2073 - Space Corps Central Command Office
Exactly one week after General Harlow conducted those interviews, Victor was back. He sat in that same chair, in front of that same desk, staring at him once more. And this time, he’d been invited.
“What made you change your mind?” he asked.
Harlow wasn’t sure how to respond. There wasn’t much of a need, though, because his appearance spoke for him.
His uniform was a wrinkled mess because he’d slept in it. His hair was unkempt, and he looked as if he hadn’t so much as glanced in the mirror that morning, because he hadn’t. His eyes were ringed by dark circles that never seemed to go away, and although no one could see it, there was a ringing in his ears, a buzzing in his head, and visual auras dancing in the corners of his vision which usually meant a stress-induced migraine was incoming.
He saw no option but to tell the truth.
“I’m desperate,” he replied in a flat, emotionless tone. “If you must know, my decision was made at three o’clock in the morning, when I was still up working on this report, and I was nearly delirious from lack of sleep. It’s got no end in sight, and it needed to be finished weeks ago. And it probably would’ve been if I’d had help, but I’ve got no support staff working for me right now. Absolutely none. I’ve been doing it all on my own, and somehow I’ve managed, but this workload is going to kill me if it continues much longer.” He drummed his fingers on the desk, then spoke quietly. “I’ve barely left this office since my promotion, I can’t afford to take time off to find the help I need, and I’ve got a stack of unanswered inquiries over there that I’m starting to get calls about. Hell, I haven’t even processed your paperwork yet. You’re not supposed to be here today, but I need help that badly.”
Victor merely shrugged at this, and Harlow continued. “As much as I hate to admit it, you weren’t wrong. Everyone else I interviewed sounded as if they couldn’t get a simple coffee order right, much less the tasks I’ve got for them, and the few who displayed the slightest hint of promise are . . . unavailable. I need someone who can run this office in my absence, if necessary, with very little input, but some of them couldn’t even follow basic directions.” He took a deep breath and collected his thoughts. “I don’t like you, to put it mildly, but if there’s one thing I’ve never heard complaints about, it’s your ability to get things done. You’ve made some bold claims regarding your competency, and I’m willing to allow you the chance to make good on them. This is the only opportunity you’ll have, though, so I suggest you don’t waste it. You’ll be afforded no second chances—not with your history.”
Victor looked as if he might have something to say to this, but Harlow cut him off. “If you find that offensive, then by all means, feel free to prove you’re something besides a hopeless leech siphoning off my generosity.”
Victor briefly considered these words, then shifted in his seat and stared back with an equally emotionless gaze. “I can live with that. Now, what’s first on your list?”
“Do your job. That always comes first. I’d like to make a few things clear before you start.” Harlow leaned forward and met his eyes. “You’re here for work, and only work. Get your projects done as quickly and professionally as possible, and I’ll be courteous enough to ignore our past so long as you never bring it up. But let’s get one thing straight—you wouldn’t be here if I had any other option. I intend for this to be a temporary assignment before I replace you with someone I don’t utterly loathe. As I said, I don’t doubt your capability to do the job; you’re a fantastic worker when you want to be. It’s your personality that always seems to get in the way, and that’s the part of you I want nothing to do with. I want you to be damn near invisible in this office, and you’re not to speak to me about anything that’s not work-related. If that bothers you, you can leave. Understand?”
Victor nodded.
“And lastly,” Harlow scrutinized him carefully, “just assume everything in here is classified unless stated otherwise. I won’t explain the need for secrecy because I know you’re well aware of our security protocols, but you should never breathe a word of anything that happens in this room to anyone outside of it, no matter how inconsequential it may seem. You’re the only member of my staff right now, so if there’s a leak, I’ll know exactly where it came from. Is that understood?”
Victor nodded again.
“Good. Now, the first thing I have for you—the first of many—is this.” Harlow leaned back in his chair, grabbed a heavy notebook from the shelf behind him, and tossed it on the desk. “That’s a collection of transcripts from the regional commanders’ weekly briefings. Most are typed, but there’s a few handwritten notes in there too. It’s not ideal, but it’s the only version I could get ahold of because every other copy seems to have gone missing.”
