Red Sky At Morning - DK4 (34 page)

The new officer, whose name was apparently Plodget, looked behind her, evaluating the question seriously. “A few of them, ma’am.

It’s always the same. Most aren’t much use, but we always do find a few that’ll make it.”

“What’s your dropout rate?”

A guarded look fell over the woman’s face. “I wouldn’t know, ma’am.”

“Ballpark,” Dar pressed. “I’m sure you’ve got a feeling as to how many of these poor saps you lose.”

“No, ma’am, I don’t,” Plodget assured her. “We only get them for the first two weeks, then someone else takes over.”

“Why?”

“That’s just how it’s done, ma’am.”

Dar nodded slowly. “Where are their admitting records?”

“Haven’t gotten here yet.”

“Why not? You guys use a computer system to recruit. What’s the holdup?”

Unemotional dark brown eyes met hers squarely. “That’s just how it’s done, ma’am.”

“All right.” Dar straightened. “I’ll just go see if I can’t change that for you.”

Dar turned and walked away, feeling the eyes on her back as she headed for the Admittance Center. She ducked inside with a feeling of relief and went to the computer console, seating herself in front of it and cracking her knuckles slightly. “Okay. Answer time.” She logged in, and this time, instead of going through the regular channels, she keyed in a master code. “Idiots.” The code still worked, and dropped her to a command line. “Where do you want to go today, hmm?”

Master database was where Dar wanted to go, and a string of commands got her there. She accessed the file structure and entered it 184
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through a back door, watching as the screen filled with line upon line of file records. Dar watched it for a few minutes, her eyes flicking back and forth searching for a certain pattern.

Ah.
One long finger stopped the display. “Gotcha.” She keyed in another command string and accessed the recruits’ records, bringing them up and comparing them.

Her brow creased. “What in the hell?” Of the twenty, ten were, as the petty officer said, fairly standard, pretty much ordinary kids from lower-class backgrounds, with bad grades and poor ASVAB test results—destined, if they did make it, to be shipped out as seamen or women in whatever grunt job the Navy needed when they spit them out of training. Dar had known hundreds like them. Some might, she admitted, if they worked very hard, break through the ranks and ascend higher, but most would happily fill a berth and take three squares a day for as long as the US was willing to give it to them.

“What in the hell?” she repeated, then shook her head and captured the data, opening a second command page with a flick of her fingers.

She snagged the files she’d been studying and zipped them, then sent them up the network path into her own, now specially protected file space.

Dar drummed her fingertips on the keyboard for a moment, then searched another file, working from instinct and an innate knowledge of these systems, the core of which she’d helped design all those years ago.

There. She stared at the results.
I thought I saw something wrong. I
thought those accounts didn’t match.
One column of the screen showed a normal series of general ledger listings, the other a list of twenty accounts that weren’t linked anywhere she could find. She called one up, looking at the account balance, which was well into seven figures.

The entries were regular, and substantial, and manually keyed, because there was no equivalent ledger account to charge them off against.

A bucket. A bucket full of money, which nothing in this system could account for.

Dar sat back, her heartbeat picking up.
What in the hell have I found?

“Hey, Dar!”

She almost jumped at Chuckie’s cheerful greeting. Her eyes lifted to see him approaching, and she quickly closed the file and sent it to her file space, then closed out of the command windows she was using just as he rounded the console and peered over her shoulder. “Hey.”

“Whatcha doing?” He looked curiously at the innocuous admitting records. “New spuds?”

“Yeah.” Dar licked her lips, then signed out of the system. “Just checking them out. Interesting group.” Her peripheral vision focused on his face, but saw nothing but benign interest. “You ever see what they’re bringing in these days?”

“Nah.” Chuckie slung a long, powerful arm over her shoulders.

“Hey, we were figuring to go over to the Longhorn steakhouse tonight,
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that okay by you? Your daddy’s a steak man, if I remember right.”

Dar took a breath, and released it. “Yep, he sure is. My mother’s going to pitch a fit, but I guess she can get a potato or something.” She managed a smile. “She’s a vegetarian...unless they’ve got fish there.”

“Fish?” Chuckie snorted. “You must be kidding. But, yeah, they’ve got potatoes, and I think they’ve got some kinda green beans or something. How ’bout your main squeeze, he a veggie lover, too?”

