“It’s not optional.”
Colonel Taylor finished buckling his uniform and turned to leave his quarters. Just over six foot with thinning gray hair and a solid build, the Union Subdivision’s commander had spent his entire career leading special ops teams. Now, he ran one of the most covert in the Union. Time travel operatives—or, as they called themselves, timeslingers. Hector, also fully decorated in officer garb, followed Taylor into the hallway.
“Sir, the bomb didn’t even go off.”
Taylor stopped. “Did you know it wasn’t gonna go off?”
“That’s not the point, I–”
“Not one of the hostages was harmed. The XLS got a scrap of paper that they probably won’t be able to use—I confirmed that with our top scientists. And you dove on top of an explosive device to save your team and countless others. Sounds like uncommon valor to me.”
Taylor resumed walking. Hector fell into step.
“Anyone would have done it. My team–”
“But they didn’t. You did. You’re acting like this is a dentist appointment. It’s supposed to be an honor.”
“It’s my job, sir. I was trained to do this. It’s not uncommon valor.”
They strode through a maze of steel corridors that connected sets of classified underground buildings. Outside the intimate band of timeslingers, few knew that Union Subdivision Headquarters rested deep underground within a massive mountain range. As they neared the control room, Jessica intercepted them. Her expression was grave. She saluted.
“Sir. The prisoner, Eric Randolph, took his own life.”
Taylor cursed. “We learn anything from him?”
“Not much. Hadn’t been with XLS Phase Travel Operations long. His brother was killed in a riot just before the Los Alamos mission. May explain his erratic behavior.”
“Too bad.” Taylor rubbed his temple. “Give him our traditional military burial.”
“Sorry about the timing, Hector,” said Jessica.
“We could always cancel.”
Taylor smirked. Inside the control room, timeslingers and station operatives had gathered for the award ceremony. They began clapping as Hector entered.
“It’s gonna take more than that to ruin this party, hero.”
As if on cue, the alarm went off.
Here’s the contrast to XLS Phase Travel Operations. This was a cool installment to write because it reveals character through banter instead of action. Both are important, but since each installment has to have some area of interest, and since we don’t have many words to use, it’s difficult to work in characterization. It’s possible, but it has to be very interesting, it has to move the story forward, and it has to keep the reader’s attention. That made this installment a lot of fun to write. Plus, it’s the last one of Episode 0 (our preview, of sorts), so this is where we really start moving.
Hope you’re enjoying!