Incursion

Chapter 8: Regrets

When we returned to Haven at 1925, Knight informed us that we were all to gather at the Command Room at 0800 tomorrow for a briefing regarding CFB Calgary and our supplies donation to the 41 Canadian Brigade Group we just found in Mahogany.

“We need to quickly come up with a careful plan on how to scout out the base,” he told us as we walked the expanse of the vehicle hangar on our way to the elevators. “As usual, we’re leaving at dusk so we have to make a plan fast. Get lots of rest.”

Genel, who was walking beside him, replied: “First, I’ll get to work on establishing a secure line to Damon’s – I mean, Sergeant Burke’s group.”

Knight glanced at her briefly before turning his head to face forward again. “All right. If anything, it’ll assure him we’re not just stringing him along.”

Genel said nothing to that. We all boarded the elevator and Knight pressed the button for B3 while Genel pressed B2. As the doors closed, I caught a glimpse of the team sniper’s downcast eyes and her almost absent expression.

When the elevator stopped at B2, Genel stepped off and in a nearly spontaneous decision, I stepped out after her.

Josh stared after me as I looked back at him and Knight. “Still working on something, Chrissy?”

“Something like that,” I smiled at him as the elevator doors began to close again. “See you tomorrow morning.”

“All right. Night, ladies,” he said, giving us a quick salute just before the doors closed. Knight said nothing at all.

“You’re really still working on something here?”

I turned around to face Genel, who was looking at me with slightly raised eyebrows and a tentative gaze.

“Not exactly. Just… tagging along with you and seeing what you’re up to,” I said slowly with a shrug.

Genel’s curious expression deepened. Instead of asking for clarification though, she merely said, “Umm, okay.”

We approached the T-junction and turned right, walking until we reached the Command Room. Once there, Genel and I walked down the side of the long table and she settled on the chair in front of the PC on the left.

I pulled up the swivel chair from the other PC and brought it close to Genel’s. Sitting down, I watched her boot up a C.O.S. communications application. As the program was loading, she glanced sideways at me, looking a tad wary.

“Chrissy?”

“Yup?”

“Don’t… take this the wrong way, but what are you really doing here?”

“Me? I’m curious about the comms encryption process,” I answered offhandedly.

Genel blinked, her expression not changing from that tentative wariness. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

She eyed me with furtive interest, then turned her eyes back to the computer monitor. She clicked on a couple options on the top toolbar to bring up a radio frequency search bar. She took her TACPAD out from her wrist brace and tapped on the screen several times to bring up her notes which held Sergeant Burke’s radio frequency. As she began to type a sequence of numbers onto the search field, I spoke up again.

“It’s not a difficult process, is it?”

“Hardly. I can get this done in less than ten minutes, really. It’s all too easy once you read the software manual.”

“Does anyone else on the team know how to do it?”

She chuckled faintly, her eyes shifting to the right to me without her head turning as her fingers kept hitting keys at a brisk pace. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“Tech wizardry isn’t really my area of expertise,” I admitted a bit sheepishly, smiling wryly. “I know some basic troubleshooting on some simpler systems and apps, but that’s about it.”

“Okay, so the answer to your question is no. My, what would you guys do without me?”

I chuckled, watching as Genel fiddled about with some menus featuring an audio wave graph of some sort, aligning green values with some blue ones. I let her work undisturbed for a few minutes, letting the quiet sounds of the mouse clicking and the keys clacking fill the room until she abruptly shifted in her seat.

“Right, that should do it.”

“Our line to the reservists is now encrypted?”

Genel nodded, glancing at me. “Yup. It’ll take a skilled SIGINT expert to track our exact location in the event our transmissions are intercepted.”

“Are those prominent nowadays?” I asked her, glancing momentarily at the computer monitor.

“In this age of technological warfare? Yeah, they are. Still,” Genel smiled easily at me and tapped her temple. “I’m pretty good at covering my tracks, if I do say so myself.”

“Oh yeah? How good?”

