Rhodes stepped into Dr. Osborne’s lab and looked around. It looked the same. “What am I doing here?” he asked. “I’m supposed to get a psych evaluation.”

“You are getting one, but I’m not qualified to give you one.” Dr. Osborne pushed out his stool. “Sit down and we’ll get started.”

“How can we get started if you aren’t qualified to evaluate me?”

“Just sit down. You’ll see.”

Rhodes sat down on the stool. He didn’t see how he could get a psych evaluation here. He and Osborne were the only people in the room.

Each of Rhodes’s subordinates had been assigned to a different room in the medical wing for their evaluations. Dr. Osborne couldn’t evaluate everyone at once.

Now Rhodes found out Osborne wasn’t even the person who would conduct the evaluations.

He tapped on his stacks of computer equipment. “The evaluation will start…now.”

Rhodes glanced over at him, but at that moment, the lab vanished and Rhodes entered The Grid. “What are you doing?” he asked. “Why am I here?”

“You’ll be evaluated in The Grid,” Osborne replied. “The doctor assigned to evaluate you should be appearing…now.”

The Grid changed in front of Rhodes’s eyes and he found himself not in Dr. Osborne’s lab, but in a comfortable lounge.

Dark wooden paneling covered the walls. Woven carpets made the floor soft and warm. A fire crackled in the large stone fireplace across the room.

An older man in a brown houndstooth suit jacket and glasses sat in a wide leather armchair across from Rhodes. The guy sat with his legs crossed and balanced a notepad on his lap. He wasn’t smoking a pipe, but he might as well have been.

Rhodes himself still sat on the same stool from the lab. He saw how out of place he looked with all his shiny metal implants, Viper missiles strapped to his back, and all the Legion’s strongest firepower attached to his limbs.

The sight of this fake doctor almost made Rhodes burst out laughing.

The image didn’t seem to see this scenario as a joke, though—obviously. “Welcome, Captain,” the guy began in a deep, husky voice. “I’m Dr. Watson.”

Now Rhodes really did burst out laughing. He couldn’t help it. “Dr. Watson? Seriously?”

The guy cocked his head. “Is there a problem?”

“What’s so funny about him being named Dr. Watson?” Fisher asked.

Dr. Watson inclined his head the other way. “Your SAM shouldn’t be here. He might interfere with your results.”

“I’m being evaluated for how well I perform with my SAM,” Rhodes pointed out. “Removing him would skew the results, too.”

The doctor shrugged. Rhodes absolutely refused to think of him as Dr. Watson. That was ridiculous.

If the Legion brass actually thought naming him that gave him some credibility, they were sadly mistaken.

He consulted his notepad. “Let’s get started. Your military record indicates you’ve suffered some mental distress recently.”

Rhodes blinked at him. How in the name of God was he supposed to take this projection seriously?

The doctor waited for Rhodes to speak. “Is anything wrong, Captain?”

“What exactly do you want me to say? Yes, I had some mental distress recently.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Why the hell would I want to do that?”

“To help me evaluate your mental state.”

“No, I don’t want to talk about it.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The doctor checked his notepad again. God only knew what was on it.

Then Rhodes remembered. He was in The Grid. This wasn’t real. Nothing was on that notepad.

He almost busted up laughing again at the thought, but he bit it back. He enjoyed seeing the projection go through the motions so seriously.

“Why do you think you suffered mental distress?” the doctor asked.

Rhodes’s one remaining eye fell out of its socket. “You can’t be serious!”

“Of course I’m serious. What caused you to experience this distress? Your record indicates it was severe and that you and your subordinates are suffering from an ongoing obsessive desire to end your lives. That sounds pretty serious to me.”

Rhodes snorted and leaned back on his stool. “You want to know what caused it? Look at me, asshole! If this isn’t enough to cause mental distress, I don’t know what is.”

“And yet you spent years as the commanding officer of a combat platoon in the Legion. Your record doesn’t indicate that your previous experience caused you this level of emotional turmoil.”

“You’re serious,” Rhodes fired back. “You seriously don’t see anything about me that would cause emotional turmoil? What else did you read in my record?”

“Everything. I have access to the entire Legion database.”

“You know what? This is stupid. I’m not going to explain it to you. If you can’t see for yourself, then someone made a mistake programming you to evaluate me.”

