Chapter 18, part 1.

It was a couple days later and Alice took half a day off to drive up to the Colorado Springs airport where she picked up Tobey and drove him to his new apartment. He was finally getting reassigned to Peterson—starting the next day, on the first of November—and she helped him settle in. His things had arrived a few days earlier, and sat all over the place in boxes, so they spent the afternoon putting everything together. Like herself, he didn't seem to have that much stuff, and he rented the apartment already furnished, so they were done by the evening.

"Thanks for helping me," he said as they sat on the couch, resting and drinking soda—or pop, as the Coloradans called it.

"No sweat," she replied lazily. It had been a good day—the physical effort of the work, coupled with the positive attitude Tobey exuded, was a nice distraction from her personal dark cloud.

"Well, speak for yourself—I've had quite a lot of sweat!" He joked and she couldn't help chuckling. "I wonder what tomorrow will be like. I wanna make a good first impression."

Alice nodded. "Just be confident, you've got this. And if you don't know something, just say you don't know—and then find out. People respect that."

"Yeah, I hope so. I do wish dad hadn't talked me up so much to Colonel Martin. I'd rather exceed expectations than fail them!"

"Well, you ain't gonna make it with that attitude," she noted, frowning. "You've done a good job at C2, otherwise not even with your father's meddling would they reassign you here so soon."

"I guess." He sighed. "Anyways, I know you're uber busy during the week, and I'm grateful you took the time to come help me today. I was thinking, though, we could meet up for lunch or something on Saturday?"

Alice breathed heavily. "I had promised Deanna I'd go with her to the local voter registration drive. Actually, you could come with us—I bet you're not registered to vote in Colorado yet."

"I am not," he admitted. "I'd love to come. When and where?"

She gave him the coordinates.

"Cool! I'll be there."

As he said, he did, and they met up at the entrance to the park where the whole event was taking place. Deanna and Tobey went to stand in line to get registered, while Alice spied Forest Crawford and came up to him to talk for a spell. He was ecstatic to see her there and thanked her three times for spreading the news about the event.

"It's been an absolute success," he boasted. "We ask every person who comes how did they find out about it and at least a dozen people said they saw our flyer on their base's bulletin board! Thank you so much!"

They stayed around for a couple hours; Deanna insisted on trying her luck with almost every adult attraction. She became incredibly excited when she spotted the shooting range and begged Alice to try it out, and Alice finally surrendered. She noted with approval that the range was manned by professionals and a police officer was present to ensure the safety of everyone involved.

"I wonder which one of us is a better shot," Tobey challenged as they were getting closer to the beginning of the line after over fifteen minutes of wait.

Alice grinned. "You're kidding, right?"

"I bet I am the best shot!" Deanna interrupted, winking at them. But her first try was rather pitiful—the bullets didn't even graze the target. The two range masters were helping other people at the time, so Alice stepped up and helped Dee get into position and gave her a few basic pointers—and, to the girl's utter delight, the next magazine ended up all inside the target, even though none of the shots was in the middle.

"Now you show me how it's done!" Deanna said, pulling off her earmuffs and swinging the gun towards Alice.

"Hey, cowboy, never point a gun at another person unless you want to shoot them," Alice censured, taking the USP Compact out of her roommate's hands and engaging the safety.

"That's a very good advice," one of the range masters said, coming closer and taking the gun from her to check it quickly. He then replaced the magazine and gave it back. "You know how to use it?"

"I know a little bit," she said with a smirk. She waited for the range to be called cold, when the targets were swapped for new ones; in the meantime, Tobey took up position next to her. "You ready for the challenge, cousin?" She teased and he showed her his tongue in response. She laughed. "So little decorum, Lieutenant!" She echoed his own words from a year ago, when he said the very same thing to her at his sister's engagement party—except she had been a captain then.

He must have remembered, because he chuckled, but then the range master called the range hot, and they both turned to their targets.

A few seconds later, Alice pivoted around, putting the safety on the gun, to throw a satisfied smile at Deanna. The girl's jaw was dropped as she looked at the single jagged hole in the very middle of Alice's target—indicating that all ten bullets stuck bull's-eye.

"You know a little bit, huh?" The range master said with cocked eyebrows.

"I may have understated it a little," she admitted with a playful smile.

"Not bad, Major," Tobey put in, grinning and approaching them from the other lane. "I only got seven in the middle. I guess I need more practice!"

"Major? You in the Army?" The range master asked.

"Air Force," Alice and Tobey replied in unison and smirked.

