The Archangel Chronicles Part One: Restoration

While Daniel searched for the right word, Rasmussen stared at him.

". . . unexplainable," was the word Daniel finally settled on, giving up on finding one that would adequately describe his feelings. Maybe that was enough.

"Just unexplainable?" Rasmussen asked. "Nothing more than that?"

Daniel settled back into his slouch, staring at the floor.

"That’s all I’m getting from you, isn’t it?" Rasmussen asked with a sigh. "I welcomed you into my unit, trusted you . . ."

"As you were ordered to do."

"I was never ordered to trust you, just to give you the information you asked for. I trusted you because I . . ." Rasmussen searched for the reason.

"Because I trusted you," he concluded. "Because I did."

Daniel shook his head. "I’m sorry. I guess that was the wrong thing to do."

Rasmussen snorted. "I guess." He rose to his full height so he could look down on Daniel. "I will deliver your letters. Personally, if I can. I owe them that, and I want them to know that I was able to make sure you were punished."

Daniel did not look at the colonel, or acknowledge that he’d even heard what he’d said as Rasmussen clicked the door open and left him.

For a moment, Daniel wanted nothing more that to be able to tell Rasmussen exactly what had happened and why. Mixed up with that was Daniel’s own desire to understand. Why had he done it, and exactly what had he done?"

He’d been working with Rasmussen’s unit for a month. He was assigned to them as an "intelligence specialist," but he knew that everyone had assumed he was a Potiphar--one of the Union’s specially trained operatives, who were often sent outside of Union Space on covert missions. No one had asked for clarity, which was standard, since the Potiphars’ existence was not officially admitted..

Rasmussen’s was a grunt unit, their mission was to liberate a science outpost that had been attacked and overtaken by a Reaver Tribe. Everyone knew that the Reaver’s wouldn’t be interested enough in the station’ official work to keep the scientists alive, but their rescue offered the Union an excuse to send a team in to re-take what would ordinarily have been abandoned as lost. Union resources were limited.

But they needed to recover the research. These scientists were experimenting with methods for triggering novas in any star. It was based on the theory--mostly proven, from what Daniel knew--that someone or some shadow race had triggered the Solar supernova that had destroyed Earth and Daniel’s own homeworld, Mars.

It was unlikely the Reavers would understand it, but there was still that small chance. And besides, the Union wanted it.

So, Rasmussen’s team was sent in to liberate the station from the Reavers, and Daniel with them to accomplish the mission’s real objective. He’d trained and studied with the unit, eaten with them, slept among them, and even felt like one of them after the first few weeks.

The mission went well. The Reavers were caught completely off-guard, and dispatched with ease. Rasmussen’s team was finishing cleaning out the sub-corridors while Daniel found the station’s inner sanctum.

Not all of the scientists were dead. They’d kept one of them alive, a woman. She was approaching middle age, but still comely enough for the Reavers. She limped around the desk she’d been tethered to, with a bruised face and a busted lip that drizzled occasional bloody flecks onto her torn station overalls. Daniel could guess why she was left alive.

She did not look pleased to see a Union soldier.