Victor frowned. “Missing?”
“Yes; there’s quite a bit of corruption to be found there. It’s not the first time I’ve encountered records that were altered or destroyed.”
“Even at the senior command level?”
“Especially at the senior command level.” Harlow sighed. “I need to know exactly how much ordnance has made its way out there, but no one can tell me, not even the base commanders themselves. In some cases, the only logs that were kept were a few lines penciled into the margin of someone’s notes—probably so they could be erased later.”
He drummed his fingers on the desk to hide the fact that his hands were shaking, although whether it was from frustration or sheer exhaustion, he couldn’t say. “I don’t know whether to attribute their sloppy record-keeping to incompetence or malice, but the closer I look, the worse it seems to be. The Thirty-Ninth represents our largest volume of shipments by far, but they’ve got the worst loss record of all of them. We might as well be sending everything into a black hole.”
Victor frowned. “That sounds worse than incompetence, then. Do you think it’s being sold on the black market?”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“It’s crossed my mind. Lately, they’ve found themselves surrounded by some very well-armed militias and quite a bit of gang activity—details I’m not content to attribute to coincidence. If they’re arming the very same groups we’ve been sent there to suppress, it would at least partially explain why they’ve suffered such heavy casualties, and why their commanders have been extremely uncooperative. Some provisions are always going to go missing, and we account for that, but it couldn’t happen at the scale I suspect unless their leadership has been covering it up—or worse, became complicit. And since those bases are now under my command, I need to know exactly what they’re hiding.” He nodded at the notebook. “If there’s been a cover-up, I’m hoping the evidence will be in there.”
Victor shifted in his seat. “How will that look, though, if the Council’s freshest general uncovers a corruption scheme?”
Harlow merely shrugged, and Victor continued. “You can’t be the first to have noticed. I’ll bet you anything, some of your cohorts on the Council have become experts at losing paperwork.”
Harlow sighed. “None of this is going into my official report, but I need to know, at the very least. I can’t deliver anything even remotely resembling an accurate assessment without it.”
“That won’t reflect well on you, though, if you’re not faking numbers like everyone else.”
Harlow looked away. “They hate me anyway, so what difference does it make?” he said quietly. There was a brief pause, then he nodded at the notebook. “That’s an unreliable source, but it represents the most substantial evidence I’ve found so far. If they come asking further questions, I’ll simply default to the incomplete reports I was given.”
Victor glanced at the notebook. “Speaking of, how’d you get that? I know they didn’t surrender it voluntarily.”
Harlow gave him a warning look. “There are some things, Victor, that even you won’t be privy to.”
Victor shrugged. “Fine. Seems an odd project for a general to be working on personally, though. You could’ve assigned it to someone else.”
Harlow didn’t respond, and Victor studied him carefully.
“You don’t trust anyone, do you?” he asked.
Harlow chose not to answer, but Victor’s gaze was unrelenting.
“This is a far cry from the Europa Station,” he said.
“What?” Harlow frowned.
“The Europa Station,” Victor repeated. “I remember; that’s why you joined. This, here—” he motioned at the disarrayed piles of paperwork on Harlow’s desk, “—this is about as far away from that dream as you can get.”
Harlow was silent for a long time.
“You know,” he began, “sometimes you’re right, and when you are, you’re better at it than anyone else. It’s too bad you did so much wrong.”
Victor said nothing.
Harlow took a deep breath, looked away, and continued absently. “Were you aware,” he began, “that the entire project was almost abandoned? The Europa Station, I mean.”
Victor frowned and shook his head, and Harlow gave a slight nod. “That’s why the financials are classified, and why it’s more of a tourist destination than a research hub. They had severe budget overruns, and when it was 85 percent complete they exhausted all of their financing. The only reason it didn’t become a floating pile of scrap metal was because Richard Gray personally funded the remainder in exchange for some revisions to the design. One of his demands was top-of-the-line luxury suites for senior officers and guests. But the floor plan had a fixed square footage, so everyone else—enlisted, cadets, junior officers, scientists—was relegated to cramped quarters and windowless offices on the lower floors, leaving the grand atrium and the spectacular views to those who were paying a premium for it.” He sighed. “That’s why it’s being pitched as the pinnacle of spacefaring luxury. It had to turn a profit.”