"You've gotta teach me how to do that!" Deanna said, her eyes wide. "How did you do that?"

"I've learned how to shoot when I was a child, Dee," Alice replied, handing the gun back and moving off the range. "My dad taught me and my brother—and Jake still can't forgive me for being a better shot than he is." She chuckled. "I even have a Small Arms Expert Marksmanship Ribbon, though I've qualified with an M-16, not a handgun. I can shoot anything, though—handguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, Air-to-Air Missiles…"

They all laughed at that.

Alice was just pulling onto their driveway when Deanna touched her shoulder.

"Oh, look, Mrs. Novakova! Have you met her yet?" She pointed to her right, where an elderly lady was crossing her lawn, hauling the heavy trash bin from the curb towards her house. "She is such a sweet old lady—pull up, I'll help her!"

Alice did, and Deanna went on to talk to the neighbor while Alice drove into the garage. A few minutes later they met up again in the kitchen, and Deanna looked preoccupied.

"I sometimes help Mrs. Novakova with some small chores, you know—mow the lawn, get some groceries for her and so on… she's such a sweet old lady," she repeated. "She lives alone and her only son is somewhere in Germany—he's in the Air Force, too."

Alice nodded, frowning. "Ramstein Air Base, probably, then."

"That's the one!" Deanna clapped her hands. "He calls her every day on Skype, but she missed it today because her laptop won't turn on. He called her on the phone instead, but they couldn't talk long because it's so expensive to call from Europe. She can't afford a new computer and I figured—maybe it's something easy, maybe you could take a look?" And she looked at Alice pleadingly.

"Of course," Alice agreed immediately. She would have to be a monster to say no. "I can go over right after lunch."

"Awesome!" Deanna squealed with delight, and took a step as if she wanted to hug Alice, but then restrained herself. "I knew you'd do it! You're such a good person. I'll come with you!"

Deanna introduced Alice to Mrs. Novakova, who turned out to be just as sweet as the girl said; she made them both tea and brought homemade cookies—which were delicious, Alice had to admit—and seemed more delighted at having someone to talk to than even at the opportunity to have her computer fixed.

"I do not understand about technology," she told them with a slightest echo of a foreign accent in her voice, as they sat at her table, Alice in front of the laptop, with her toolkit nearby—it looked like a hardware issue, for the computer wouldn't even start. "My son bought me this contraption and all I can do is turn it on and click on the blue icon to connect to him—he showed it to me before he went."

"That's okay, Mrs. Novakova, I can't do much more with my computer either!" Deanna assured her gaily. "But Alice is an expert in it—she is a Doctor of Computer Engineering!" She bragged with a proud look at her roommate. Alice rolled her eyes, but it didn't stop Dee. "And she's also in the Air Force, just like your son!"

"Oh, really? Why, that's wonderful, doll!" The old lady's dark eyes rested on Alice's face. Although ringed with wrinkles, they were clear and sharp, and not dimmed by age at all, it seemed. "It is so good of you to come help an old fart like me!"

"It's my pleasure, ma'am," Alice reassured her, selecting a screwdriver to open the laptop up. "And may I ask what does your son do in the Air Force?"

"He is an officer," she replied proudly. "He commands his own wing! He is very important."

Alice hid a smile. "I have no doubt, ma'am." A wing commander—meaning he must be a colonel.

"And his son is now studying at the Pennsylvania State University—he is such a smart boy!" Mrs. Novakova continued. "Charles is going to be a lawyer, you know. And then there's Lena—she is only seventeen, she lives with Adam and his wife at the base. Such a beautiful girl! Ah! I miss them a lot."

"Would you mind me asking why don't you join them, then, ma'am? I'm sure your son would love to have you close."

"Oh, he's asked many times, but I told him—my foot will never stand upon the German ground!" The lady said with some force and Alice understood immediately—but Deanna apparently didn't.

"You don't like the Germans?"

"They have invaded my country and killed my people," she replied with dignity. "Adam keeps telling me that they have changed, but I don't believe him—an entire nation cannot change so much in such short a time!"

Deanna looked at Alice, her eyebrows raised in a silent question, but Alice merely shook her head. It would not serve anyone to try and convince the old lady that present-era Germans were no longer Nazis—if she didn't believe her own son, she wouldn't believe two strangers, either.

"Where are you from, Mrs. Novakova?" Deanna asked eagerly.

