Free Terms of Enlistment by Marko Kloos Page A

hoarded food, not minding the half-stale donuts that date back to the beginning of the week, and toast each other with cold water, using our toothbrush cups as drinking vessels. With the restrictions lifted for the night, we talk and joke around like we’re in the mess hall, only with less restraint. We’ve never had a chance to talk to our platoon mates without a Drill Instructor hovering nearby, and the experience is strange after twelve weeks of social hamstringing.
    Later that evening, Halley and I retreat one of the empty bunks by the back wall of the platoon bay. We have to endure some good-natured ribbing from the rest of the platoon as we fashion a sight barrier out of the scratchy issue blankets by hanging them from the frame of the top bunk. When we have finished building our privacy booth, we slip into the bottom bunk, which is now shielded from view on three sides. Our ugly issue pajamas end up in front of the bed, and we finally have some time to enjoy each other on a real mattress, instead of coupling hurriedly in the corner of the head, listening for approaching footsteps in the platoon bay. There are some cat calls and comments from our platoon mates, but we’re too busy with each other to pay attention, and after a while, they go back to their business and leave us to ours.
     
    “We’ll stay in touch, right?” Halley asks later, as we lie on the thin mattress. I remember the original tenant of this bunk, a guy who washed out after three weeks for Failure to Adjust.
    “Of course,” I say. “We’ll write each other on the milnet.”
    “Too bad Basic isn’t about a month or two longer,” she says, and I laugh.
    “I thought you were eager to get out of here.”
    “Yeah, I am. But I wouldn’t mind spending some more time with you, chowderhead. I’d even put up with a few more weeks of running and quarterdecking.”
    “Aww, that’s so sweet,” I reply, and we both laugh.
    “Seriously,” Halley says. “I’d love for it to happen, but I don’t think there’s a chance we’ll both get posted to the same unit. I want to get mail from you every week, you hear? I want to know you didn’t get your head shot off on some crummy colony world on the ass end of the known galaxy.”
    “Hey, they may not even post me to the Marines. I may end up being a supply clerk on a carrier. I’ll spend four years handing out towels and paper clips.”
    “Come on,” she says. “Five hundred capital ships in the Navy, and they’re all so automated you could fly ‘em with a crew of ten. Over a hundred colonized worlds, and each requires a Marine garrison of at least company size. We’ll all end up in the Marines.”
    “I don’t mind. Anything to get off Earth.”
    “Hey, I’ve grown kind of fond of the place. It’s home, you know? I mean, smog and crime and all.”
    “Seriously?” I say. “You mean you’d not trade this place for a chance to breathe some fresh air on a colony somewhere? I hear there are colonies so small, they have a thousand people on the entire planet. Can you even imagine?”
    “Yeah, I can.” She looks down and smiles. “My uncle and his family made one of the colony ships a few years back. They won the ten-state lottery. Now they have five hundred acres on Laconia. They send pictures every now and then.”
    “Maybe we can pool our bonus money when we’re out of the military.”
    “And what?” she laughs. “Buy a spot on a colony ship and farm a patch of dirt on the other end of the universe?”
    “Sure. Why not? What else are you going to do when your time is up? Go back home and buy lots of crap, watch the Networks until your brain rots, and put on the mask whenever there’s a bad air day?”
    “Well,” Halley chuckles. “I was going to do exactly that, but now that you put it like that...”
    She looks at me again, her eyes finding mine, and her expression turns serious again.
    “Fifty-seven months after today, Grayson. That’s a long time. It’s a longer time