Free All the Colors of Time by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

Gorbi?
    “Well, do your best, Vinnie,” urged the Admiral. “Of course,
you always do. Then, when this is all over, why don’t you take a nice vacation
somewhere sunny and warm?”
    “Oh, sure. So I can come back and do it all over again next
year!”
    “Well, you could transfer to Yosemite in the spring. We’ll
be sending in a couple of battalions to rebuild.”
    “Yeah,” sighed Dreyfus. “I like trees.”
    Caldwell shook his head. The conversation was getting hard
to follow. His assumptions about the situation shifted beneath him like dune
sand as he tried to make sense out of it.
    Admiral Halleck signed off, then and turned her attention to
Krasnik and his machine. “Show and tell time, Mr. Krasnik,” she said.
    In response, the officer touched an instrument panel on one
side of the machine’s black base. The column of muted light became a colorful
multi-leveled sea of three-dimensional images, flowing in stately
waves—advancing, retreating.
    They reminded Hilyard of the “plasma clouds” he used to
generate as a kid, using fractal equations on the family computer.
    Krasnik tapped and keyed and adjusted and the images settled
into patterns that almost made sense. Vibrant green formed hills and vales
below wisps and billows of subtly changing hues.
    Hilyard frowned and leaned farther out over the rail,
flicking a glance at his superior officer.
    “And who have we here?” asked the Admiral, nodding at the 3D
display.
    “This is Mariella.” Krasnik indicated a violently eddying
orange area high in one corner. “And this,”—he indicated the rolling greens— “is
the coastal area we’re afraid will be hardest hit when she rolls ashore.”
    Halleck frowned. “Poor Cuba. That’s twice in three years.
What’s the prognosis for Florida?”
    “Not so good, if this continues to gain velocity. This mass
here,”—he gestured with a sweeping, circular motion—“is strengthening rapidly.
We may be looking at a full-fledge blow before tomorrow morning.”
    Caldwell’s stare changed to a stunned scowl.
    “What’re the chances of seeding her to force the
precipitation?”
    Krasnik shrugged. “Cuba’s on it. Along with a wing of storm
bombers from Mexico. We can but pray and send troops to help Florida batten
down.”
    Admiral Halleck nodded. “Too bad we can’t get Mariella to
dump her load on Yosemite. Coax Nature to put out her own fires. Wouldn’t that
be poetic justice?”
    “We’re working on it,” said Krasnik soberly.
    Caldwell’s fists tightened on the catwalk rail. Confusion
and anger swept up from his gut in a hot spray, warring with something
blasphemously like relief.
    “I’ve seen enough,” he whispered and went to the Grid.
    oOo
    “What the hell was that place? Where the hell did they
send us?” Caldwell turned on Hilyard the moment he stepped off the Grid. “It
sure as hell wasn’t a War Room!”
    Hilyard blinked at him, feeling only slightly disoriented. “No
sir, of course not. It was a Tactical Center.”
    “That was no Tactical Center like I’ve ever seen, Major.”
    “No sir. I don’t imagine anyone else has ever seen one like
it either.”
    “And that—and that holographic machine—some sort of—of—”
    “It was an atmospheric model, sir.”
    “A what?”
    “An atmospheric model. A three dimensional projection of—”
    “Yeah, yeah... Doctor!” Caldwell launched himself at
Oslovski as she stepped into the room. “Where did you send me? What was that
place?”
    Oslovski glanced from Caldwell to Hilyard. “We sent you to a
Tactical Center, just as you requested.” She spread her hands in a gesture of
bemusement. “I can’t tell you more than that. You were there just now, I wasn’t.”
    Caldwell swung back to Hilyard. “Major, what do you make of
it? What was that all about?”
    “I’d say sir,” said Hilyard, his voice soft and almost
patient, “that we were sent to a military Tactical Center. I’d also say that
they seemed to be fighting