“Then she’ll have to get even again, it’ll become a vicious cycle. You should stop while you’re ahead.”
“You call this being ahead?”
“You’ve still got the money from the book, you’re alive and well, even if you’re a bit green. Get dressed, and we’ll go see what they can do at the clinic. While you dress, I’ll call building maintenance to have them check on the water.”
Five thousand miles away, Catie watched as Sophia and her mother exited their condo. Sophia was wearing sunglasses and a scarf to cover her hair and most of her face. Catie smiled, “Gotcha!”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Form up, we’re going to send you on a march all by yourselves!” the sergeant major yelled.
Foxtrot One formed into two lines, prepared to march with a full load, thirty kilos of equipment in their packs, and one kilo of water in their canteens.
“Cadet Lieutenant Hoffman, take them out.”
“Too bad by ourselves didn’t mean without that idiot,” Joanie whispered.
“Right face! Forward march!” Hoffman ordered. “Double time, march!”
Catie noticed that for some reason, Hoffman wasn’t carrying a pack. “What a wuss!”
One hour later, they reached the turnaround point. Everyone was familiar with the ten-K route out from the main base.
“Water break!” Hoffman ordered.
“About time,” Julie said under her breath. “What a jerk!”
“Hey, I have to pee,” Mary said.
“So!”
“I need an escort, do any of you need to go?”
“I’m hoping to hold it until we get back,” Julie said.
“If you need to go, you’d better do it now,” Joanie said. “If you make him stop on the way back, he’ll have a fit.”
“Sir, permission for a bathroom break?” Mary asked.
“Any more of you women need to squat?!” Hoffman asked. He really emphasized the word squat.
“Sir, I’ll escort her,” Julie said, avoiding having to request to pee.
“Go ahead, you other two better not make me stop on the way back!”
“Ass,” Joanie whispered as Julie and Mary headed out.
◆ ◆ ◆
“How did you two manage that whole march without having to pee?” Mary asked Catie and Joanie when they got back.
“Yeah,” Julie said. “And you didn’t go after the rifle drill either.”
“Didn’t they issue your armor yet?” Catie asked.
“Yes, but how would that help?” Julie asked.
“You do know your shipsuit wicks all the moisture away from your body?” Catie asked.
“Yeah!”
“And you know where it goes?”
“Eww, you don’t mean you pee in your suit, then squeeze that pad out?”
“No! but your armor has a little bottle that you can swap for the pad,” Catie said. “It fits in the same place inside your left thigh. It collects most of the moisture and all of the moister from below your waist. Whenever you get a chance, you can just pour it out. Should take care of your needs for a few hours.”
“That still sounds gross,” Mary said.
“What do you think fighter pilots do when they’re up for five or six hours?” Catie asked. “That’s why the suits are designed that way. At least it wicks it into a bottle instead of acting like Pampers.”
“Hey, if I can avoid Hoffman and his squat comments, I’m good with anything,” Julie said.
“He sure seems to have a problem with women,” Catie said.
“Yeah, but it looks like Baker is over his,” Joanie said.
“He just lost his temper because he couldn’t make Alex squirm,” Julie said, giving Catie a smile.
Chapter 10Board Meeting – August 2nd
When Catie made it to her room on Monday, she saw a message that said that the board meeting had been moved to 3:00 p.m. That meant she would be able to attend. She set her Comm up to use her Avatar and lay down in her bunk. It was just after chow, so things should be quiet for at least an hour.
“Good afternoon, sorry about the sudden schedule change, but I had some issues I needed to take care of,” Marc said as he entered the boardroom. “I see everyone is set. And I see that Catie is calling in.”
“Hi,” Catie said. Of course, she typed that in her Comm, and her Avatar spoke for her. “The schedule change moved the meeting into an empty slot for me.”
“Glad to have you,” Marc said. “Now, Blake, what’s the status of a commander for Delphi Station?”
“Captain Clark has agreed to take the slot,” Blake said. “He’s just getting settled in, so I thought I’d cover for him this month.”
“Okay, then cover,” Marc said.
“We’ve made some changes to encourage people to set up permanent residence on Delphi Station. You can have a private cabin if you pay the extra rent, but you can no longer have both a condo in Delphi City and a cabin on Delphi Station unless you pay the exorbitant rent.”
“Boo,” Liz said. “I saw my new bill.”
“I just sent that to you to wake you up,” Blake said. “Catie’s covering you.”
“Good!”
“I’m covering you and the rent for a cabin for my bodyguards. The bodyguards that Kal makes me have!” Catie whined.
“You can afford it,” Kal said. “Besides, it gives them a treat to have a nice cabin on Delphi Station.”
“Moving on,” Blake said. “We now have twelve hundred permanent residents on the Station, and we also have eighteen hundred potential colonists camping out up there. I’ll send that bill to Sam.”
“In your dreams,” Samantha said.
“On a more serious note, we also have two hundred Paraxeans now living on the Station. They’re the ones Liz brought back from her trip out to their asteroid. They’ll be prepping for the Paraxeans’ eventual move to Mangkatar.”
“How are they going to get there?” Admiral Michaels asked.
“This group will go out on the Roebuck and the Sakira,” Blake said. “If you haven’t heard, we have renamed the Paraxean space carriers the DSS Galileo and the DSS Isaac Newton. They’re converting three of the Galileo’s flight bays to hold cargo and colonists.”
“They’re not going to transport them in stasis pods, are they?” Samantha asked.
“They will be waking them up to transport them. In the beginning, they’ll want to provide extra training here where we have the facilities to accommodate them.
