We’re in formation behind the Regulus’s Wasp, and there’s a chain of twenty-three more drop ships behind us, all empty except for one pilot. Ahead, the position lights of the Fomalhaut joint battle group are blinking in the distance. Earth is a mostly cloud-covered half sphere to our starboard.
All these people down there, and nobody knows what’s coming, I think. When I sent my letters off to Mom and Halley a month ago with Sergeant Williamson, I told my mother to get the hell out of the PRC and into the countryside somehow, but I suspect she didn’t need the encouragement.
“Do you regret anything?” Halley asks me. “I mean, now that we’re looking at the end of it all. Anything you wish you hadn’t done?”
I think about her question for a good while and look out at Earth and the stars beyond.
“No, I don’t,” I say. “Got off Earth. Got to see what’s out there. Got to be with you. I wish we could have spent more time together. But I wouldn’t undo anything.”
“Not even Detroit?”
“Not even Detroit,” I say. “Well, maybe I would check the color code on that fucking MARS rocket if I had to do it all again. How about you?”
“Nothing,” she says without hesitation. “I wouldn’t have changed a thing. Except maybe proposed marriage a few years earlier.”
“Sorry,” I say. “Looks like we’re not going to make the six-month waiting period.”
“One last time the military gets to fuck us over and ruin our plans,” Halley says, and we both laugh.
We dock at Regulus fifteen minutes later, two stop-ship wings hitting the clamps at the same time and getting hoisted into the flight deck simultaneously, a feat that only a Navigator-class supercarrier can pull off.
Halley turns off her engines as we pass through the airlock and get deposited on the flight deck. In front of us, Tent City is mostly gone, and two full battalions of Homeworld Defense soldiers are standing in battle order, waiting for the command to board their rides home.
“Refuel, load up, turn around,” she says. “Figure we have thirty minutes.”
We step out onto the flight deck to stretch our legs. A few rows down the deck, the Regulus’s drop ship settles in, and the tail ramp lowers onto the flight deck.
“Come with me,” Halley says. “I have a dumb idea.”
“I’m a sucker for those,” I say, and follow her across the flight deck and toward the exit hatch.
“First Lieutenant,” Colonel Aguilar says sternly. He takes Halley by the arm and walks her over into a corner of the CIC.
“We are three hours away from the biggest battle any of us will ever fight,” he says. “And you want me to dedicate some of my limited remaining time to what?”
“You’re the CO of a fleet warship,” Halley says, unflinchingly. “You have the legal authority. It’s not going to take you more than five minutes.”
Colonel Aguilar rubs his forehead. “Don’t you think that the situation calls for you to have a different set of priorities, Lieutenant? Is this of any importance right now? I mean, look around you.”
Halley meets the colonel’s gaze with a firm expression, and I’ve never admired her more than right this moment.
“Sir, I have my priorities straight. I’ll go and fight and die tonight just like everyone else. But let us have at least this before we do, please.” She nods over to the screen on the bulkhead, which shows the external camera feed from nearby Earth.
“If that’s not important, none of it is,” she says. “That’s why we’re up here and not down there, right? For them, not for us.”
The colonel looks over his shoulder at the screen. Then he sighs, and his shoulders droop a little. He holds up his left hand and looks at the gold ring on his finger for a moment.
“All right,” he says. “De acuerdo. Flag briefing room, five minutes.”
“Thank you, sir,” Halley says, relief in her voice.
Instead of our dress blues, we are wearing flight suit (the bride) and CDU fatigues (the groom). Instead of family and friends, our witnesses are one of the Regulus’s SI guards—momentarily pulled off guard duty from in front of the CIC—and a Neural Networks sergeant who just happened to walk past the flag briefing room at the right moment. Our officiant is the very cranky commanding officer of the ship, and we don’t have flowers or rice or any of the stuff you’re supposed to have. As far as wedding ceremonies go, it’s as haphazard and informal as it gets. But Halley and I are here together, and that makes it as perfect as it gets.
“We are gathered here to join Staff Sergeant Andrew Grayson and First Lieutenant Diana Halley in their union,” Colonel Aguilar says. “Staff Sergeant Grayson, will you take First Lieutenant Halley to be your wife and legal partner?”
“I will,” I say.
“First Lieutenant Halley, will you take Staff Sergeant Grayson to be your husband and legal partner?”
“I will,” Halley says, and squeezes my hand lightly.
Colonel Aguilar hands us a pair of rings. They’re unadorned, plain aluminum, and they look more like washers than wedding bands.
“Part of the captain’s supply chain,” he says. “Never needed any until today.”
I hold up my still-bandaged hand. “We may have a problem here.”
Halley touches my injured hand with hers and lowers it gently.
“We’ll just use our right hands,” she says. “I hear the Euros do it that way, anyway.”
We slip the rings onto each other’s fingers. They’re the same size, so mine is too tight on me while Halley’s is too loose on hers.
“By the authority vested in me by the North American Commonwealth, and as the master and commander of this ship, I now join you in a civil marriage,” Colonel Aguilar concludes.
He doesn’t say anything about kissing the bride, but I do anyway, and she kisses me back.
“Congratulations,” Colonel Aguilar says.
The buzzing of the shipboard comms panel puts an unromantic end to the affair. Colonel Aguilar walks over to the panel and picks up the receiver.
“CO,” he says. “Go ahead.”
He listens for a few seconds, acknowledges tersely, and hangs up.
“Back to work,” he says to us. “The Lanky ship is in visual range now. They didn’t decelerate as predicted. They are coming in under steam. We have less than an hour.”
“Combat stations, combat stations. All hands, combat stations. This is not a drill. I repeat: combat stations, combat stations.”
I am back in my armor, with my helmet on my head. My new wedding band is already gone from my finger because the armored glove won’t fit over it. I have it tucked into my personal document pouch, to put back on afterward if there is an after to this. Halley is in her flight suit, and we’re back in the cockpit of Dragonfly Delta Five. Behind us, the cargo hold is filling up with troops, and when I look back through the passage past the rear bulkhead, I see that it’s Sergeant Fallon and her inner circle, her platoon of Spartans.
“Our ride is on the way to the surface with a load of civvies,” she explains when I patch into her channel. “Hope your girlfriend is a crack pilot.”
“She’s my wife,” I say. “And she is a crack pilot.”
“When did this happen?” Sergeant Fallon asks.