“Pretty sure I’m in the top twenty in the world.”

I laughed, and although she seemed pleased to have amused me, she didn’t take back her statement.

“I like those odds,” I told her lightly.

Genel replaced her TACPAD in her wrist brace and tapped on the ‘COMMS’ icon. “I’ll get in touch with the 41 CBG. Give me a few minutes.”

She swiped at her screen once and tapped on it a few times. Lastly, she tapped on her earpiece and then began to speak into the build-in microphone.

“41 CBG, please come in. 41 CBG, this is Archer. Please respond.”

Genel kept her eyes on the PC monitor in front of her as she repeated the hail. After a moment, she seemed to get through.

“Affirmative, I read you loud and clear, 41 CBG. This is Archer… Yes, we visited your location earlier? Affirmative, that’s us.”

“Is… err, the sergeant there? Right, Sergeant Burke? I’d appreciate it if I can speak to him directly.”

At this point, Genel seemed to shift uncomfortably in her seat and her shoulders bunched up slightly. After some silence, she continued to talk.

“This is Archer. Affirmative, Da— Sergeant Burke, I read you. Just… reaching out to let you know this is our radio frequency. Please keep it secure and do not use it in case you ever leave your hideout. Unless it’s an emergency, of course.

“Yes, this is an encrypted frequency so our transmissions are secure. Though I—”

Genel stopped speaking abruptly, her mouth opened a little, then her cheeks flushed pink. She continued to talk after a two-second pause.

“—must inform you it is not a strictly private line. My colleagues may contact you themselves as well via this frequency.”

Genel pressed her palm over her earpiece and appeared to listen intently to whoever was on the other end. After several seconds, she closed her eyes, looking resigned.

“Understood, Sergeant Burke. We promised to help, and we’ll do what we can to assist you. Be advised, tentatively we’ll be by in two days – January 3rd – with some of your supplies at 1900. If anything changes, we will contact you.”

She fell silent again, then she continued:

“Archer copies. S…See you soon, yes. Out.”

She tapped an icon on her TACPAD, presumably to end the transmission. As soon as the link was cut, she appeared to slump backwards in her seat, sighing quietly and relaxing her posture considerably.

I stared at her without saying anything for a minute or two while Genel appeared to recuperate from what seemed to be a taxing conversation. After a while, she spoke up without looking at me.

“So, Chrissy… why are you really here?”

I sat up straight. “I think you know.”

Genel ran a hand briefly down her face and took a breath. “Yeah, I suppose I do, but I don’t want to embarrass myself in case I guess wrong.”

Leaning over my left armrest a little, I answered, “Okay. I’ll come right out with it. Are you all right? You’ve been acting strangely since we were at the rec centre.”

She glanced at me, looking timid and still flushed in the cheeks.

“I’m really that transparent, huh?” she muttered, more to herself than to me.

“Err, sorry Genel, it’s kind of hard to miss when you kick an Army sergeant in the shin and call him an idiot.”

“Yeah, that was… that was just bad. Sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing to me?” I asked her, perplexed.

“I… don’t know.”

“Is there something you want off your chest?” I offered patiently, keeping a straight face and voice, “I know I’m new here, but if there’s something I can do to help, I’ll be glad to.”

Genel eyed me hesitantly, gauging me for sincerity or trustworthiness, then gave me a sheepish smile. “So, you’re also a counsellor, huh?”

I shrugged, giving her an equally wry smile. “That’s a bit of a stretch. I don’t have the qualifications, but what if we just say I’m concerned about my teammates’ welfare?”

Genel nodded twice slowly. “That sounds believable, at least.”

“Right? So… do you want to talk?”

Genel gazed at me with pursed lips for five seconds before she sighed lightly and crossed her arms in front of her. “I guess this will be a lot less awkward with you.”

“Than with—?”

“Nobody. Forget that bit.”

“Uhh, okay. So, what’s up?”

“Well… you know how it was when the Dark Sky Contingency alert went out.”

