Free Duty from Ashes by Sam Schal Page A

Mom.” Now it was her turn to hold a hand up. “You know as well as I do that I have my doubters. That’s only natural. But they’ve never really bothered me. I’ve had to deal with their kind my entire career. Unfortunately, you are right about how I’ve reacted to Hines and what he said and did. I’m not sure it would have hit me this hard if he hadn’t had Brodsky put Jake into the sim. But it did show a weakness, one I can’t afford to have on the battlefield. I froze when I saw Jake. That weakness could cost lives and I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else dying needlessly.”
    Instead of saying anything, Elizabeth activated the virtual keyboard on her desktop. Ash watched as she typed in a command sequence. A moment later, the holo screen over her desk activated and the vid of the training sim appeared. Ash watched, her stomach tightening, as her mother fast-forwarded to the end of the sim. As much as she wanted to look away, Ashlyn forced herself to watch.
    “Look.” Elizabeth paused the vid and highlighted the time code at the bottom of the holo display. “This is where you have gotten the child to safety. You haven’t figured out who he is and you are still doing what needs to be done. Right?”
    Ash studied the display, remembering how it had felt to run toward the safety of the barricade with the child cradled against her battle armor. She slid when Talbot told her to get down. At the same time and other members of the unit had opened fire on the remaining enemy. There hadn’t been many of them. Her people had done their jobs well and most had already been killed. But there were still stragglers, still danger to her people and the civilians they were trying to protect.
    “Now, watch how much time passes from when you realized who you held and when you called an end to the sim.”
    Elizabeth started the vid and Ash fought the urge to look away. Instead, she focused on the display and watched as the seconds ticked away. There! She looked down as the child refused to go with another member of her unit. One second. He looked up at her. Seeing his face on the screen was like being hit in the solar plexus. Two seconds. Recognition dawned on her. She could see it on her face, the disbelief followed by the anger. Three seconds. She looked around, her eyes scanning the area. Four seconds. She called for the sim to end.
    Four seconds from start to finish.
    God, it had felt like an eternity when it happened. Now, watching it replay on the vid, it had been nothing more than a few seconds. Could that be right?
    “Now, will you please quit beating yourself up for something that didn’t happen?” Elizabeth asked. “Before you answer, think about this: you identified, reacted and weighed the situation in less than four seconds from the moment you first looked down at the boy’s face. In that time, your senior NCO and your XO didn’t respond to the situation. Neither did anyone else on your team. So, if you persist in condemning yourself, you’d better get used to condemning them as well.”
    For a moment, all Ashlyn could do was look at her mother in disbelief, anger and resentment flaring. How dare she speak that way about her team! Then Ash realized it hadn’t been her mother talking to her. It had been Elizabeth in full senior officer mode. Swallowing hard, she did her best to think about what she’d just seen, not as the person involved but as a Marine. If it had been anyone else, she would have said pretty much what her mother had. Unfortunately, it was difficult to remove emotion from the equation, especially when that emotion was based not only on seeing her son inserted into the sim but also on the betrayal by Sorkowski and O’Brien that had cost so many their lives and had sent her and six others to the Tarsus penal colony.
    Damn it, how long was that going to whisper doubts in her ear?
    “You made your point.” She blew out a breath and leaned back, reaching for her mug. The coffee had