“You have your orders,” Voss said, her voice a gavel falling, and she might have been addressing all of us, but she was staring daggers at Cronje. “Follow them or you’ll be replaced by someone who can.”
The blinking icon on my ‘link begged for my attention, but I resisted its temptation, giving into the lethargy that kept me in my bunk when I really should have been getting ready for tomorrow’s simulation runs. I knew what it was. The notification on the screen told me that. I’d received an InStell message while we were on Port Harcourt, but it hadn’t been cleared through the Fleet censors until we’d Transitioned. Now it waited impatiently to be opened and I just wasn’t sure I wanted to know who it was from.
There were a vanishing small number of people who knew who the hell I was and cared enough to send an expensive transmission bouncing between relay satellites from one system to another via wormholes and Transitioning starships. It might have been one of the Marines from my platoon at OCS, or it might have been Trent, my roommate at Armor School. And they were all good people, but I wasn’t in the mood for a long “hey buddy, how you doing?” message telling me how they were going to use their separation bonus on escort services and a brand new Sport Flyer when they got out after the war.
I didn’t want to talk to anyone but Vicky, and Vicky wasn’t talking.
“Fuck it,” I murmured aloud.
I shared the cabin with William Cano, Fourth Platoon leader, but he was out with Kovacs, finding something illicit to drink, which was both easier and harder as an officer. Easier because you could get away with it, harder because you couldn’t let the enlisted know you were getting away with it.
I touched the blinking icon on the screen, then cast the message to the big display on the cabin bulkhead across from the bunks. Dak Shepherd’s image appeared and I sat up, almost gasping. I hadn’t seen the man nor heard from him since Brigantia. I’d been a newly-minted corporal at the time, made a team leader for my sins so I could learn some responsibility for others. Then everyone in my fire team and half the company had died in the drop and I’d wound up stranded in enemy territory with no suit, no weapons, no support, nothing but an acute case of agoraphobia.
Dak had found me and taken me back to the civilian resistance against the Tahni occupation, and I’d met Maria, his daughter. She’d been twenty years older than me, widowed, her teenaged daughter lost along with her husband during the Tahni invasion, and she had no reason to feel anything but disdain for a city boy who could barely walk outside without having a panic attack. But she’d befriended me, shown me compassion, a human connection I’d been missing. And she might have saved my soul.
I couldn’t save her. She’d died in the resistance attack to take down the deflector shield and allow the Marines to land. I’d almost died, too, and when I’d woken up in the hospital to find Dak waiting for me, I wished I had. But he hadn’t blamed me for her death. Instead, he’d offered me a home. He’d founded the colony and he wanted me to have a place to go back to if I lived through this war.
I hadn’t talked to him since, not because I didn’t want to, but because I still didn’t know what to say to the man. Should I tell him I found someone? That if I returned to Brigantia, I’d be bringing a replacement for his daughter? Should I tell him I’d gotten revenge for Maria? That I’d killed more Tahni than he’d ever seen on his world? She hadn’t wanted revenge for her lost family, she’d wanted freedom for her neighbors, and she’d died for it. I doubt she would have cared, and I knew he wouldn’t.
I touched an arrow-shaped button and the recording played.
“Heya, Cam,” Dak said, his voice as rough and raspy as I remembered. “I hope this finds you well.” He snorted and pulled off his brimmed hat, running a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Hell, I hope it finds you alive. The official government net says you are, but you know as well as I do, they probably don’t tell us about half the casualties you get.”
That was the truth. Policy was that casualty figures weren’t released publicly until the next-of-kin had been notified in person, which could take weeks or even months, depending on where they lived.
“But assuming I ain’t wasting my breath, I called because, well, it’s been too long. I saw on your file in the government site that you’re an officer now.” He smiled broadly, the expression sending the deep lines beside his mouth and eyes into sharp relief. “I guess that means you’ve gotten over that problem with trusting people.”
I chuckled.
“Well, about that…,” I murmured, suddenly wishing with all my heart that I could actually talk to the old man and not just pretend.
“I knew you would,” he went on, nodding. “You have too much to offer to spend your life closed inside your shell, keeping the world out. That’s no life for a man. It’s no life for me. The real reason I’m calling you is that, I’m getting married.”
It was almost as if he’d seen my mouth drop open, because he laughed at just the right time.
“Yeah, I know. I’m an old dog and I didn’t think I’d ever learn any new tricks, but Hannah and I, we just sort of…got comfortable together. And my point being, if there’s hope for me, if I can start over again, then you can….” He shook