I frowned, absently twirling a lock of my hair between my index and middle fingers. “No… I mean, yes I guess? I didn’t have my TACPAD with me and I had the misfortune to be captured.”

“Right,” Genel nodded to herself a few times, “Anyway, when I received it I was… in an awkward situation.”

“How awkward?”

“I was on a… a date. With a guy.”

She seemed to emphasize the ‘with a guy’ bit for whatever reason. Choosing not to focus on that, I silently egged her to continue.

“I was… err, with this guy for a month already at that point,” she continued rather choppily, as if she was making this all make sense as she went along, “But then the alert went out.”

I nodded slowly to show her I was doing my best to follow along with her. “Oh-kay… So then what happened?”

“Well, I had to leave right away, of course. But that’s not the issue. Actually, that is an issue, but it’s not the issue. Do you get it?”

“I’m… going to be straight with you, Genel. I don’t. Why don’t you just tell me your thoughts without editing them? I promise, I’ll hear you out. And if you want to hear my thoughts on it, tell me. Otherwise I’ll just listen.”

This made her pause and loosen up considerably. She made a show of smacking her cheeks to steel herself, then glanced at me with a more composed – albeit still fairly awkward – expression.

“All right,” she said in a more level tone. “Can I ask you to keep a secret, then?”

“As long as it has no bearing on our mission, we at Valentine Counselling Services are committed to maintaining your confidentiality.”

Genel chuckled, some of the pink in her cheeks fading. “This has nothing to do with our mission. It’s really personal and relatively… unimportant, really. But it’s on my mind all the same.”

“Okay, then. Pinky swear and all that.”

“Thanks,” she said with relief, “The problem is… the guy I was on a date with was, umm, Sergeant Burke. Damon.”

I took a second to connect all the dots. Yes, that would explain Genel’s skittish behavior earlier and just now, the sergeant’s break in protocol, and everything in between.

“I see,” I nodded again in understanding. “You were dating a colleague and had to cut it short suddenly when you got the Dark Sky alert. Makes sense.”

“Yeah. I could tell he was concerned and unhappy with how I ‘excused’ myself. Even more so when he got a call from an Army dispatcher and I refused to go with him to report to our CO.”

This was in line with how the sergeant initially interacted with us earlier. He did express a dislike for the way Genel seemed to turn on her duties to the Canadian Army. Of course, I understood that it couldn’t be helped, but realistically the sergeant would have seen it as a possible desertion.

“I get it. It was doubly awkward for you personally because you had to cut your date short through no fault of your own. Also, because to him it looked like you turned your back on your Army duties.”

Genel nodded, shifting her eyes to the floor. “That’s not all. I.. had to break up with him. This was when we spoke privately in his office.”

“Ohhh.”

Even without how Genel seemed to have ‘deserted’ the Army in front of her colleague and boyfriend, it was understandably going to be awkward when she was planning to break up with him. Under normal circumstances it would have been awkward enough, but the timing in this case didn’t help improve matters any.

I tentatively glanced sideways at her. “Was it… you know, a good relationship, or—?”

Genel nodded sharply. “Oh, oh yeah, it was good. Damon’s a good man and when he asked me out I felt flattered and happy. It’s not that I didn’t like him that I broke up with him.”

“What was the reason, then? Oh, wait. No, maybe that’s none of my business, Genel.”

She shook her head, smiling ruefully. “I’m not badmouthing the guy. It’s all right. Damon’s a friend and nothing that’s happened thus far changes that. It’s just that moments before I got the Dark Sky alert, I found out we wanted… different things. For our relationship.”

“What do you mean? Was it… I don’t know, marriage stuff?”

Genel’s eyes widened a little. “Oh no, nothing that advanced. Damon was… well, he had feelings for me I couldn’t reciprocate. I like him, but nothing more than that. You can guess how he felt.”

“I can. Well… that is unfortunate. I’d like to think you two got along well.”

