Never before had six hours seemed so much like six days. The only other time that came close was during the selection process for RRTS. The final evaluation had been a series of brutal endurance tests combined with live fire training exercises and logic quizzes all on next to no sleep. By the end – seconds seemed like minutes, minutes seemed like hours and hours seemed like an eternity. While the physical brutality might not ever be matched again, the psychological assault of that time seemed to fade in comparison to this moment.

John Grimm was not a man to sit around wallowing in self-pity or doubts. He was prepared to make split-second life or death decisions and live with the consequences of those decisions. Decisions like those he made at Olduvia. Though he might have felt the punishment for those decisions was excessive, he had not questioned it or complained. But now his gut was in knots. He had made the only decisions he could under the circumstances, yet he had been exiled to a dead end assignment. Reduced to nothing more than an insignificant security guard. A card scanner and button pusher. Just another pair of boots. Easily replaced and even more easily forgotten. How had his life come to this?

Grimm was vaguely aware of the glances that Ryan kept sneaking at him, but he did not bother to try and explain himself.

When they, finally, received word that Swann was on his way over Grimm's heart rate shot up and all of his other senses became extremely sensitive. It was just like before going into a combat situation. The initial intense rush of adrenaline; the way everything around him came into sharp focus. His instinctual senses searching for signs of the hidden threat. After the first few moments his training would kick in. He would calm himself, bringing his heart rate down, controlling his breathing, relaxing his body and focusing his attention on only those things that would keep him alive. This might not be a combat situation like any he had faced during training or any of his missions, but he did not doubt there was a real threat involved in this situation. He had no idea what Sarge remembered from their last encounter or what he had been told since then, but no man, much less a Marine, took an attempt on their life lightly. And Sarge had always been a man who paid back, in full, any offense that was dealt to him.

Grimm and Ryan stood up as Counselor Swann entered the security area. Swann was followed closely behind by Campbell, with Sarge and his men right behind him.

Grimm fought to keep his eyes from going to Sarge first. He did not want to let Sarge know how heavily this moment had weighed on his mind. But when he finally allowed his eyes to make contact with the man whom he had attempted to kill, and who had also attempted to kill him, he knew he had failed. Sarge stared at him, a slight sneer on his face. Grimm may have won the battle on Olduvia, but Sarge had won the war.

He barely heard Ryan speaking with Counselor Swann and then contacting Dr. Betruger to notify him of the counselor's arrival. Somewhere, in the back of Grimm's mind, he recognized the doctor's snub for what it was. A show of power. Meant to demonstrate that it was HE, not the counselor, who was in charge there.

The thought barely registered though as Grimm was too busy studying the face of the man he had once thought he had known and understood. While they had never been close buddies or best of friends, he had once held deep respect for Sarge. Respect for his ability to command his men; his courage to enter the most dangerous situations with little or now knowledge about what faced them and his willingness to set aside all other considerations in deference to his career. In that, they had been alike. Career soldiers. Devoted to their jobs in a way few people ever devoted themselves to anything. They had understood each other. Respected each other's abilities and had once trusted each other with their lives.

But all of that had changed. They were enemies now.

It wasn't only their relationship that had changed. So had Sarge. Thanks to the grenade Grimm had thrown through the Ark at him. The same biologically engineered chromosome that had saved Grimm's life had also saved Sarge. Barely. The scaring on his face was the most obvious evidence of the damage that had been done. With the use of lab grown tissue the doctors had been able to reconstruct Sarge's face back into something that resembled what it had been before, though the once smooth skin was now lined with scar tissue from where they had had to remove the pulverized remains of his cheek bones and eye sockets. The lower half of his jaw had been blown off too, along with one of his ears. The engineered chromosome had never been intended to be able to reconstruct an entire face. Sarge's nose, ear, lower jaw and most of his teeth were now artificial. Everything was the best that money could buy, but he would never look entirely human again. Especially the eyes. Even though they had been able to give him human eyes from a deceased donor they were still not his eyes. Something about them was just not quite right. Maybe it was because they were no longer the dark, almost obsidian, brown that had been his own. Or maybe it was because the skin around his eyes was drawn just a little too tightly. Whatever it was, it gave him a vaguely alien look.

Grimm couldn't see it, but Sarge's whole body was a mass of scars and reconstruction. Ribs had been shattered from the shockwave of the grenade, many of his internal organs had been shredded from the shrapnel of his rib cage and his left arm and hand had been nearly destroyed. It had taken over 18 months and nearly two dozen surgeries followed by adjustments, corrections, enhancements and endless hours of physical therapy to get Sarge back into good enough condition that he could serve again. This was something none of the doctors who had first seen him had ever thought would be possible. The damage had been just too great. They had been convinced that no man, no matter how strong or determined, was capable of such a full recovery. But Sarge had proven them wrong. For while the C24 chromosome had saved his life it was through sheer force of will that he was a solider again.

A soldier who believed that justice had not yet been served.

Though it would be very soon.