map. Forget all the things he didn’t know about the 519th. He’d heard the stories of Colonel Almeida, but he didn’t really know the man.

The vehicle slowed and drew up alongside the curb in front of a low building that was nondescript even by base standards.

“I’m getting out here,” Almeida said. “You can stay if you want, take the car back to Housing, try your luck with the unit. No hard feelings.” The colonel shifted himself to the seat next to the door and rested a hand on it, preparing to open it. “Or,” he added, “you can come with me right now and do the thing you were made for.”

He paused long enough to let the weight of the moment settle, and then without another word he opened the door and stepped out into the bright sun. He remained at the vehicle’s side just long enough to don his cap and straighten his immaculate uniform. Then the door closed behind him and Colonel Almeida walked towards the building with a sharp stride. No hesitation, no looking back.

Lincoln sat in the vehicle, strongly tempted to take the bait; to swallow the hook he knew was there and just see where it took him. But there wasn’t enough for him to go on. He’d dreamed about joining the unit for years. And now, on the cusp of realizing that dream, or at least finding out for certain whether he had what it took, this man he didn’t know was trying to entice him into throwing it all away, just to solve the mystery. There was no calculation to it. Lincoln didn’t have any data to calculate. It was all risk. All chance.

It was crazy, is what it was. Lincoln glanced out the tinted window at the shadow world beyond. It certainly looked like the normal world was still out there, doing its thing. Was any of this actually happening?

The car chirped twice, signaling its availability for a new address. A few words, and Lincoln would be on his way back to Housing, and the very apologetic second lieutenant. A few words, and this would all fade into a weird memory, something in time he could probably convince himself was just a fever dream brought on by the trauma of his very difficult Wednesday. Just a few words.

And before he’d consciously made the decision, Lincoln found himself opening the door and stepping out of the car.

“Colonel Almeida, sir,” he called. Almeida didn’t miss a step. He swiveled right around and marched back over to Lincoln at the exact same pace.

“Captain?” he said when he reached Lincoln.

All risk. All chance.

“Sir,” Lincoln said. “Where do I sign?”

Almeida flashed his broken smile.

“We don’t like to leave a lot of records lying around,” Almeida answered. He extended his prosthetic hand. Lincoln clasped the cool metal in his own, firm grip, shook it. When he drew back his hand, there was a weighty coin in his palm. A challenge coin. A long-standing military tradition. On it was a simple design; an angular shield with a sword laid on top. Or, on second look, maybe the shield was a coffin. Along the top in scrollwork it read “519th Applied Intelligence Group”, with the nickname of the unit underneath. The bottom edge of the coin read simply “No Grave Too Deep”, which sounded just vaguely ominous enough to seem like a bunch of weenies trying to sound like tough guys.

“Captain Suh,” Almeida said. “Welcome to the Outriders.”