“We do,” Genel replied in agreement, then frowned slightly. “Or at least, we did. Tonight was really awkward, like I said back at the rec centre. There’s the issue of me ‘ditching’ my warrant officer duties, then on top of that there’s me breaking up with Damon. It was uncomfortable talking to him back there.”

“I could kind of see that, yeah.”

Genel fell silent for a moment, her expression becoming pensive. Then without warning, she glanced at me sharply again.

“It’s not like I… enjoy playing around with guys’ hearts or anything, all right?”

Her sudden remark caught me by surprise. “What?”

“What?” she said blankly.

“What?” I echoed her, confused.

We stared at each other for several seconds, both of us looking lost in front of each other. After a while, Genel sighed and looked away from me slightly, seeming a little mortified.

“I was just saying I don’t find enjoyment in getting guys’ hopes up. Truth be told, I hadn’t dated anyone for three years before Damon asked me.”

“Umm… okay?”

“Just, you know… making that clear.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. She looked back at me with something akin to innocence in her face. After another stare down, I said:

“Is there anything else about this you want to tell me?” I asked her slowly, leaning back in my seat.

“No, not really.”

“Okay. Did I at least make you feel better about the whole thing?”

Genel chewed on her lip. “A little, yeah. Thanks. I don’t… usually get this personal if I can help it. Sorry if I bothered you.”

I shook my head right away. “No, I don’t mind. If anything, talks like this help me get to know you guys better. I’m glad you trusted me enough to tell me that.”

Genel shrugged, now looking mostly free of her preoccupation from earlier. “Some things are easier to tell when it’s to another girl, maybe.”

“You don’t have any other female friends?”

“Well… no. All the others in my squad are boys.”

“Oh. Hmm. Well, I’m glad you could tell me.”

“Yeah. Thanks, Chrissy.”

“Were you going to tell anyone else about this?”

She gave me a quizzical look. “What? Like who?”

“I don’t know,” I said, not meaning to sound so casual, “Maybe… Knight?”

To my surprise, Genel’s eyes grew in size and again her cheeks seemed to flare up. She averted her eyes and stared at the PC monitor ahead of her instead.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, sounding cagey all of a sudden.

I blinked twice, finding her behavior bizarre. “You… told Knight you’d ‘explain later’ as we were heading down the basement to meet Sergeant Burke. Don’t you remember?”

“Oh. Oh, that. Yeah, I was considering telling him.”

“Really?”

“Uhh… maybe. Yes.”

Genel was going to tell Knight about her personal problems?

“What’s with that look?” Genel cocked her head to the side as she gazed at me.

“Just trying to visualize you actually sitting down with him and talking to him like you did with me.”

Genel’s bashful expression faded again. In its wake it left one of subtle playfulness. “What, you don’t believe me?”

“Guy’s not exactly the counsellor looking type.”

“Oh, and you are? Anyway, what type does he look like?”

A small smile played at the edges of her lips, and she leaned toward me with an air of rapt interest.

I closed my eyes for a few seconds, considering the question.

“I don’t know. I’m still trying to place him.”

“You want me to tell you a thing or two about him?”

I hesitated, trying to decide if this was underhanded or not. “Just a thing or two, yeah.”

Genel’s smile slowly became more pronounced. “Okay, shoot. But I have to warn you, if you ask me something lewd I’m duty bound not to answer.”

Unable to stop myself, I scoffed. “I’m not that desperate.”

“Or are you?”

“Never mind, then. Forget I said anything.”

“Aww, were you going to ask something lewd? I can consider giving you some hints.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “Clearly my counselling has cheered you up enough.”

Genel gave me a girlish wink. “Actually, yeah. I feel much better. I’m glad I talked to you.”

I laughed, sounding half amused and half exasperated. “Good to hear it.”

Genel turned her wrist to glance at her TACPAD. “We really should catch some sleep. The next op’s going to be… different, I feel like.”

I nodded minutely, the situation we were in rapidly coming back to me and instantly sobering me up. “Yeah. I’m anxious to see what we’ll find at the base.”

