"Chief Donegan cleared it four times." Firenze objected. He'd checked. Obsessively. Losing stung more than the any of the combatives.
"Yeah, he's an experienced EWO, with practical experience. You've done this in training only." Clausen said. He smirked, as some piece of a story washed over him, a reference too quick for Firenze to understand. Clausen asked, "You know something? Doggo never broke the Phalanx. You did. Twice." Clausen paused. "I pull scores, too. So does Donegan, and so does the Old Man. You think you're pissed at being upstaged? Doggo watched you clean that AI's clock and then had to write the report."
Despite himself, Firenze smirked. He'd done something Donegan couldn't. For a moment, pride swelled, but then the little voice in his head sing-songed, 'you still died, and you took the team with you.'
His smile vanished, and he glanced back at the table and the empty chair. He asked, "How do you guys do it?"
"With style." Clausen replied.
"No, I mean, why do you keep jumping into these messes? Joke all you want, but people died in those stories. People are going to die on the airship. We're marching into the fire."
Clausen faced Firenze directly and said, "We're ASOC. That's what we do. If there's a fire, we're the idiots running the wrong way."
"First to fight?" Firenze quoted.
"Last to quit." Clausen agreed. "Look, you're a bright kid. I'm guessing you were top of your class. Not near the top - the top. You owned it, one of those kids with the four-point-plus, the clubs, the competitions, the whole package. You had to be the best. Does that sound accurate?"
"Yeah." Firenze agreed, but then he countered, "I see where you're going with this, but, look, no one threw grenades at me in the robotics club."
"Your loss." Clausen said. "The fact remains: ASOC is where you end up when you can't stop striving. We defy the impossible because it's there. We're the best of the best because the world needs us to be. We're the first in, last out, carving out a pocket until the army catches up. Behind lines, underwater, or up in orbitals, it does not matter, because we're on call. We're the light in the black and the tip of the spear. First to fight." Clausen slammed back a drink, then added, "You don't get here by being good. You get here by being the goddamn best."
Firenze said, "Yeah, well, I like winning, same as anyone. I worked hard for it. But I never signed up to be shot at. I never wanted to be here."
"And yet, here you are." Clausen raised his glass, held it out to Firenze in a toast.
"Here I am." Firenze agreed with a rueful chuckle. He clanged his mug against Clausen's, took a drink, then said, "Faking it until I make it."
Clausen lowered his glass and said, "Oh, no, no. That won't do."
"Huh?"
"You belong here. The colonel said so. You're on a team, so you'd better be on the team."
"I'm here, right?" Firenze asked.
"Not enough. We need cohesion. This kind of group needs absolute trust. You can dislike someone, you can even hate them, but you have to know that you will have their back when the shit gets hot."
"Here we go," Firenze joked, "I'd been waiting for the old 'unit is family' talk. I've seen the holovids, too."
Clausen thumped his hand on the bar, hard enough that the conversation in the room dropped from a roar to a buzz. Firenze nearly jumped from his chair at the impact, but the sergeant held him in place with a stare. Clausen said, "Don't mock that bond, because it will save your life. You have to trust everyone, beyond a doubt. You know their strengths, their weaknesses, and they know yours. When the pieces get moving, you trust them like left-hand trusts right. Lives depend on it. Yours, theirs, and everyone else."
"Donegan can't stand me. How's that for cohesion?"
"He can't stand that you're in his spot. Think of that. Some punk kid, some wizard, waltzes straight out of college and takes his place - a place that he worked for his whole life. That change puts his team at risk, so yeah, he's pissed. I'd be pissed. I think you'd be pissed, too!"
Clausen paused, noted the dropped noise in the room, and threw a finger wave towards the main table. Conversation resumed, leaving the two of them for their talk.
The sergeant continued, "Doggo's looking for a reason to trust you. He wants you to succeed. You might think he's an ass, but he'll have your back, straight through. He's ASOC, but he doesn't think you are. Prove him wrong."
"I don't know if I can." Firenze admitted. He looked into the thin remains of his drink.
"You will. I've got money on you." Clausen said as he walked back towards the dartboard.
Firenze called after him, "Can I ask you something?"
"Long as it ain't dating advice." Clausen replied.
"How come I get called 'Princess', but Hill gets to be 'Reaper'?"
Clausen's laugh was deep and booming. He answered with a question, "Can you put one hundred rounds, full-auto, into a man-sized target at one hundred paces?"
"Uh, no?"
"Princess." Clausen replied. He plucked his darts back out of the board and ordered, "Now get your royal ass back to that table."
Firenze listened and obeyed. After all, today was the hardest day.
Fearful Symmetry
The worst part about Kessinwey was the smell.
The stench chased Firenze down the halls. It lurked outside his bunk and haunted him in the shower. Every time he thought he'd slipped its grasp - pushed it away with sweat and gunsmoke or bleach-scoured it from the bathroom - it returned, stronger than ever.
Kessinwey smelled of death, but not of rotting meat or heavy perfume on mortuary drapes. It stank of clogged oil, stilled engines, and creeping rust. This was the death of machines. Every centimeter, from the office towers to the dormitories, assembly lines to railway hub, reeked of stagnant fuel and faded solvent. Empty