Something twitched in Dar’s brain. “She.” The word came out in a calm voice, unexpectedly. “And no, Kerry’s as carnivorous as I am.”

Chuckie went very still, his eyes fastened on Dar’s face for a long, long moment. Then he slowly removed his arm and stepped back.

“What?”

Dar allowed a hint of amusement to reach her lips, and she turned on the stool, leaning against the console with one elbow. “You heard me.” She watched his face, watched the expression go from consternation to uncertainty to a detectable disgust, then back to a stillness.
So
. Dar felt vaguely disappointed.

“You’re gay?” Chuckie asked stiffly.

“That’s right,” Dar confirmed. “Don’t worry, you didn’t cause that,” she added with a faint smile. “C’mon, Chuck. Rise above your redneck roots.”

He looked at his shoes, shock evident in his posture. Then he lifted his gaze and met her eyes, briefly, before he shook his head. “That’s fucked up,” he said, then turned and walked out, not looking back even once.Dar sat back and folded her arms over her suddenly aching chest, surprised at just how much that had hurt.

KERRY PULLED UP to the gate of the base, rolling her window down and preparing her argument for the stolid-looking guard who approached.

“Hey, No Neck, open the damn gate,” Andrew rasped from beside her, poking his head truculently out at the hapless man. “’Fore I get out of this here car and break it.”

The guard stopped, stared, then his eyes lit up with unmistakable joy. “Commander Andy!” He almost tripped over himself trying to get the barrier open. “Wow, I didn’t know you were comin’ down here!

Wait ’til I tell the guys!”

Hmm.
Kerry watched amusedly as the man waved like a child at her passenger.
Guess it does depend on who you know around this place.
“He wasn’t nearly that nice to Dar,” she commented. “She had to get rough with him.”

Andrew leaned over her and pinned the guard with a pair of ice blue eyes. “That right, No Neck? You give mah kid a hard time?”

The guard looked terminally wounded. “Not after she said who she 186
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was, sir! If she’d have just said right off, we’d have let her right in!”

“Uh-huh.” Andrew sat back. “G’wan, Kerry. Let’s get this land boat parked so I can see what a mess they made of this here joint.”

“You got it, Dad.” Kerry drove on, finding Dar’s Lexus in the lot and selecting a spot right next to it. She was glad she was here. Her stomach upset had been getting worse for the last while, and she was seriously looking forward to seeing her partner and satisfying her curiosity as to whether she was the cause. She got out, waited for her passengers to do the same, then locked the doors. “Dar has a little office upstairs in the big building. I’ll go find her if you guys want to check this place out.”

“She take you over to our old place?” Andrew asked.

“Sort of.” Kerry grinned. “I’ll explain later. Be right back.” She trotted off toward the headquarters building, leaving her in-laws behind to revisit old memories. The guard respected the ID she’d clipped to her collar and opened the door, and she made her way up the stairs and down the hall. The door to Dar’s temporary office was closed, and she paused, then knocked lightly on it.

For a moment, there was no answer, then Dar’s voice responded.

“Yeah?”

I knew it.
Kerry pushed the door open and stuck her head inside.

One look at Dar’s face and she quickly stepped past the portal and closed it behind her, crossing the floor and circling the desk to kneel at her lover’s side. “Hey.”

Dar had her head propped up on one hand. “Hey,” she answered softly. “Hope your day was better than mine.”

Kerry put a gentle hand on Dar’s knee and rubbed it. “What’s wrong?” She could see the tension and unhappiness written all over her partner’s face, and she stood and perched on the desk edge to get closer.

“Sweetheart?”

Dar exhaled and put her head down on Kerry’s thigh, wordlessly seeking comfort. She closed her eyes as the blonde woman responded, threading fingers through her hair and rubbing the back of her neck.

“Sorry,” she mumbled. “I told Chuck about us.”

“Oh.” Kerry’s own eyes closed in sympathy. “Not a good reaction, huh?”

“No.”

Kerry leaned over and kissed the top of Dar’s head, giving her as much of a hug as she could in their somewhat awkward position. “I’m sorry.”

Dar exhaled. “I don’t even know why I should care, Kerry. I haven’t talked to him in what...ten years? It’s not like he’s a close friend, even.”