"A tiny village called Lishky," she replied with a small smile. "I grew up on a farm. I still remember the golden gleam of the wheat field, the smell of the apple orchard, the sour taste of gooseberries in early April… it was beautiful and peaceful, so peaceful… but then the Germans came and we fled to Cracov. We thought we would be safer there, all our family was living in the city. I was only twelve years old but I understood very well that the peace was gone forever."

Alice put the screwdriver away for a moment. "Your family was Jewish?" She asked quietly.

"We were called Rubinstein," the old lady confirmed. Her dark eyes were veiled with a haze of memories now. "We were proud and clever. They made my parents and my older brothers work in a factory, and they did well because they were hardworking and so, so clever. We had to wear armbands with the Star of David—but it wasn't so bad, not at first. There was fear and we never had enough to eat, but we were together and we were alive. And then they started deporting Jews out of the city. We didn't know where they were taking them… my uncles and aunts and cousins went away in those trains, but we stayed because my parents and brothers were such good workers. They made us move out from our apartments and into the ghetto… The ghetto was very bad. There was scarcely any food, and disease was rampart… I remember being scared—and hungry, always so hungry… Have you ever known how it is to be hungry, to never know when your next meal might be…?"

She didn't seem to expect an answer, but Alice replied nonetheless. "Yes," she murmured, thinking back to her fifteen days in Jareth's dungeon, and then to the long trek from Washington to the underground bunker at the border with Canada, in the future, when food was scarce and irregular, and usually either charred or undercooked, if at all.

Deanna glanced back at her, her eyes wide, but Alice wasn't looking at her. She caught Mrs. Novakova's eyes, keen and piercing now, and for a moment it was as if they were talking without words—a thread of understanding running between them.

"It is a horrible thing, to go hungry," the old lady said, her voice squeaking and trembling with age. "But kids are resilient. It is much worse on the parents. To see your child starve and disappear—that is the worst torture. We could not go out of the ghetto, only to the factory. Good people tried to smuggle food and medicine inside, and sometimes they succeeded, but it was not enough, never enough. People were being killed by starvation, by disease—and by German bullets. They took many people… put them on trains to be taken we knew not where. I was fifteen when they closed the ghetto… I remember that night of panic and tears. They were taking children away from parents, separating those who could not work from those who still had some vestiges of strength… I don't know how my mother knew, but she did. Even as it was starting, she told us to run and we did. My sisters and I, we hid together, but I saw my youngest brother, barely sixteen, go down in a rain of bullets… they took my parents and my remaining two brothers, took them away, and they went looking for us, but we ran and hid, hid and ran… until we somehow found a way out of the ghetto—through a hole in the wall where people from the outside used to smuggle food…"

Both Deanna and Alice were sitting, motionless, their eyes wide, both horrified and fascinated. The computer, taken apart, lay forgotten on the table.

"However we had managed to escape, I will never know," Mrs. Novakova continued, her eyes half-closed now, perhaps seeing the scenes in her memory, vivid as if it happened yesterday and not seventy years earlier. "But we did. We slinked through the dark city, too wild with fear to stop and think. It was so obvious where we came from—we were scarcely more than three scarecrows, scrawny and dirty, crawling with lice, more yellow than pale… We saw a patrol in the distance and we hid in an alley, and knocked on the door, too scared to consider that whoever lived there might give us up… and they didn't. A man opened—a pretty man, such a pretty man after all these skinny, starving men of the ghetto… his hair was golden like wheat and his eyes were blue like the sky. He didn't even ask us anything, he simply let us come in, hid us in a tiny room in the attic… and we lay there all night, too numb and exhausted and horrified to cry. In the morning, he came with food and water—and news. The ghetto was no more. Those who could work were moved to a labor camp in Plashov, children and sick had been killed… To this day I do not know what happened to my parents and my two brothers."

"I'm so sorry," Deanna whispered, her eyes glinting with tears.

"What happened to you?" Alice asked in a murmur.

"We stayed in the attic for a long time. The man who saved us came every day with food and water. He took care of us as much as he could. His name was Karol—Charles for you."

Alice nodded, understanding the reference. Mrs. Novakova's grandson's name was Charles, she said—it seemed very apt to name a boy after a man who had saved his grandma's life.

