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It feels strangely liberating to do precisely as instructed. I don’t have to worry about displeasing the sergeant as long as I follow his orders exactly.
“Congratulations,” Sergeant Gau says. “As of this moment, you are officially members of the Armed Forces of the North American Commonwealth. Be advised that this status is probationary until you graduate from Basic Training.” There’s no ceremony, no oath of service, no pomp or ritual. You sign a form, and you’re a soldier. It’s a bit of a letdown, but at least they’re consistent in that respect.
We wash up and change into our issue pajamas as ordered. The male and female versions look exactly alike, shapeless blue things that don’t look martial at all. When everyone is assembled in the center aisle as directed by Sergeant Gau, we look like a bunch of overgrown orphans lining up for a bowl of soup.
When you do exactly as you’re told, and you’re neither the best nor the worst at any task, you can disappear in the crowd and have a small measure of solitude.
“He said I seem to have a hand for it.” “Looks that way,” I say. “All I’ve done all day was to turn my drop ship into a comet.”
Halley recalls her first successful simulated landing, and I listen to the story and watch the little dimples she gets on her cheeks when she smiles.
This is the military, and nobody gives a shit about what we want. We take what we’re served, and we ask for seconds, and that’s the way it goes.”
“You’ll still send those messages,” Halley says. “I’ll check the time stamps. And if you get yourself killed, you’ll be in deep shit with me.”
It’s a rolling antique, but if they have ammo for that big gun, it can still dish out a world of hurt.
This is not a fight—it’s a rout. The enemy soldiers are so far out of their league that it feels like we’re a bunch of professional boxers beating up a schoolyard full of asthmatic grade-school kids.
It feels a bit like high school, only with guns and uniforms, and instead of learning trigonometry or North American history, we learn better ways to kill people and blow up their stuff.
She’s where I wanted to be, and I’m ashamed to be jealous of her, but what stings even more is the knowledge that I’ll probably never see her again.
thought you got an automatic discharge for an injury like that,” I say. “Not if you have that big-ass medal on the blue neck ribbon,” she replies. “Then you can get away with shit. I even get to kill two officers per year, no questions asked.”
“There’s no perfect place, you know. You always end up trading one kind of shit for another. Me, I’ll stick with the shit I know.”
With the level of computer integration on the ship, I have no doubt that CIC was aware of the network status the moment the update finished, but this is the military, and everything has to have its proper procedure and ritual, like a kabuki theater with uniforms.
The idea of rendering a planet uninhabitable just to pry off a competing species seems ludicrous, but after my experience in Detroit, I know the military is going to do precisely that.
