John Scalzi - Old Man's War

Crick nodded over to a landing shuttle. "That's the first transport," he said. "You'll both be on it."

"Thank you, sir," I said.

"Thank you, Perry," Crick said. "Sagan is one of my best officers. I'm grateful you saved her. Now, if you could have managed to save that tracking system, too, you would really have made my day. All this work defending the goddamn tracking station was for nothing."

"About that, sir," I said, and held up the memory module. "I think I have something you might find interesting."

Crick stared at the memory module, and then scowled over at me. "No one likes an overachiever, Captain," he said.

"No, sir, I guess they don't," I said, "although it's lieutenant."

"We'll just see about that," Crick said.

Jane made the first shuttle up. I was delayed quite a bit.

I made captain. I never saw Jane again.

The first of these was the more dramatic of the two. Carrying Jane to safety on my back through several hundred meters of open battlefield, and then placing her into a stasis chamber while under fire, would have been enough to get a decent write-up in the official report of the battle. Bringing in the technical schematics for the Consu tracking system as well, as Major Crick intimated, seemed a little like piling on. But what are you going to do. I got a couple more medals out of the Second Battle of Coral, and the promotion to boot. If anybody noticed that I had gone from corporal to captain in under a month, they kept it to themselves. Well, so did I. In any event, I got my drinks bought for me for several months afterward. Of course, when you're in the CDF, all the drinks are free. But it's the thought that counts.

The Consu technical manual was shipped directly to Military Research. Harry told me later that getting to flip through it was like reading God's scribble pad. The Rraey knew how to use the tracking system but had no idea how it worked—even with the full schematic it was doubtful that they would have been able to piece together another one. They didn't have the manufacturing capability to do it. We knew that because we didn't have the manufacturing capability to do it. The theory behind the machine alone was opening up whole new branches of physics, and causing the colonies to reassess their skip drive technology.

Harry was tapped as part of the team tasked to spin out practical applications of the technology. He was delighted with the position; Jesse complained it was making him insufferable. Harry's old gripe about not having the math for the job was rendered immaterial, since no one else really had the math for it, either. It certainly reinforced the idea that the Consu were a race with whom we should clearly not mess.

A few months after the Second Battle of Coral, it was rumored that the Rraey returned to Consu space, imploring the Consu for more technology. The Consu responded by imploding the Rraey's ship and hurling it into the nearest black hole. This still strikes me as overkill. But it's just a rumor.

After Coral, the CDF gave me a series of cushy assignments, beginning with a stint touring the colonies as the CDF's latest hero, showing the colonists how The Colonial Defense Forces Are Fighting For YOU! I got to sit in a lot of parades and judge a lot of cooking contests. After a few months of that I was ready to do something else, although it was finally nice to be able to visit a planet or two and not have to kill everyone who was there.

After my PR stint, the CDF had me ride herd on new recruit transport ships. I was the guy who got to stand in front of a thousand old people in new bodies and tell them to have fun, and then a week later tell them that in ten years, three-quarters of them would be dead. This tour of duty was almost unbearably bittersweet. I'd go into the dining hall on the transport ship and see groups of new friends coalescing and bonding, the way I did with Harry and Jesse, Alan and Maggie, Tom and Susan. I wondered how many of them would make it. I hoped all of them would. I knew that most of them wouldn't. After a few months of this I asked for a different assignment. Nobody said anything about it. It wasn't the sort of assignment that anyone wanted to do for a very long time.

Eventually I asked to go back into combat. It's not that I like combat, although I'm strangely good at it. It's just that in this life, I am a soldier. It was what I agreed to be and to do. I intended to give it up one day, but until then, I wanted to be on the line. I was given a company and assigned to the Taos . It's where I am now. It's a good ship. I command good soldiers. In this life, you can't ask for much more than that.

Never seeing Jane again is rather less dramatic. After all, there's not much to not seeing someone. Jane took the first shuttle up to the Amarillo ; the ship's doctor there took one look at her Special Forces designation and wheeled her into the corner of the medical bay, to remain in stasis until they returned to Phoenix and she could be worked on by Special Forces medical technicians. I eventually made it back to Phoenix on the Bakersfield . By that time Jane was deep in the bowels of the Special Forces medical wing and unreachable by a mere mortal such as myself, even if I was a newly minted hero.

Shortly thereafter I was decorated, promoted and made to begin my barnstorming tour of the colonies. I eventually received word from Major Crick that Jane had recuperated and was reassigned, along with most of the surviving crew of the Sparrowhawk , to a new ship called the Kite . Beyond that, it did no good to try to send Jane a message. The Special Forces were the Special Forces. They were the Ghost Brigades. You're not supposed to know where they're going or what they're doing or even that they're there in front of your own face.

I know they're there, however. Whenever Special Forces soldiers see me, they ping me with their BrainPals—short little bursts of emotional information, signifying respect. I am the only real-born to have served in Special Forces, however briefly; I rescued one of their own and I snatched mission success out of the jaws of partial mission failure. I ping back, acknowledging the salute, but otherwise I outwardly say nothing to give them away. Special Forces prefer it that way. I haven't seen Jane again on Phoenix or elsewhere.

But I've heard from her. Shortly after I was assigned to the Taos, Asshole informed me I had a message waiting from an anonymous sender. This was new; I had never received an anonymous message via BrainPal before. I opened it. I saw a picture of a field of grain, a farmhouse in the distance and a sunrise. It could have been a sunset, but that's not the feeling that I got. It took me a second to realize the picture was supposed to be a postcard. Then I heard her voice, a voice that I knew all my life from two different women.

You once asked me where Special Forces go when we retire, and I told you that I didn't know — she sent. But I do know. We have a place where we can go, if we like, and learn how to be human for the first time. When it's time, I think I'm going to go. I think I want you to join me. You don't have to come. But if you want to, you can. You're one of us, you know .

I paused the message for a minute, and started it up again, when I was ready.

Part of me was once someone you loved — she sent. I think that part of me wants to be loved by you again, and wants me to love you as well. I can't be her. I can just be me. But I think you could love me if you wanted to. I want you to. Come to me when you can. I'll be here .

That was it.

I think back to the day I stood before my wife's grave for the final time, and turned away from it without regret, because I knew that what she was was not contained in that hole in the ground. I entered a new life and found her again, in a woman who was entirely her own person. When this life is done, I'll turn away from it without regret as well, because I know she waits for me, in another, different life.