"One day Karol didn't come, and he remained absent for days after. We were too scared to go out—he had told us not to, under no circumstances… but we were starving and there was no more water. My older sister, Estera, she eventually decided to go out. We begged her not to… but she said it was her duty as the oldest. She went—and never came back. We stayed, myself and Chaya. We waited and waited, and we would have died if it didn't rain one night—the roof was leaky and we lapped the drops that were falling… And then Karol returned. Someone had informed the SS that he was harboring Jews, and they had imprisoned and beaten him for days. He didn't break, though, and they couldn't find us—we were so well hidden in that attic… The only reason they didn't kill him was because his mother was German, and she intervened with the commanders… He came back, beaten but not broken, and he gave us food and water, and he cared for us. But we stayed in that attic for so long, and it was cold and damp… He brought us blankets but when Chaya fell ill, he couldn't get no medicine. She died of pneumonia in my arms and Karol took her in the night and I don't know where he left her body."

"Oh my god," Deanna whispered, her voice strangled, tears spilling onto her cheeks. Alice knew her own eyes were wet, too.

"A few days after that, men came into the house. I could hear them trampling up and down in their military boots… and I knew they were SS and they were looking for me. That night Karol took me away from there and into the house of his sister, because the SS was after him and he said he could not risk them finding the attic room… his sister did not like me, she was scared what would happen to her if they found me there, but she put me in a room with a great big wardrobe and she said to hide there if the SS ever came. They never did, but she was so scared I told Karol one day when he came to visit that I'd rather risk it in his attic than put her in danger no more… he was so angry at her then! They had a huge fight, and his brother-in-law told him to take me away and never come back. So he took me away and into a friend's house… and then another and another… I spent only a couple months in each place. It was very dangerous, and nobody wanted to risk so much… but somehow, Karol always found someone else who would hide me for a while. He saved my life over and over again. And then, finally, the Russians came and liberated the city, and I could come out… oh, how did the sun feel on my face! How did the winter air pinch my cheeks!" She shook her head. "But I was a seventeen years old girl with nothing to my name but the clothes on my back, in itself a gift from Karol's sister. And Karol saved me again, for he married me that summer…"

Deanna gasped loudly and Alice put a hand on her wildly beating heart, too entranced in the story to notice how uncharacteristically emotional she was being.

"Since then I was no longer Helena Rubinstein, but Helena Novakova—they would call me Mrs. Karol Novak when we came over here, but I like the old way of calling myself better. And we had to come here because Karol stood against the communists and he was going to go to jail—so we fled in the back of a truck, through the western border into Czechoslovakia, and from there to Austria and Switzerland, where we got on a plane to go to America. That was 1955, and we have been here ever since. We've moved from New York to Colorado in 1974, when Adam was thirteen, and here we stayed. Karol passed away ten years ago, and I have been going it alone since then."

Deanna sniffed and moved to get her purse and find a Kleenex. Her motion somehow broke the spell and Alice shook her head, as if coming out from beneath water.

"What a life," she murmured with awe. "Thank you for sharing your story, Mrs. Novakova. I'm sure it's not easy to remember it…"

"Oh, honey, memories are all I have now," the old lady replied with a sad smile. "I have never found out the fate of any of my family—except for my brother whom they shot before my very eyes, and my sister who died in my arms. For ten years after the war I tried and tried to find any clues about them, but I failed. They are all long gone, I suspect, and I will be joining them soon, no doubt."

"Oh, Mrs. Novakova, please don't say that!" Deanna exclaimed. "I'm sure you still have a long time!"

"When you are as old as I am and have lost everyone you have ever cared about, my dear, you'll see that death is no longer an enemy—but a friend who you'll greet gladly…"

"You still have your son and your grandchildren who love you, though," Alice protested quietly, remembering what she had come here to do and picking up the parts of the laptop that had lain forgotten all this time.

"Ah, honey, they have their own lives now, they do not need me anymore!" Mrs. Novakova waved her hand dismissively.

"Maybe they don't need you, but I'm sure they want you in their lives," Alice insisted. "Otherwise they would not call you every day, or ask you to come live with them to Ramstein…"

"I am too old to move now." She got up to her feet to pour them more tea—still warm in a cast iron teapot. "Though I would like to see Cracov one more time before I die…" She admitted, sitting back down with a sigh.

"I hear it's beautiful," Alice said. "At the school where I went to do the student exchange in France, I met a girl from Poland, and she was from Cracow. She said it was like little Paris—the jewel of her country."

"Yes, it was beautiful before the war, too. But I mostly remember it in ruin, dirty and poor… I should like to see it now, all shiny and prosperous…"

For a moment, none of them spoke. Deanna blew her nose very loudly, while Alice focused on her work. It wasn't difficult for her to find the fault—a blown fuse—but she didn't have a replacement in her kit.

