SHAD POV

"So, what have you got for me this week?" Grandpa asked as I sat down in the chair across from him in his office. He was seated behind a desk, piles of papers on either side with a set of framed pictures of me and Sage as kids on it.

I started to speak, then did a double take. My grandfather looked thin, tired, and worn. It had been a week since our last in-person meeting. He'd been busy working on his duties while I was managing the contractor teams. Though we had exchanged plenty of messages, I hadn't seen him face to face. Now I was shocked. He looked old again, suddenly and tired. The past three months had been hard, yes, but he looked like he’d aged two decades.

"Have you been eating?”

He grunted. "At my desk most days. Grace sends up meals."

"And sleeping?"

He shrugged. "When I get a chance. You know how much there is to do."

I sent Coyote a quick message. “How is he?"

"Grace has been sending up dinner every night, and he eats it. But that's about it. He's sleeping here in his office on a cot about four hours a night."

"You should have told me or Juana.”

"I assumed this was a normal human response to having a great deal of work to do."

"It's not. It's a normal human reaction to grief."

I fixed Grandpa with a glare. "You haven't been down to see Mila in weeks now. She keeps asking about you and crying."

"I'm sorry. I'm busy," he said brusquely.

"Not that busy." I stood up. "Clear the rest of your afternoon. We’ll have this briefing at Grace's. Mila is down there right now. You can tell her face how busy you are."

"Look, boy. I understand what you're doing and I appreciate it. But it’s not necessary.”

“The hell it isn’t! You can't work yourself to death just because Sage is gone. I need you. Mila needs you. The whole expedition needs you."

"Which is why I'm working like this," he snapped back.

"Which is why you're going to take a break or I'm going to ask Coyote to do it for you.”

"That isn't necessary."

I raised my voice. "Coyote, humans require nutrients, exercise, and sleep. You should be able to look up the basic guidelines. I want you to let me know if he's not meeting the minimums. All right?"

"Understood," Coyote replied smoothly.

“Ignore that order," Grandpa said. "I'm your commander here."

"And junior officers have a duty to act if they believe their superior is unfit for command," I said, not budging from where I stood.

Grandpa sagged in on himself, looking even more tired than ever. "Don't," he said quietly. "Don't. I need this."

"And we need you, sir," I said, softening my voice. "You can't do this to yourself. Come on. Let's get you out of this office, have a decent meal, and probably a change of clothes. "I sniffed as Grandpa reluctantly stood up. "How long has it been since you showered?"

"Maybe it has been a while," he acknowledged.

"All right, so before we hit Mama Grace's, we're going by your quarters so you can change so Mila doesn't ask why Grandpa's stinky. Let's go."

I stuck close by him until he'd had a chance to shower, shave, and change. Then we went down to Grace's where I ordered us both the lunch special. Mila popped out from the back room, delighted to see both of us so unexpectedly. She climbed up on Grandpa's knee and stole bites off of his plate as we ate. Grandpa focused on her, stroking her hair as she kept up a constant stream of talk about what she was learning and the games she was playing with the few other kids along on the expedition.

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Coyote had several areas set up with the ability to simulate reality, like smaller versions of a reality engine's zones. Most of them we used for training, but we had a couple set aside for the support crew here on Ad Astra. Mila especially liked the park we had built. She tried to get someone to take her there every day. Now she was wheedling with Grandpa.

"Why not?" he agreed cheerfully. "Your dad and I still have things to talk about. We can do it there."

He stood up and let Mila take him by the hand and lead him from the restaurant. This time of day, the park simulation wasn't too busy. We let Mila swarm around on the playground equipment while Grandpa and I stood under the shade of a spreading oak tree, watching her.

"You've made your point, son," Grandpa said quietly.

"I understand how you feel. I still keep catching myself thinking about how when Sage and Colin get back, I'm going to assign them to a particularly thorny problem."