She put a hand on Kerry’s knee and rubbed her thumb against the denim covering it. “Damn, it stung, though.”

“I know.” Kerry kept up her light massage on Dar’s neck, moving lower as she felt the tension knotting her shoulders. “I wish you’d have
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just let them...”

Dar shook her head. “No.” She lifted her head up off Kerry’s lap and met her eyes. “You are my partner, and God damn it, if they can’t deal with that, to hell with them all.” Her blue eyes glinted fiercely. “I am
not
ashamed of this.”

Kerry stroked her cheek gently. “I know you aren’t. I’m not either.

It’s just hard, Dar. We both know that. We’ve both been so lucky there have been people in our lives who do accept us, who accept this without question, to balance the idiots who don’t.”

Dar sighed and put her head back down for more soothing. “Yeah, I realize that.” She closed her eyes. “My folks here?”

“Mm-hmm.” Kerry paid particular attention to a knot she could feel in Dar’s neck and saw the wince as she pressed on it. “You need a chiropractor, love.”

“Hot tub,” Dar countered. “With you in it.”

Kerry rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “You are so stubborn.”

“Family trait.”

“You’re lucky I love your family.” Kerry leaned over and kissed the spot on Dar’s neck, then nibbled her earlobe, getting a soft grunt of surprise in return. “Come on, let’s get this dinner over with. I missed my snuggle this morning, and I’ve been cranky all day.”

Finally, Dar smiled, turning her head and peering up at Kerry’s face. “Me, too.” She sat up and gave Kerry’s knee a squeeze, then stood.

“You’re right. Let’s get this over with.” Her voice paused as she shut her computer down. “Because tomorrow, we’re going to find out just exactly why this place stinks to high heaven.”

IT WAS OBVIOUS that Chuckie had told his father. Even at a distance, Dar could see the discomfort in the three people waiting for them. She took a breath and tugged on her father’s sleeve. “Dad?”

“Yep?” Andrew finished closing the door and peered at her.

“What’s up, Dardar?”

“I think we’re going to have a problem.” She lowered her voice, glancing across the car where Kerry and Ceci were getting out on the other side. “I...don’t think Jeff and his family appreciate my lifestyle.”

Andrew looked over at the waiting group, then at her. “’Cause you drive a fancy car?”

Dar rubbed her nose. “Not that lifestyle,” she amended. “I meant Kerry and me.”

Her father considered that. “Huh. That might be true,” he admitted. “Jeff never did take to anyone who didn’t fit his idea of what was right and natural.” They walked slowly around the front of the car, joining Kerry and Ceci. “C’mere, kumquat.” Andrew put a genial arm across Kerry’s shoulders and the other over Dar’s. “Let’s go.”

Ceci gave him a curious look, then caught on and slipped to the 188
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other side of Kerry, tucking an arm around her waist. “All righty, then,”

she agreed. “Ah. A steakhouse. How Republican.”

“Hey,” Kerry objected jokingly. “I’m the one who eats vegetables.”

She poked a finger at Dar. “Unlike her.”

They chuckled and walked toward the restaurant. Dar felt a little silly, but she could see the exchange of glances as Jeff took in their posture, the look on her father’s face, and the very obvious acceptance of both her and Kerry inherent in their body language.
Sometimes,
she mused,
I underestimate my parents.
The thought made her smile, and she slid an arm around her father’s waist and gave him a squeeze.

“’Lo there, Jeff,” Andrew drawled as they arrived in front of the door. “Been a while.”

“Andy,” the officer acknowledged quietly, shifting his eyes slightly. “Cecilia, good to see you.”

Ceci looked him right in the eye and smiled. “Same here. Nice to have these little family get-togethers, isn’t it?” She nodded at Jeff’s wife.

“Hello, Sue. Have you met Kerrison? No? Why don’t we go inside and catch up.”

It would
, Kerry sighed inwardly,
be almost comical if it were happening
to someone else
. They all walked stiffly inside and were taken to a waiting table, where Kerry found herself seated between Ceci and Andrew and across from the dour-looking Chuck. For a moment she felt very sad, because she knew this should have been a happy occasion.

Then her common sense kicked in and she straightened, cupping her hands around her water glass. Her eyes met the commander’s calmly.

“As a matter of fact...” she answered Ceci’s question, “the commander and I have met. In fact, we had lunch together.”