Genel sighed. “Nothing good, Chrissy. Unfortunately.”

“You’re right.”

We paused for a moment. Then Genel spoke again.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?”

I glanced at her and found her sticking her right hand out to me.

“Thank you. I’m happy you’re the one who stepped in to fill our last XO’s shoes.”

She smiled at me sincerely, her eyes seeming to gleam.

I smiled back at her and took her hand in mine.





The next day, I was roused by the sound of insistent knocking on my door. Still mostly asleep, I groggily sat up in bed and glanced over to my alarm clock, which told me it was just a little before six in the morning. A quick, foggy recall reminded me that the next briefing wasn’t supposed to start until a couple of hours from now.

The insistent knocks on my door abruptly evolved to borderline banging.

What’s going on?

“Chrissy? Chrissy, wake up!”

A vaguely familiar voice called out to me from outside the room, muffled a bit by the door between me and it.

I jumped out of bed, getting a fleeting sensation of dizziness in the process, and slipped into a pair of slippers. Hobbling over to the door, I reached for the doorknob and pulled the door open.

Genel, clad in a plain white T-shirt and maroon track pants, stood in front of me. Her free, long black hair was noticeably unkempt, as though she had just rolled out of bed herself. Though she looked mildly groggy herself, the rest of her expression spelled alertness and urgency.

“Morning,” I said a bit thickly, stroking some of my own hair away from my face. “What’s the matter?”

“Got an emergency,” she replied, looking at me without a hint of our lightheartedness from the previous evening. “Do you have your TACPAD?”

She lifted her arm and gestured at the wrist brace around her arm. I looked down at my left wrist and found mine empty as I took mine off before bed.

“Yeah, it’s on my desk. What’s happening, Genel?”

“Ian’s calling for an early meeting. We’ve got a situation.”

“Okay, then let me just get changed.”

Genel fleetingly looked me over. “You look fine. We’re all still in our pajamas and such. Ian wants us at the Command Room now.”

If Genel was hurrying me this much, something must have gone wrong. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I retreated back to my desk, slipped on my wrist brace, and joined Genel out in the hallway. After closing my room door, I briskly walked down the hallway, keeping pace with Genel on our way to the elevator landing.

“How bad?” I asked her as we approached the T-junction.

Genel shook her head back at me, looking a little lost herself. “I’m not sure. Ian was the first to get wind of it. Haven’s comms system picked up a distress signal less than an hour ago.”

A distress signal. That meant a fellow C.O.S. agent had activated their emergency transponder.

“Is Josh still here?” I demanded, turning right and reaching for the ‘up’ button between the two elevator doors.

“Everyone’s accounted for,” Genel assured me as we tensely waited for the elevator to arrive. “Whoever got on the horn, it wasn’t us.”

“Another team here in Calgary, then?”

“For sure.”

“Compartmentalization working wonders now, of all times.”

Genel nodded grimly. “You can say that again.”

Besides for the members of one’s team, any one C.O.S. agent is largely unaware of any other cells based within or outside of their area of operations other than the one they belonged to. There could be only four agents in any given city, or twelve for all anyone knew. I’d fleetingly wondered if Shadow Team was the only Sector team based in Calgary before, but after the first two days I was with Shadow I’d mostly assumed we were alone because we hadn’t heard of any others like us by then. It doesn’t help that an elite-tier team like Shadow technically worked independently from others, standard-tier or elite-tier. Teams like Shadow were created to operate in utmost secret, so that not even other C.O.S. teams knew of our whereabouts. Back when I was with Glacier Team, we’d received some anonymous ‘support’ once or twice, and though nothing had been confirmed in that regard, it was generally presumed an elite-tier C.O.S. team had helped us from the shadows.

The elevator finally arrived. Genel and I boarded it and headed up to B2. Upon exiting, we headed straight for the Command Room.

