“Thanks for the advice,” I say.
“Luna, huh?” Corpsman Randall says when I turn to leave.
“Yeah. Stone’s throw away. Told her I’d be back in time for our wedding.”
“You should keep your promise,” she says. “Marriage is great. Make your own joy. God knows the universe doesn’t throw much our way right now.”
She gives me a curt smile and finishes securing the sick-bay hatch.
“Whatever you decide to do, best of luck, Andrew.”
“You, too, Nancy,” I say. I watch as she walks down the passageway and disappears at the next intersection.
I check my chrono. Five minutes to report to the NCO mess for a ride to Luna.
I could see Halley again today. We could get married tomorrow. And if we all die, at least we’ll die together. The world is about to end. What does it all matter in the end?
There’s Halley, and Mom. Then there’s Sergeant Fallon, Constable Guest, Dr. Stewart, Corpsman Randall. If I go, I get to—maybe—spend some more time with Halley before it all goes to shit. Is it going to make a difference if I stay on Indy and make the trip back to Fomalhaut, risk getting stranded in space and starving or suffocating, or getting blotted out by a Lanky ship? If I don’t stay on Indy, and they get into a bind where my presence could make the tiniest bit of a difference—
Not that I’d ever know in the end.
I check my chrono again. Four minutes, ticking down.
I walk down the passageway to the next intersection. Left: the way to the staircase below, where the NCO mess is. Right: the connector to the main passageway that leads back up to CIC.
I look at my bandaged hand. It has a vaguely triangular shape to it now, like a crustacean claw. This is not what I want to look at for the rest of my life.
Then I hear the voice of Sergeant Burke in my head. My boot camp instructor sounds as clear as if he were standing right next to me in this narrow passageway.
Nobody gives a shit what we want. We take what we’re served, and we ask for seconds, and that’s the way it goes.
We take what we’re served, I think. But sometimes there’s a menu, and we get to pick. Shitty choices, but choices.
I know which way to go, of course. I’ve known it since I left CIC a few minutes ago. I’m already hating myself for it, but I would hate myself for the other choice, too, and maybe just a little more.
I turn left, toward the NCO mess. I’ll have to go to my berth and fetch a few things first.
The NCO mess is empty when I step through the hatch a little while later. I check my chrono to see that I’ve missed the fifteen-minute window by three minutes. I turn on my heels and race down the passageway to the staircase that leads below.
On the flight deck, the engines of Indy’s solitary drop ship are growling in standby. The tail hatch is open, and there are several people in the cargo hold, getting situated in the jump seats. Major Renner is standing at the bottom of the ramp. I trot down to the tail end of the ship, and she turns around when she hears my boots on the hard deck.
“Staff Sergeant Grayson,” she says. “You almost missed your ride.”
“I’m not going, ma’am.”
She raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t the skipper order you to go and get that hand fixed?”
“He didn’t order, ma’am. He strongly suggested.”
“So you’re staying with us for the ride back.”
“Yes, ma’am. I suppose I am.”
I hold up the two small standard mail containers I prepared hastily in my berth just a few minutes ago.
“I was hoping to pass these on for someone to deliver to Luna, drop ’em in a mail tube for me.”
Major Renner looks at the two sealed plastic envelopes, mild surprise on her face. Then she inclines her head toward the open cargo bay of the drop ship behind her.
“Hurry up,” she says.
I trudge up the tail ramp and look around in the interior. There are six sailors in the jump seats to my left and right. I don’t know any of them except by occasional sight in the ship’s passageways, but they are all wearing bandages or flexcasts, which means they are the sailors who were wounded when the Lankies shot up Indy a few days ago. There are four dark green body bags in the middle aisle—the KIA we suffered in the same attack. All of the fleet sailors are junior enlisted, and despite the fact that I’m in a hurry, I don’t feel comfortable entrusting any of them with what I carry. I wrote a letter to Halley and one to my mother, old-fashioned handwritten mail that will have to do in the absence of MilNet access. I can’t leave the system again without at least some attempt to say a few last things to the two people who mean the most to me.
The drop ship’s crew chief sits in his usual jump seat by the forward bulkhead, in a nook behind the onboard armory next to the narrow passage that leads to the cockpit. Outside, the noise level increases tenfold as the pilot revs the engines up to operational thrust.
The crew chief is an E-7 named Williamson. He wears a barely regulation mustache, and he has a rather large knife strapped to his flight suit’s chest armor upside down. I’ve exchanged a few words with him in the NCO mess on occasion. He looks up at me expectantly as I approach his jump seat.
“Would you drop something into the mail chute for me when you do the turnaround at Luna?” I ask. “I’ll talk the Russian out of some hooch to share if you do.”
Williamson smirks and holds out his hand. “You don’t need to bribe me, but I won’t turn it down, either,” he says.
I hand him the two envelopes, and he stuffs them into the chest pocket of his armor without looking at them.
“I’ll send ’em off for you, Staff Sergeant. Now get off this thing if you’re not coming along. You’re holding up traffic.”
I nod my thanks and get off Sergeant First Class Williamson’s drop ship. I’ve been with a drop-ship jock for long enough to know the true and proper ownership status of the ship—the crew chief owns it, and the pilots get to take it out for a spin every once in a while.
Major Renner is already up by the flight deck hatch. I jog up the stairs of the flight deck’s gallery to catch up with her. Behind me, the drop ship’s tail ramp rises with a hydraulic hum, and then locks in place. The orange warning light on the Wasp’s tail starts flashing.
“Clear the deck for flight operations,” an automated overhead announcement says. “Secure the flight deck hatch.”
I follow Major Renner out into the passageway, and the flight deck hatch closes and locks behind us.
Major Renner walks over to a comms unit on the bulkhead and picks up the handset. “CIC, XO. The bird is departing.” She listens to a reply I can’t hear this far away from the handset. “Six, sir. All the walking wounded. Plus the four KIA. Nobody else showed.” She pauses to listen for the reply. “Aye, sir.”