“I can’t evaluate you if you won’t talk about it. What do you think I see when I look at you?”

Rhodes’s jaw hit the floor. This projection really wanted him to spell it out in every gory detail.

Rhodes made a calculated decision. “What are you going to do if I don’t talk about it?”

“I’ll have no choice but to recommend that you aren’t fit for combat duty.”

“Perfect,” Rhodes replied. “You do that.”

Now it was the doctor’s turn to raise his eyebrows. “You don’t want to go back into combat? But you’re a soldier. You’re a captain in the Aemon Legion. It’s your job to go into combat and defend the Treaty of Aemon Cluster against its enemies.”

“Not anymore. I died on the battlefield. Didn’t you read that in my record?”

“Of course, but…..”

“Then I think you’d admit that a dead man isn’t under any obligation to do anything. I’m not a captain in the Aemon Legion anymore. I’m…..I’m a figment of your imagination.”

The doctor stared at him in such dazed disbelief that Rhodes really did laugh. He had to get his kicks somewhere. Why not here? He didn’t have to worry about hurting this Grid projection’s feelings.

Unfortunately, the doctor had been programmed to be more tenacious than Rhodes expected.

The doctor jotted something on his notepad. “Why don’t you want to go into combat?”

“Apart from the risk of getting killed? That about covers it. I’m scared. That’s the truth. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to get cut to pieces by lasers the way I did before or crushed by falling Dusters or torn apart by curious alien scientists. I would rather remain intact here at Coleridge Station and spend the rest of my life studying art with my friends.”

“What about your subordinates and comrades?” the doctor asked. “Don’t you feel the smallest obligation to support them, protect them, and help them get through the war in one piece?”

“They won’t need my support, protection, and help if they don’t go into combat, either. With any luck, the other…programs or whatever they are will recommend that my subordinates and comrades aren’t fit for combat duty, either. Then we can all live our lives here in peace. Isn’t that what everyone wants?”

The doctor image cleared its throat, shifted in its chair, and rearranged its notepad on its lap. “I’m afraid things are a little more complicated than that, Captain.”

“I know they are. They’re complicated because I’ll go into combat again no matter what you recommend.”

“You know that isn’t true. The Legion brass wouldn’t have ordered a psych evaluation for you if they didn’t have grave concerns for your mental wellbeing. Your repeated remarks about ending your own life, your subordinates’ lives, and the like don’t paint a very encouraging picture of your mental state.”

“I’m sure my mental state is far worse than any of the Legion brass has even allowed themselves to consider,” Rhodes muttered back.

“Then we need to do something about that. Why do you want to end your life?”

“I never said I wanted to end my life—not like that. I said I would encourage and support any of my subordinates to do it if they really felt that their situations had become intolerable. Obviously Fuentes has already come to that conclusion, so why shouldn’t he carry it out?”

“He shouldn’t carry it out because his mental state has deteriorated to the point where he can’t think rationally about his situation. His situation could improve and then he would feel that life was worth living again. Then he might be glad that he didn’t end his life. You would rob him of that chance.”

“How could his situation improve to make him think life was worth living again?” Rhodes asked. “What could possibly improve it?”

“You just said you don’t want to end your own life,” the doctor countered. “You must think life is worth living or you wouldn’t be going through all this. Why do you think life is worth living for you and not for Fuentes?”

“I don’t think my life is worth living, but even if I did, that wouldn’t mean anything for Fuentes. It’s his life. If he thinks it isn’t worth living, then that’s his choice to make.”

“Some of us disagree. A few key changes in his thought process could improve his outlook on his life, his future, and what it all means to him.”

Rhodes snorted. “I’m pretty sure what it all means to him is the problem, pal.”

“Exactly my point. He could change what it all means to him and then he would see his life as worth living after all.”

Rhodes sat back on his stool. “Great. You explain it to him and see how far you get.”

“You will be the one explaining it to him when he gets out of stasis tomorrow.”

Rhodes’s head shot up again. “You aren’t going to evaluate Fuentes? You’re going to throw him back into the battalion without even trying to evaluate his mental state?”

“You seem to think you understand him better than the rest of us. If anyone can convince him, you can.”

End of Chapter 17.