When we arrived, we found Knight standing underneath the sat view monitor with his head tilted up toward the screen. He was wearing a plain black T-shirt, black sports shorts, and a pair of gray runners. It was rather odd to see him wearing that little clothing, but evidently he’d been at the gym downstairs shortly before this moment, as suggested by the face towel hanging around his neck. Josh was standing a bit behind him, wearing a dark red T-shirt and black track pants. Judging from the larger man’s tousled blond hair, he’d been asleep too but was roused by either Knight or Genel.

Knight turned his head when we approached him. “You’re here. Take a look at the sat view.”

I stepped beside him and looked up at the monitor. A pulsing yellow dot had appeared on an area close to the interchange between McKnight Boulevard and Stoney Trail, not far from the Peter Lougheed Centre in the northeast quadrant of the city.

“How long ago was the beacon activated?” I asked, glancing at Knight.

“Logs say the call went out at 0514,” he answered, glancing sideways and down at me a little. “I wasn’t wearing my TACPAD on me at the time but when I put it back on I got the alert on there.”

I glanced down at my own TACPAD docked in my brace. The time was now 0606.

“A lot can happen in an hour,” I said, turning my eyes back to the yellow dot. “We should investi—”

I stopped short when I felt Knight’s eyes lingering on my face. When I looked back at him, he was silently eyeing me as if he knew what I would say.

“Right, we can’t just charge in in a hurry,” I nodded, stifling a sigh. “But we can’t ignore this, either.”

Knight turned to face the rest of the team. “No, we can’t. Originally, I was planning to have all of us recon CFB Calgary tonight, but unfortunately this changes the plan.”

“Are we holding off on reconning the base, then?” I asked him.

Knight paused for a moment. Then, not looking at me, he answered: “We can’t delay that another three days, either. With the Major ‘missing’, and now this distress beacon going off there’s a chance the pre-arranged transfers of prisoners might be rescheduled, rendering our intel that we got from Steele obsolete. It has to be tonight.”

“So what’s the score, boss?” Josh asked, glancing from the monitor to the team leader.

Knight seemed to hesitate slightly. He held off on answering for a few seconds before doing so with some reluctance.

“We’ll have to split up again. Two of us will proceed to CFB Calgary as initially planned, infiltrate it, and find out where the prisoners are being taken. The other two will head to the distress signal’s location and investigate what happened.”

“Fine,” Genel said with a resigned tone, “How are we going to split this?”

Again, Knight hesitated. His expression did not change, but I could sense him weighing options behind those dark eyes of his.

I took a breath and broke the silence. “Knight, I’ll go to CFB Calgary and find out what’s going on there.”

His head swiveled such that he was facing me with a rather serious look on his face.

“Who are you taking with you?”

I glanced briefly to the only other woman in the room. Genel glanced back at me just as I answered Knight’s question.

“Genel and I will handle CFB Calgary.”

The room went silent for a moment after I replied. Genel looked blankly from Knight to me and then vice versa. Josh’s eyes had returned to the sat view monitor.

Knight, meanwhile, stared hard at me. Once again, he became unnervingly still and looking into his eyes slowly started to fill me with more tension. He didn’t always look at me this way, but right now it felt as though I was staring into two pitch black, gaping pits that could hold any manner of creature within them.

After a moment, when even the air seemed to grow still around us, Knight’s head cocked to the side almost imperceptibly.

“I’d like a word first, Angel.”

Without waiting for a response from me, he walked past and headed for the door. I stared after his retreating form, then glanced at Josh and Genel. The both of them were looking at me with varying degrees of disquiet on their faces.

“Better do as he says, Chrissy,” Josh said, clearly reading the vibe in the air. Genel nodded in agreement.

I turned and followed Knight, who had disappeared from the room. I pulled open the door and stepped out into the hallway.

“Over here.”

I turned my head in the direction of the sound. Knight was leaning on the wall, arms crossed, standing about twenty feet away from the Command Room door.

I approached him a bit cautiously. The tiny frown on his lips did nothing to alleviate my sense of trepidation.

