* * *
“I don’t know,” said Danielle. She glanced up from the circuits she was soldering. “Maybe he’s just off checking out other cities or something again.”
St. George threw his head back and sighed with relief. “That’s what I said.”
The redhead bent to her work again. “Besides, what could they even do to him? He’s probably invulnerable to everything they’ve got on this base, even with all the super-soldiers.”
“Zzzap is,” said Stealth. “Barry is not.”
“Look,” said St. George, “we’ll ask the colonel about it again at this meeting. Until then, I think we need to let this drop. I don’t want to mess anything up with accusations and then have Barry show up half an hour later bragging he spent the night racing between Hubble and the space station. Okay?”
Stealth gave him a look he could sense through her mask. The one that meant she thought he was being foolish. “Very well, George,” she said. “If you feel this is the correct path, I shall defer to your judgment.”
Danielle finished her work on the circuit board, blew on it, and removed it from the small clamps. She lowered it into a box that resembled a small metal coffin and reached in with a screwdriver to fasten the board in place. “In happier news,” she said, “I realized something.”
“Please,” said St. George, “share the happier news.”
The redhead glanced at Stealth. “You know what I said yesterday about not wanting to do all these repairs and upgrades because I thought it’d feel like giving up?”
The cloaked woman gave a single nod.
“Well, starting this last night didn’t feel like giving up,” said Danielle. “It made me feel guilty.”
St. George tilted his head. “Guilty?”
“I should’ve been doing all this stuff months ago. It’s easy work. I had enough of the parts.” She glanced up from her work again. “And people were depending on me. That’s been stuck in the back of my mind all morning.”
Danielle pulled the screwdriver away and picked up a studded metal plate the size of a hardcover book. It had a shaft on the back that slotted into something inside the little coffin. There was a loud clack as it settled into place.
“Shelly was right,” she said. “I wasn’t supposed to be the one in the suit. But I volunteered for it. I wanted to be Cerberus, and that’s who I am now. And I think I’m needed at the Mount a lot more than here.”
“I am pleased to hear your decision,” said Stealth.
St. George rapped a knuckle on the steel box. “So what is this, anyway?”
The redhead gave a wicked grin. “It’s a new weapons mount to replace the one Peasy tore off. I’ve been playing with this thing in my head and on paper for almost two years. I might be able to have another one built and both installed by tomorrow.”
St. George smiled. “Just in time to go home?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I think so.”
* * *
“Colonel Shelly got tied up with some administrative things,” said Smith. Today’s suit was charcoal gray with a crimson tie. “He asked if I could go over things with you in his place.”
Stealth crossed her arms. “This meeting is such a low priority he could neither attend himself nor send one of his staff?”
“Is that a problem?”
Stealth glared at the young man for a moment. Her head shifted in the hood as she glanced at St. George. He could see the effort it took her to relax. “No,” she said. “It is not.”
“Good,” said Smith. “Thank you.”
“We’ve got a couple questions, too,” said St. George. “A few things we want to double-check with you.”
“Do you mind if we do these first?” Smith held up a clipboard covered with scrawled phrases and sentences. “I’ll answer anything you want afterwards. I’ve just got a lot of this fresh in my mind and I don’t want to miss anything.”
A twist of gray smoke curled out of the hero’s nose. “I suppose so.”
“Thanks.” Smith looked at his notes. “Now, what’s going to happen over the next few weeks is an assessment, just like I mentioned back at the Mount. The Army’s going to look at your defenses and make sure they’re adequate for the threat we’re facing. If they are, great. If not, they’ll help improve them. Odds are they’ll just leave you to keep running things the way you have. You’re doing fine, so why mess with something that’s not broken, right?”
St. George gave Stealth a cautious glance. “Okay,” he said.
“Can we depend on the Army for medical supplies and ammunition?”
“Resources gets more complicated,” Smith told her, “but medical supplies are a definite yes. That includes some food and vitamin supplements, as well. The military will do an inventory and see what you already have. They’re going to give you supplies for the Mount, but they’re also going to need some things in return, just so you know.”
Stealth shifted in her chair. “Such as?”
“Well, people for starters. They’re going to have a recruitment drive, just like they had when they rescued people from Yuma. The Army needs soldiers right now, and odds are there are a few thousand eligible people in your Los Angeles population.”
“Eligible,” repeated Stealth. “Are you initiating a draft?”
“No,” said Smith. “Sorry. Poor word choice on my part. It’s completely voluntary. But you figure even if ten percent of your people decide they want to sign up, that’s over two thousand people.”
“A generous estimate.”
“Actually, going off how the survivors from Yuma reacted, it might be low. I also understand from one of your security people, Sergeant Billie Carter, there are a number of Marines living in the Mount and the surrounding complexes.”
“Yeah,” said St. George. “About a dozen of them, counting her. Their platoon flew out to LA with Cerberus and stayed with us because…well, they didn’t have anywhere else to go. A few have died since then. We’ve also got seventeen National Guardsmen, two Navy guys, and a retired Air Force general.”
“Didn’t know about those last ones,” muttered Smith, checking over his list. He scribbled a note in the margin. “Anyway, point is they’re all going to be called back to active duty and returned to military command. It’s a stop-loss situation.”
“The stop-loss provision applies only to currently active personnel,” said Stealth, “and can only be enacted by the President.”
He shook his head. “Special provisions. They can pull back anyone who ever served if the situation calls for it. When martial law was declared, it went into effect automatically.”
“Unpleasant, but not surprising,” said Stealth. “Continue.”
Smith tapped a finger on the edge of the clipboard. “Okay, like I said, they don’t have any trouble leaving you in charge, but they want to make sure everything’s on the up-and-up.”
St. George sighed. “Is this about Christian Nguyen?”
“Sort of. The Army’s lawyers are going to go over how you’ve been running things, look at this government you’re putting together, and make sure it doesn’t violate anyone’s rights.”
“The Army has lawyers?”
“Oh, yeah. Tons of them. There’s three here on Krypton. They’re also going to take custody of any prisoners you have and give them a trial under the military justice system.”
“No.”
St. George looked at Stealth, and then his own shoulders tensed. “Yeah,” he said, “there might be a problem with that. Some of our prisoners are…special cases.”
“It’s not an optional thing,” said Smith.
“It is not,” agreed the cloaked woman. “Prisoners shall be released on a case by case basis. This is not up for debate.”
He reached up and gave his tie a small tweak. “I’ll have to talk with Colonel Shelly about that.” Smith flipped to another page of notes. “I think it’s also understandable that they want the Cerberus system.”