Grandpa put his arm on my shoulder and cut me off. “You’re doing well. Even Colonel Marona has nothing but praise for your teams. I understand you’re working a joint operation with him.”

“We've duplicated the Dominator relay we ‘borrowed’ from Veda. Coyote is altering them to let him talk to fragments that haven’t been entirely dominated, keeping it out of sight of the Dominator network. We hope. I'm working with Major Armstrong and we're planning a major operation to push into one of the contested zones and try to free the fragment. He'll provide the muscle and I've got a couple of teams who will handle installing the relays and dealing with surprises."

Grandpa nodded. "When will I see a strategy briefing?"

"Armstrong is working on it on his end. He should have it to you by tomorrow. Meanwhile, there's a smaller issue I wanted to bring up. Patriarch Kvaltash is petitioning us for more support."

"I thought you had teams dedicated to help him."

"We do, but I guess we've been too successful. His researchers have been unlocking all sorts of secrets. Our combat archaeologists are keeping a close eye on him and getting everything they can. It's apparently groundbreaking stuff. They're passing it along to our civilian experts. I'm not really in the loop there. But Kvaltash's team looted a couple of progenitor temples and found a clue. They're asking us to support an incursion into a particularly violently fragmented zone. The fragment there is on the verge of being pulled apart by two different dominators and it's fighting back hard. Kvaltash wants to get in before either of the dominators takes an upper hand. He needs our support."

"Sounds like it's entirely within our contracted scope," Grandpa said.

"I want to go along."

Grandpa's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

I held up a hand. "I'm not just looking for a quick thrill. You know I've been sitting behind my desk and making all of the meetings like a good little boy. Colonel Marona hasn't filed any complaints about me in weeks. It’s like the last mission I ran for Veda. Special circumstances."

"What are the special circumstances this time?"

“It sounds dangerous and I want to be prepared for things to go south, plus potentially politically sensitive. I'm planning to take the Gamer Squad. They're recovering as well as can be expected and they've handled several missions just fine on their own. This will be a chance for me to decide if they're ready to step back up and handle the really weird cases. Also, Kvaltash requested me specifically."

"You could have led with that."

Mila was sliding on her stomach down a playground slide. There were some advantages to this being a simulation of reality and not the real thing. The sun was shining, the day was warm, and she was sliding down a highly polished metal slide. In real life, the surface would have been hot enough that a responsible father should have been worried about her. In this case, I knew it was perfectly safe. This didn't keep her from letting out an ear-piercing squeal of happiness, though.

"When do you plan on running this?" Grandpa asked.

"Kvaltash wants to go as soon as possible. I've got the mission briefing all done up." I sent it over to Grandpa. His eyes flickered as he reviewed it.

"Looks good," he said. "I'll file this one under diplomatic relations and give you my stamp of approval."

I let out a sigh of relief. "Great."

We stood there watching my daughter play for a while and Grandpa straightened up. He stretched out, put a hand to his neck, turning it one way and the other. "Does feel good to be out of the office for a bit," he said quietly.

"Family dinners. Twice a week," I said firmly. "I'll have Coyote put them on both our schedules. Just because you're the commander doesn't mean you can't take a day off here and there to play with your granddaughter. Or at least a morning. You don't have to be working 160 hours a week."

"I will make sure this exploit goes well for Earth if it's the last thing I do," Grandpa said.

"Yeah?" I challenged. "What do you think Mila's going to care about in another ten years? That Grandpa was a hero of Earth or that Grandpa took her out to the park when she was little and helped her on the swings?"

"I just want to make sure there's a world for her when she grows up," Grandpa said quietly. "It's all I ever wanted and I keep messing it up."

I took a step forward, turning so I was looking him square in the face. "No, you haven’t. You've done just fine. It's not time to give up just yet. Stick around. I still need you."

He didn't reply. We stood there without speaking for a while until Mila got tired. Then Grandpa swooped in, scooping her up and offering to get her an ice cream from the NPC vendor we had passed on the way into the park.