When I was within an arm’s length of him, I stopped. “What is it?”

“Are you sure? About going to CFB Calgary?”

Those eyes. They could drive someone mad thinking about what could be lurking underneath the impassive surface.

“Someone’s got to do it, right?” I said a bit indirectly, shifting my eyes to his eyebrows instead.

“True,” he conceded with a minute nod, “I’ll let you go with Archer, on one condition.”

“What condition?”

“Swear you’re only going in for intel. You aren’t there to save anyone.”

A part of me instantly reared its head in protest, but I tried not to react.

“We’re after answers,” I said in a low voice, still not looking into his eyes. “I’ll get us some.”

“That’s not the same thing I’m asking.”

I clenched my hands at my hips. I stifled the urge to sigh.

“I know what you’re asking, Knight.”

“Then give me your word, XO. Recon only. In and out. You’re not to disrupt the prisoner transfer in any way. Get what we need, and only what we need.”

“Where is this coming from?” I demanded, starting to feel a mild degree of irritation.

He didn’t blink or flinch. “I don’t know. That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

His response somehow transformed my irritation to something bordering anger. “Yeah? And how’s that working out for you?”

I released a scathing response before I could stop myself. Knight’s eyes narrowed very slightly.

Hastily trying to cool my head, I inhaled and exhaled deeply.

“I’m just saying there has to be something more we can do,” I said grudgingly, willing myself to calm down.

“And I’ve said it before,” Knight replied calmly, “There are, but we can’t do them as we are now. If you get yourself killed trying to rescue those prisoners, tell me: how does that help anyone?”

“I admit, doing it by myself isn’t smart, but if I had help—”

“Whose help? Genel’s? She’s good behind a scope, Angel, but she’s not going to be able to help you save anyone by herself.”

I gritted my teeth behind pursed lips.

“Look, I don’t know what you saw or had to do in that hellhole in the Stampede, but believe me: you can’t save everyone.”

He didn’t know, of course. What I did. Why I needed to try. It wasn’t just what I went through days ago.

“Knight, can I ask you something?” I tried a new tack.

“What?”

“Don’t you ever regret not doing something? Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you’d just… tried? Even knowing you may have failed, what if you’d just tried anyway? Do you even have anything like that to regret?”

His response was surprisingly immediate.

“Yes. Plenty of times.”

The sudden softening of his voice as well as his lack of elaboration made me look up. When I did, I found him avoiding my gaze too. His eyes seemed to lose some of its hardness, instead glazing over, as if he was remembering something distant.

For a moment I couldn’t say anything. Neither could he. We simply stood there, my eyes on his and his on something I couldn’t see. After some time, he met my gaze eventually. When he did, whatever was lurking behind those dark eyes had vanished and he was back to being inscrutable.

“Oh,” I mumbled, suddenly feeling stupid for asking him such a question.

“I’ll ask again, Angel: can I trust you?”

“I…”

I didn’t understand how I could be discouraged like this so easily. Maybe I really was just spineless. Or maybe it was because of what I thought I saw for a second behind those unnerving but also strangely alluring eyes of his.

For a second, they seemed to resemble the eyes of a man who carried burdens not unlike mine. At least, he had a look there that I recognized in my own eyes. They looked like the eyes of someone who seemed to truly, deeply understand what it was like to really regret something… or several things.

It was probably for this reason that my desire to convince him of a rescue op fell limply to the side.

“Angel?”

“Fine.”

“Fine, what?”

“I’ll leave the prisoner transfer process alone.”

There was a pause before he replied.

“All right, then. You have permission to recon CFB Calgary with Archer.”

He pushed off the wall and walked past me again.

“Come on, let’s go over the plan with Josh and Genel.”

Without another word, I followed him back into the Command Room. For whatever reason, I couldn’t stop dwelling on the exact moment his eyes seemed to gaze at something far away, nowhere near here.

For whatever reason, I couldn’t help trying to figure him out.