"I will need to replace the fuse on this motherboard to make it work," she said, looking at her watch. "I'm gonna run to the store real quick to pick it up, it should still be open."

"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry it's such a bother!" Mrs. Novakova immediately decried.

"It's no bother, ma'am. It's a tiny part that costs like a dollar—I'll pick it up and be back within half an hour."

"Or maybe I could do that?" Deanna suggested. "You've been working on it and I've just been sitting here, gorging myself on cookies—I should do something. You'll just need to write down exactly what you need."

Alice thought it over. It should not be a problem for Dee to get the part if she wrote it down, and she could remove the old fuse and make sure there were no more faults in the motherboard in the meantime. "Alright, let's do it."

A few minutes later, Deanna was gone and Alice was checking the remaining chips and circuits. It didn't take her long to finish, and as she put down her multimeter, she caught a look from Mrs. Novakova, her eyes clear and keen again.

"Do take another cookie, honey," she entreated with a sweet smile.

"Thank you, ma'am," she replied, doing just that; the cookies were really excellent, moist inside and crunchy on the surface, with chocolate chips all over. She munched on it for a moment, her mind mulling over the story the old lady had told. So much tragedy! She sighed. "Ma'am, can I ask you something?"

"Of course, dear girl, anything."

"How did you get over it all? How did you move on?"

She didn't reply immediately, but looked at Alice for a moment, her gaze piercing. "After the war, everyone bore the same look in their eyes—the emptiness of knowledge that everything they held dear was gone. Not just people they lost, but a way of life—peace and security, they would never have them again, not in a hundred years. How do you go on when your world lies in ruin? But the ruin of the world is never complete, honey. There are always those who will fight and survive, and who will build it anew. Not for themselves, but for those who will come after—our children and our children's children. You move on because you have to—because to stay behind is to stay in the realm of the dead. Many people couldn't move on and they became empty. But many more moved on, harboring in their hearts the memories of sweet childhood and of the horrors of the war… You move on when you have something—or someone—to live for. I had Karol, and Karol had me, and we moved on together, and we kept moving on for each other, and, eventually, for Adam, and Charlie, and Lena. Our world was never the same as we had known it before, so we built a new world for ourselves. A new life. For seventy years, we've had no peace or security… To this day I sometimes wake up at night, terrified that the SS will come and find me. But I've had a good life, darling—I've had love and laughter, and happiness, even though I've had no peace or security. You take what you can get and you build on that. I am old and I sometimes forget where I've put my keys, but I shall never forget the faces of my parents, my brothers, my sisters… they live on in my memory forever, and I pay them my respect by living the best life I can—because they would want me to." She paused, and her eyes bore into Alice's with an uncomfortable intensity. "I am a survivor, and a survivor will always recognize another survivor. I see you."

Alice blinked, dropping her eyes down to look at her hands. They were trembling a little and she willed them to be still.

"You don't get over it, darling," the old lady added quietly. "But you learn to live with it."

Alice didn't say anything and didn't look up, trying to control her storming emotions. Yes, a survivor recognized another survivor—she felt the kinship between them, a rapprochement of souls who both knew tragedy and seen a world die. But Mrs. Novakova's story put Alice's past—or future—experiences in a much-needed perspective. The world was always ending, and it never truly ended until there were people to fight for it and rebuild at the end.

The front door opened and a moment later Deanna appeared, bearing the replacement fuse triumphantly in her hand, and she didn't seem to sense the tense atmosphere, for she tossed the part to Alice, dropped onto a seat and picked up a cookie. Alice, without looking up until she was sure her eyes were no longer large and emotional, focused on replacing the fuse and making sure it was all fixed, half-listening to the following conversation between Dee and Mrs. Novakova about living in "the Springs". Half an hour later, she turned on the computer, had a look into the software to ensure there were no problems, and then presented it back to the old lady, who expressed her gratitude with words and a jarful of cookies, and sent them home with her blessings.

Alice came to work later than usual, having swung by the voting station first thing, and as she entered her lab, the phone on her desk was already ringing. She launched towards it, stumbling over her own feet, and had to pick herself up from the floor before she reached it.

"Major Boyd," she breathed into the receiver, massaging her smarting elbows.

"Good morning, Major, I have a call for your rerouted from Peterson from a Specialist Lenore Hayes, do you want to accept?" The base's switchboard operator asked.

She dropped onto her seat, surprised. "Yes, put her through."

"Right away, ma'am." There was a moment of static, and then another familiar voice spoke.

"Major Boyd?"

