Terms of Enlistment - By Marko Kloos Page 0,127

is barely enough for one person. I let her have the bunk to herself, and take the one directly below hers. I close the privacy curtain, and get under the thin blanket without bothering to take off my clothes. All around us, the sounds of a warship underway are ringing through the hull—announcements, tromping boots on metal gangways, humming machinery—but at this point in my short Navy career, I am used to falling asleep to that particular soundtrack.

There are no day times on a warship, just watch cycles. The powers in charge let us sleep through a watch and a half before sending in some petty officers to shake us out of our cots. When I climb out of my coffin-like cot, I have no idea whether we’re on first, second, or third watch, because my internal clock has lost its careful calibration it had just achieved before the Versailles slipped into the Alcubierre chute to Capella A.

While we were asleep, the Manitoba’s drop ship crews managed to pry another few dozen of our stranded crewmembers off the planet’s surface. When we file back into the briefing room we used before, several rows of seats are already taken by other Versailles enlisted and officers. There’s a general commotion as people rush to meet up with friends and berthmates. I don’t know too many people on the crew yet, so I stick with Halley. She looks around to find some of her fellow pilots, but frowns when she comes up empty.

“Looks like I’m the entire aviation section now,” she says.

I do a cursory headcount and come up with roughly sixty people, less than a third of the Versailles’ standard crew complement. Even allowing for a bunch of injured people in sick bay, our crew received a terrible drumming.

“Attention, all hands,” the XO says to the assembled crew after the first general buzz of excited conversation has dimmed a little. Everyone stops talking and faces the Commander.

“We’re done here,” he continues. “The Manitoba will remain on station and continue combat operations on the surface. Some of you will be hitching a ride back home on the Bunker Hill. The Lieutenant here will read off a list in a minute.”

He pauses for a moment to look over the assembled remnants of the Versailles crew.

“You can all look forward to more debriefings, and new assignments to God knows where. That’s for the Navy to decide. I wish they could give us a new frigate, so we could paint FF-472 onto the side and get back to business, but that’s not in the cards.”

Some of the sailors chuckle quietly and murmur their assent.

“For those of you going to Gateway for reassignment: until you report to a new XO or Commanding Officer, you’re still crew members of the NACS Versailles, and if I hear that any of you don’t act the part while you’re waiting around in the Transitional Personnel Unit, I’ll personally stop by and recalibrate your skulls. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” we shout back, loud enough to make the XO recoil just a little.

“Well, good,” he says. “Glad that’s out of the way.”

“Sir,” one of the petty officers says. “Any word from the skipper?”

“Captain Hill’s pod was recovered last night,” the Commander says matter-of-factly. “Their chute either didn’t deploy, or got ripped off the crash pod on descent for some reason.”

The room turns deathly quiet in an instant.

“There were no survivors,” the XO continues. “In the pod with the skipper were Lieutenant Commander Schiller, Lieutenant Munoz, Chief Petty Officer Ellis, and Marine Lieutenant Connelly.”

For a few seconds, you could hear a piece of lint falling on the ground.

“Spare a thought for the Old Man and the rest of the CIC crew when you’re on the way back to Gateway. You’ll have plenty of time for that in Alcubierre. The skipper was a good man, and a fine commanding officer.”

He looks at the Lieutenant next to him, who carries a clipboard with a bunch of printouts stuffed into the document clasp.

“Mister Benning will now read off the list of personnel who will hitch a ride on the Bunker Hill in an hour. If your name’s not on the list, you’re staying with me. If it is, I wish you good luck, and safe passage. I am proud to have served with each and every one of you, and I’ll gladly stand the watch with any of you again.”

My name is on the list for the Bunker Hill, but Halley’s isn’t.

I was hoping for some more time with Halley, time that doesn’t involve trying to get out of peril or flying around a desolate planet with an unarmed drop ship. As things stand right now, all I get is a quick good-bye in a busy gangway outside of the hangar deck.

“Isn’t that just fucking fabulous?” Halley says to me as we embrace for our third attempt at letting go of each other. “You pull all these strings to get transferred to my shit bucket, and then they blow it up from underneath us.”

“I think the universe might hate me,” I say.

“I don’t think that’s quite true, Andrew,” she says, and kisses me on the corner of my mouth. “You managed to get on the right ship, after all. And we didn’t crash or get sucked into space. I’m pretty sure I’d be a charred spot on the ground down there if I hadn’t ditched Rickman after my watch and come to hang out with you.”

“Well, there is that,” I concede.

“We’ll just do the distance thing again. Who knows, though? It’s not that big of a Navy. Try to get yourself posted to some big bird farm, one with lots of drop ships, okay?”

“I will.”

We embrace one last time, ignoring the looks from passing crewmembers. Halley kisses me one last time, and then gently pushes me away with the palm of her hand against my chest.

“Go, before one of us goes UA and ends up in the brig for missing deployment.”

“Stay safe,” I tell her, and she laughs her cheerful, dark laugh.

“You’ve been there, Andrew. You can’t be careful in the left seat of a Wasp, don’t you know?”

“Later, pilot babe,” I say.

“Later, computer jock,” she replies.

“Last one,” the crew chief of the shuttle Wasp tells me when I walk up the ramp without much enthusiasm. “Get strapped in, we’re running behind already.”

“Aye-aye, sir,” I reply, and take a seat near the tail hatch. The crew chief steps back into the ship, and pushes the control button for the cargo ramp. I fish for the worn safety straps on my seat, and slip into the harness.

“Sorry to hear about your ship,” the crew chief says against the noise of the raising ramp. I merely nod in acknowledgement.

“Well, you’ll be at Gateway in a week. This one’s over for you guys.”

The ship’s engines come to life, and I sit back and close my eyes, forcing myself to look away from the ever-narrowing gap of the rear hatch, toward the spot where Halley disappeared into the corridor a few moments ago.

I doubt that very much, I think. This one’s just begun.

The End

Table of Contents

To Robin, with whom every year is better than the one before it.Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22“

Chapter 23

Chapter 24