Victor stared at the floor. “I never knew,” he said. “All we were told was that construction was taking longer than expected.”
There was another long silence.
“You were right,” Harlow finally said. “You warned me, and I didn’t listen. But I don’t think any warning would’ve been enough, no matter where it came from. I’m stubborn like that.” He took a deep breath. “There’s a reason I’m still here, Victor. I’m holding on to some small sliver of hope that I can turn this place around. It’s dwindling by the day, but it’s still there, and I’m not letting go. Not yet.” He sighed. “And as for the Europa Station . . . if I ever fix this place, that’s the first thing I’ll do. I’ll shift the majority of our operations out there. That was our original purpose, not these land-based engagements we’ve found ourselves caught up in.” He took a deep breath and sat up straighter. “But that’s not what we’re here to talk about that today. Now, I want you to go through every single one of those transcripts. Any reference to ordnance, provisions, or shipments of any sort needs to be highlighted.” He nodded at the notebook. “Get to work.”
So Victor did. He picked up the book, retreated to a more comfortable chair in the corner of the room, and spent the rest of the day skimming pages, sifting through hastily scrawled notes, and highlighting relevant passages, taking only a short break for lunch.
After ten hours had gone by, Harlow nodded in his direction and pointed at the door.
“You want me to leave?” Victor asked. “I’m not done, and I know you’re not either. I can stay longer.”
“Yes, but I’d prefer not to look at you,” Harlow replied.
Victor paused for a moment, then nodded, stood up, and left, taking the notebook with him. He didn’t go far, though. He stopped at the desk in the entryway, just out of Harlow’s sight, took a seat, and continued working. By the next morning he’d finished it, and when the time came for the beginning of his shift, he walked in and set the notebook on the desk.
Harlow was already there, of course, looking exactly as expected for one who’d spent the night in that office yet again.
He studied the book, then glanced up at Victor. “You’re done, I take it?”
Victor nodded. “There were seventy-five large shipments over the course of the past few months, as well as hundreds of smaller ones, plus several requests that went unfilled. There were even a few deliveries sent there by mistake, but they signed for them anyway.” He motioned toward the volume, and the torn pieces of paper he’d used to mark the pages. “I’ve highlighted all of them.”
“Have you compiled them into a formatted document yet?”
“No.”
“Then what use is that to me?”
Victor paused, then nodded again. “I’ll get to it,” he said, reaching for the notebook.
“No, it’s fine,” Harlow sighed as he picked it up and tossed it into a nearby stack. “What I really need today is to address those inquiries. Go through the pile, pull out anything that demands my immediate attention, and answer the rest. Make whatever phone calls you have to; I don’t care at this point. Just get it done.”
Victor glanced at the overflowing box, then nodded. He grabbed the pile, retreated to that same chair, and began sorting. By the end of the day he’d cleared half of it, and before he left, he set a significantly smaller—and far better organized—stack on the desk.
“These are the only ones you need to look at,” he said, handing over five sheets of paper. “The rest I’ve either taken care of, or I’ll address tomorrow.”
Harlow scanned the pile, then glanced back up at him. “I’m not going to lie—this has been an impressive first few days,” he said. “We’ll see if you fall back into your usual pattern, though. Please forgive my lack of faith, but I don’t expect you to last more than a few weeks.”
Victor shrugged. “I’m just here to do my job, and nothing more, remember?”
“Yes, and I appreciate the effort, but it’s going to take better than that. You’ve got to prove you deserve my trust—or anyone’s, for that matter—and given your history, I’m not sure you ever can.”
Victor frowned and looked away. “I’m doing my best. I’m not sure what else to say.”
“I’d prefer you said nothing. Just show up tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that, and see how long you can keep it up without any disasters, scandals, or meltdowns. Can you manage that?”
Victor nodded.
“Good. Prove it. You’re dismissed, and against my better judgment, I’ll see you in the morning.”