"That's me," Alice confirmed, her eyebrows raised but her tone warm. "I did not think you would ever actually call, Specialist Hayes."

"I do not mean to disturb you, ma'am," the young woman rushed to assure her. "Please, I'm sure you have better things to do and I am just taking up your—"

"Stop it," Alice interrupted, a little curtly, so she made an effort to sound more friendly: "I did mean it when I told you to call me if you ever wanted to talk. You're not disturbing me, I just literally walked into my office. Tell me what's on your mind?"

There was a brief pause, as if the specialist hesitated, and then she blurted out: "I made the report. About—about Major Cho. I made the report and they took it seriously, and the court-martial is about to start and I'm terrified—" She broke off, as if in her hurry to get it out, she said too much.

"It's normal to feel scared," Alice told her softly. "That doesn't make what you're doing any less brave—more, actually. To fear something and do it anyway—that's true courage." She waited for a moment for a reply, but since none came, she added: "I'm very proud of you."

"How did you do it?" Hayes asked in a small voice. "How did you stand in front of these men and tell your story?"

"Anger," Alice replied with a crooked smile. "I was so angry at Cho for what he'd done, at the police for dismissing me, at the colonel who was taking my report for trying to dissuade me from doing it—I was so angry at every man who's ever catcalled me, and touched me when I didn't want to be touched, and made those little jokes—I decided I could not put up with it anymore. That's probably a very un-political answer, but an honest one."

There was a moment of silence. "I read your interview in The Gazette," the young woman admitted sheepishly. "I wasn't going to come forward, but—but I figured if you can be so brave… you said you were anxious and self-conscious, but you did it anyway, and I figured I can do it, too… I'm not brave enough to do it publicly, though," she added nervously.

"That's perfectly okay—you don't have to. I wouldn't have done it either… But I knew Cho'd done it before. I just knew—and I wanted other women to come forward. I'm glad my stratagem paid off," she said with a touch of humor.

"Two other girls have made reports on him, too," Hayes acknowledged. "I know both of them… they were inspired by you, too. You've touched many lives with your courage. I—I wanted to thank you."

"There's no need to thank me," Alice protested delicately. "It's I who should thank you. I know it's difficult." She paused for a heartbeat, and then added softly: "I had it easy. In the end, he didn't succeed with me. I didn't have the gory details to describe."

She heard Hayes swallow hard. "That's the part I'm most afraid of. I don't—I mean, I was soo drunk, I barely remember the details. What if they don't believe that it happened? Or if they say it was consensual?" Her voice trembled a little.

"Doesn't matter what they think," Alice replied calmly. "You're doing the right thing, and that's what matters, Specialist. I know it's not easy, but it is right."

"Yes, ma'am," the young woman replied, sounding unconvinced.

"You can do it," Alice added encouragingly. "I believe in you. And whatever happens—whatever the verdict, you should be proud of yourself for going through with it."

"Thank you, ma'am." This time, her voice was a little stronger.

"And one more thing." Alice looked at the ceiling, leaning back in her chair. She shouldn't be saying this, but… Who the fuck cares. "Afterwards, if you even get the smallest suspicion that you're being targeted for retaliation, let me know. I don't think it will happen—I hope not—but if it does, you let me know."

"Um… yes, ma'am?" The intonation made it a question.

"I know, I'm not Army—but one thing the defense counsel was right about, Specialist. I do have friends in high places. I would never use my connections to unduly influence a court-martial itself—but if anyone tries to take your part in it out on you in any way, I will gladly use them to have their ass for it."

"Um… yes, ma'am. Thank you."

Alice smiled, a little perversely. "You can tell that to the other girls going against Cho in court." She paused, wondering if Hayes would manage to reply to that, but since she didn't, Alice continued: "You go out there, Specialist, with your head held high and show'em what you're made of. I know you'll be brilliant."

"Thank you, ma'am. I—I really appreciate your confidence in me. I'll do my best."

"I know you will."

"Thank you, I'm—I'll let you go back to your work now, ma'am. Thanks again."

"Sure thing, Specialist. You can still call me at any time if you need to talk again—that's an open invitation. And let me know how it goes?"

"Thank you, ma'am, I will."

"Alright, have a good day, then."

"Thank you, ma'am, you too."

The connection dropped and Alice stayed motionless for a long while, sitting back in her chair, still staring at the ceiling with unseeing eyes. She thought she might have intimidated the girl a little bit—but maybe she actually needed a little fierceness to bring into the courthouse.