I’ve always hated running, but somehow I’ve grown used to it—maybe even fond of it—in the last month, ever since we got back from Leonidas. It’s what I do to clear my head when I can’t sleep, when I want to be by myself for a while. As a side benefit, I’m also back to the weight I was before I took up the drill-instructor job at Orem for a year, where I got a little flabby on garrison chow.
As often as I have puffed up and down these streets, it’s still a little surreal to be out here alone in the dark. In a PRC, this sort of thing would get me mugged or killed within ten minutes, but the ’burbers here in Liberty Falls are running a tidy, safe town. I usually see a police patrol out here on my run, and this night doesn’t break the streak. When I’m just past the library in the center of town, a police hydrocar glides past me on the street. I glance over to see the cop giving me an appraising look. Then he raises his hand in greeting, and I wave back curtly. The police car continues down Main Street, the electric engine so quiet that I only hear the tires whispering on the asphalt.
Right behind the town hall, there’s a road that veers off and goes up a hill. I’ve not yet made it up that half-kilometer incline without stopping for breath, but I get a little further each morning. Today I get more than halfway up the hill before my legs start getting heavy. This may just be the day I beat the hill and make it to the residential neighborhood at the top.
I’m three-quarters of the way up, winded but still in fighting shape, when my PDP chirps a message alert. It’s the three-short, three-long, three-short pattern reserved for Priority One emergencies. I stop and catch my breath for a few moments. Then I fish the PDP out of my leg pocket while eyeing the crest of the hill, just a few hundred meters away, a few more minutes of huffing and puffing up a ten-degree slope.
Tomorrow, I guess.
The screen of my PDP shows only a short message, but the content serves to give me a healthy boost of adrenaline that makes my fatigue all but vanish.
“LANKY INCURSION IN PROGRESS—ALL OFF-DUTY PERSONNEL REPORT TO DESIGNATED RMAP AT ONCE—THIS IS NOT A DRILL.”
RMAPs are the regional military assembly points, the closest bases with air/space fields to wherever we’re spending our liberty or leave. For me and Halley, that’s Homeworld Defense Air Station Burlington, fifteen minutes away. I slip my PDP back into my leg pocket and start running back down the hill.
Back at the chief’s place, Halley is out of bed and half-dressed when I gallop up the stairs and into the guest bedroom above the restaurant. I peel off my sweat-soaked T-shirt and toss it aside, then grab a fresh one off the dresser.
“Breakfast will have to wait,” I say.
“I got the alert,” she says. “I’m coming, too.”
“Like hell you are. You’re in rehab and off flight status until the doc clears you.”
“Try and stop me, Lieutenant,” she says. “Would have had to go out to Burlington today anyway for the next physical-terrorism session. I might as well put on a flight suit just in case the shit hits the fan and they happen to have more birds than pilots on hand.”
I know better than to argue about this with Halley, who is already zipping up her suit. I want her to return to bed and accept the reality that she’s in no shape for a fight, that no wing commander is going to put her behind the controls of a drop ship as long as the military doc has her grounded. But I know that I don’t have the right to make that call for her. So even though I don’t want to, I take her shoulder holster from its place on the dresser and help her put it on. She winces a little when she threads her left arm through the harness, but then the holster is in place, and she’s dressed and armed for battle for the first time since she came home to the solar system with me a month ago on a trauma cradle in the sick bay of NACS Portsmouth. She gives the holstered pistol under her arm a quick pat with her right hand.
“Feels good,” she says.
“They haven’t made an incursion in a month,” I say. “I was hoping we wouldn’t see another one of those things until Mars.”
“Let’s just hope it’s a single ship and not their whole goddamn fleet,” Halley replies. “It would suck having our shit jumped right before we pulled the trigger on our own offensive.”
I grab my alert bag and sling it over my shoulder. Halley’s bag is on the floor on her side of the bed, and I walk over and pick hers up as well.
“I guess we’ll see in twenty minutes,” I say. “Let’s go. We can put on the hardshell and load the PDWs on the train.”
When we step outside, we run into my mother and Chief Kopka, who have arrived to open the restaurant for the day. Mom looks alarmed when she sees us both coming out of the door with our gear bags and serious expressions.
“What’s going on, Andrew?”
“Emergency alert,” I reply. “We have to report to Burlington. There’s a Lanky incursion.”
“How many?” Chief Kopka asks.
“No idea. We just got the alert. Heading to the base to find out. You turn on the news and sit tight. Don’t forget the lockbox in your office if things get hairy.”
Chief Kopka nods, his expression as grim as ours. “Be careful out there, you two. And give ’em hell.”
Mom hugs Halley, who winces a little but returns the hug. Then she hugs me, which she only accomplishes halfway because of all the extra bulk strapped to my body right now, fifty pounds of armor and gear.
“I know this is what you do. But don’t mind if I hate it when you go off to fight.”
“That’s your right, Mom,” I say. “Gotta go. We’ll be back. But don’t keep breakfast warm for us. We may be a while.”
“I’ll make you two a fresh breakfast whenever you get back. Any time of the day. Just get back here, please.”
I don’t say good-bye anymore when I leave. We walk off toward the train station without a parting ritual. It’s better to act like you’re just putting your own life on hold briefly to take care of some business, and you’ll be picking up the threads you put aside once you get back, in a little while. If I gave a heartfelt good-bye every time I left, one that matched the real danger we faced, I’d have no emotions left.