CHAPTER 26

THE ASSIGNMENT

Mission Assignment

The extract rewound and began again with the image of the interior of the conference room on the ARGO. Jason entered and turned, holding out a hand. "This will do, I think, Cardinal. Please, have a seat." The man they now knew to be an imposter entered and looked around the room before taking a seat at the conference table. He was dressed in a plain, dark business suit rather than the elaborate robes customary to the members of the High Council.

Jason brought over a tray. "Coffee, tea?" he asked politely. His guest declined so he poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down. "Now, what can I do for you? Your message was, to say the least, vague."

The Cardinal pulled out a document. "This will explain everything," he replied, handing over the paper and patiently waiting as the Prince read it.

"The Glyateven?" Jason said in distaste. "What does that militaristic lot need me for?"

"It seems they've lost one of their prison ships."

Jason gave him a disbelieving look. "Lost it? How do you lose a prison ship?"

"It wasn't so much lost as it was stolen. Somehow the prisoners managed to take it over and then went and crash landed on a planet called Eldeberon."

"Great. How many aboard?"

"Nearly four-hundred."

"And what do you want me to do, exactly?" the Alterran asked sarcastically. "Ask them nicely to get back on their ship and find another planet to terrorize?"

"Eldeberon is incapable of interstellar travel," the Time Lord informed. "And the ship was badly damaged in the crash."

"Yes, I thought it might've been," the Prince muttered darkly. "Cardinal, I'm already in the middle of preparing something else."

"Yes, I do apologize for having to pull you away like this. But I think you can appreciate that the matter is rather pressing."

Jason sighed heavily and looked back at the paper in his hand. "It's going to take at least a day to get my team back—"

"No team. This is a one man operation."

Jason looked up sharply. "All my missions appear as a one man operation."

"No, I mean literally one man."

The Alterran stared at the man opposite him. "You want me to go in alone?" he said in disbelief. "Among those bloody lunatics? Are you out of your mind?"

"A plan's already been devised for you," the Cardinal replied happily. "You're a Healer. The perfect cover."

"Cover for what?"

"To inject a retrieval tag subcutaneously."

"Retrieval tag?" the Prince repeated dully. "You mean…like a signal marker?"

"Precisely. Once you've done that, the Glyateven military will be able to locate them and transport them from the planet. They get their prisoners back and Eldeberon is free of alien interference. Simple. You'll be in and out and back to your current assignment in no time." The false Wythe paused. "What do you say?"

"I say no," Jason said firmly. "Look, Cardinal, I realize there's a diplomatic tap dance going on with the Glyateven, but no."

"My dear Ambassador, we can't just turn our backs on them."

"We? When did this become we? Your lot doesn't even get involved, and now suddenly I'm to do it for the team?" Jason said in annoyance. "The Glyateven are a bunch of militaristic fanatics. And you want me to infiltrate a shipload of their escaped prisoners. Alone. They're all probably homicidal psychopaths, paranoid schizophrenics, or worse. That's not a mission, it's suicide!"

The Time Lord chuckled. "Your Emperor says you make similar protests before every assignment you accept."

Jason blinked and sat back in his chair, his tone softening, "The Emperor? Why didn't you say he's the one who sent you?"

"Ah, well, to be strictly honest, he didn't."

"Oh great," the Alterran moaned. "It's going to be one of those."

"Yes. All your instructions are there. You're to contact no one other than myself."

"Alright, alright, I know the drill." Jason sighed. He considered the situation and looked up. "When am I supposed to leave? Now, I suppose."

The Time Lord grinned as he got to his feet. "I knew you wouldn't let me down," he said cheerfully. "The boxes containing the retrieval tags are outside." He held out his hand and the Alterran looked at it a moment before heading for the door.

"Outside, you say?" Jason said as he left the room.

oOo

When the recording ended, the Doctor paused, looking over at the prosecutor who was getting to his feet. Time to play to the crowd again, he thought unkindly.

"Your highness, is it usual for you to receive a…mission in the manner we've just seen?" Fitzhugh asked mildly.

"There is no usual method," Jason replied calmly.

"Individuals come to you at all hours of the day and night, is that what you're saying?"

"No. I'm saying there is no usual method."

"But it was unusual to be asked to go alone?"

"Yes."

Fitzhugh smiled as if he had made some spectacular conclusion. "Have you ever been asked to go anywhere alone?"

"This was the first time," Jason replied, making certain not to give the prosecutor anything to latch on to.

"Didn't you think that odd?"

Jason paused. "It wasn't my decision to make."

"That wasn't my question."

"My lord prosecutor, I've done everything from infiltrate a terrorist group to head up an intergalactic peace summit. Every mission I get strikes me as odd."

"I see," Fitzhugh replied thoughtfully. "Just one more question. Why didn't you shake his hand?"

"Sorry?"

"You maintain that you believed the individual in this recording to be Cardinal Wythe, a senior member of the High Council. Yet you refused to shake his hand. Why?"

"I wish I had. Then none of this nightmare would've happened," the Prince muttered darkly, receiving a bewildered look in reply. "I didn't shake his hand because at the time, I thought he was a Time Lord," he replied, to the further bewilderment of his listeners, and the muttered disapproval of the assembled observers.

Fitzhugh paused before asking in an accusing tone, "You have a problem with Time Lords, your highness?"

Jason gave the Doctor a quick sideways glance, seeing him roll his eyes. Obviously, he too thought this to be a ridiculous question under the present circumstances. "No. I have a problem with time auras," he replied. "Especially unfamiliar ones."

The prosecutor exchanged a puzzled look with Eustis, causing the Doctor to intervene. "My lord, Prince Jason can detect the presence of a time aura on touch. His power to scan anything he touches was thoroughly studied and documented some years ago. Under normal circumstances, he must initiate the scan himself. In the case of a Time Lord, our time aura triggers the scan on contact. That's how he detected the pacemaker in me. I triggered the scan when I touched him."

"I should like to see this documentation, Doctor," Eustis replied sharply.

"It was included in the packet supplied yesterday, my lord," the Doctor informed innocently. He had given the Inquisitor and prosecutor so much documentation that he doubted they had even looked at half of it.

The Inquisitor pulled out the paperwork and skimmed through it, his eyebrows going up as he learned exactly what Jason's scanning ability encompassed. Looking up, he said, "Your explanation is noted, Doctor. Do you have any further questions, Lord Fitzhugh?"

Fitzhugh was reading his own copy of the document and looked up, a stunned look on his face. He pulled off his spectacles and set them back on the podium. "Er…no, my lord," he said at last.

"Proceed, Doctor."