“So what do you want to talk about?” I ask.
“Us,” she says. “I mean, where we are and where all this is going. This is, what, the sixth time we’ve actually gotten together since Basic?”
“Seven,” I say. “Eight if you count the Versailles.” I have a slightly sinking feeling that I’m about to hear a Dear John speech. “Considering our occupational specialties, that’s actually not bad for five years.”
“No, it isn’t. But it’s not great, either. I don’t want to keep having to wait nine months between leaves to get enough of you to last me for the next nine. It’s not ideal, you know?”
“No,” I say. “It’s not. But unless we manage to get assigned to the same ship again, it’s what it is.”
“We already used up that particular golden ticket,” Halley says. “So we need to figure out some alternative. Because this super long-distance boyfriend thing isn’t enough for me anymore.”
I take a bite of my food. Today’s galley special is beef over egg noodles. The sauce has a vague soy tang to it, but the beef is real, not some soy imitate like the civilians in the PRCs get.
“We’re in the military,” I say. “In the middle of a shooting war. Two of them, really. I don’t think the fleet is going to make it a priority to accommodate some random couple in the ranks so they can spend a little more bunk time together.”
“No,” Halley says. “Of course not.” She stabs the beef with her fork and shovels a healthy amount into her mouth. Halley is smart and pretty and the most capable junior officer I know, but ever since I met her in boot camp, she has eaten with all the speed and grace of a calorie-starved space dockworker.
“But we can use the system to make them give us more of what we want,” she continues.
“Oh? How so?”
She studies me for a moment as if she’s trying to decide whether to go through with letting me in on her plan. Then she puts more food into her mouth and chews before answering.
“What do you know about my family, Andrew?”
“Not a lot,” I shrug. “You don’t talk about your folks a lot. I know you’re from the ’burbs, and that your parents weren’t happy when you joined up.”
“Not quite true,” Halley says. “They all but disowned me. Ever wonder why I never ask you to come home with me on leave?”
“I figured it was because we decided that we didn’t want to burn up most of our leave time in transit.”
“There’s that,” she says. “But mostly it’s because I didn’t want to kick off World War IV at home by showing up in uniform and with what they’d consider a sexual lunch bag.”
I chuckle around a mouthful of beef and noodles.
“But,” she says, and waves a beef-tipped fork at me, “if I brought home a respectable prospect for future grandkids, I’m pretty sure it would take the sting out of the whole military enlistment thing. For my mom anyway. And she’s the one we really have to worry about.”
“Wait,” I say. “You mean getting hitched? Are you proposing right now, First Lieutenant Halley?”
Halley is a pragmatist, not the romantic type at all. Hearing her talk about marriage, however oblique, is about as surprising as hearing a Lanky recite Shakespeare in flawless English. I look at her with an incredulous grin.
“Well, here’s the thing,” she says. “I looked up the regs. Married couples get extra family leave. We could see each other twice as often. And if one of us buys the farm, the other inherits eighty percent of the end-of-term bonus.”
In the five years we’ve been together, I never considered marriage, and if I had, I wouldn’t have suggested it to Halley. I always had the feeling that she was happier with our loose commitment, but part of me is immensely pleased by her implied proposal, even if it’s wrapped in Halley-esque pragmatism.
“My parents aren’t just middle-class,” she says. “Mom’s the chief surgeon at a private hospital, and Dad designs ballistic-delivery systems for the Colonial Administration. I’m their only kid. I come home with a presentable husband and dangle that grandchild carrot in front of them, we could have a pretty good life back home. A place to take our retirement bonus.”
“Too bad we just re-upped,” I say. I remember Liberty Falls, that pristine upper-middle-class enclave in the mountains of Vermont, and the thought of getting to live in such a place seems almost surreal. Fresh air, clean streets, dairy farms. No weekly BNA rations. No need to check your back every time you walk down the street.
“Look, you know I’m not the sappy type,” Halley says. “And I don’t give a shit about engagement rings or anything like that. But I don’t want you to think I’m just making a business proposal here.”