Marko Kloos - Terms of Enlistment

“Yeah, it’s gone,” she says when she notices my reaction. “The round turned the bones in my lower leg into shrapnel. There wasn’t enough left to piece together. They already fitted me for a replacement. I hear titanium alloy is much better than bone and tissue, anyway.”

“I thought you got an automatic discharge for an injury like that,” I say.

“Not if you have that big-ass medal on the blue neck ribbon,” she replies. “Then you can get away with shit. I even get to kill two officers per year, no questions asked.”

I laugh and shake my head.

“In that case, I have one to get rid of, if you haven’t hit your quota yet.”

“Next time that asshole stops by, you ask him for a Legal Corps officer in the room, and you don’t say a damn thing until they get you one, you hear?”

I should have thought of that myself , I think.

“I will. He wouldn’t even tell me what happened to the rest of the squad, and I can’t get on MilNet to send messages.”

“No shit?” Sergeant Fallon leans forward. “They locked out your PDP?”

I nod, and she shakes her head in disgust.

“Don’t say a thing without a legal beagle nearby, Grayson. They’re setting you up to take the heat for something. You didn’t do a damn thing wrong back in that shithole, so don’t let ‘em.”

“I’d say that’s out of my power, Sarge.”

“Oh, we’ll see about that. Where’d they quarter you in here, anyway?”

“Unit 3006,” I say. The low-level sense of panic I had been feeling since Major Unwerth’s visit is growing suddenly.

“Stratton and Paterson are dead,” Sergeant Fallon says, her voice suddenly flat. “Hansen is in rehab with a new shoulder joint. Everyone else is back at Battalion already, but as far as I know, they’re keeping our squad confined to quarters for now, like we’re some sort of freaking penal unit.”

“My fault, I guess,” I say. “Shouldn’t have used that rocket. Shit, I didn’t even realize I had a thermobaric loaded. I just aimed the thing and let fly.”

“And you know what, Grayson? I would have done the same fucking thing, and so would anyone else in our squad. Don’t even think twice about it. They got some bad press from the Networks, and now the public liaison at Battalion is all in a panic. It’ll blow over.”

“I don’t know, Sarge. The major seemed pretty set on pinning that tail on me.”

“We’ll see about that,” she repeats. “I may just have a word or two with him. We go way back, Major Unwerth and me.”

“If they toss me in the brig, just let the rest of the squad know I’m not a fuck-up, will you?”

“Don’t worry,” she says. “They try to fuck you over, the whole battalion’s going to know about it, trust me on that one. We don’t throw our own to the wolves to appease some candy-ass civilian brass.”

Her words make me feel a little more at ease, but I still feel as if there’s a sword hanging over my head. Sergeant Fallon has a lot of pull in the battalion—there aren’t many living Medal of Honor winners in the service, and she’s a prestige item, like a trophy in the battalion showcase—but she’s still just a Staff Sergeant.

“Is it true that you got to pick your assignment when they gave you that medal?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Sergeant Fallon says. “That’s part of the package. You get a yearly bonus for the rest of your life. They give you a nice blue flag in a nice wooden case, and even the brass have to salute you. And if you want reassignment, they have to grant it. You can’t ask to be a starship captain, of course, but if I had wanted to be a tank driver or drop ship pilot, they would have sent me off to armor or aviation school.”

“And why didn’t you?”

“Didn’t want to leave my guys,” she shrugs. “Different service would just mean different kinds of crap. I like sticking with the crap I know. I guess I didn’t want to feel like a recruit all over again. Shit, can you imagine a Staff Sergeant going to Fleet School? Sit in a classroom with all those green kids just out of Basic?”

I try to imagine battle-hardened Sergeant Fallon sitting in a lecture on interstellar travel or shipboard safety, with all the other students staring at her Medal of Honor ribbon, and I shake my head with a smile.

“Why didn’t you pick retirement? Take your bonus and go home?”

Sergeant Fallon looks at me as if I had just suggested she should strip naked and dance on the table.

“Retire to where? You think anyone musters out after sixty months? Do you know the retention rate in the military?”

I shake my head.

“Ninety-one percent, Grayson. Ninety-one out of a hundred service members who make it to Month Sixty end up re-enlisting. You think you were going to take the money and run after five years?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“The money they pay out? That’ll pay for shit outside in the real world. You get out as an E-3, maybe E-4, that’s half a million dollars for five years. That kind of money means you don’t qualify for public housing, and it’s not enough for anything bigger than a broom closet in the suburbs. It sure as shit isn’t anywhere near enough for a slot on a colony ship. And even if you could go back to the PRC, what the hell kind of reception do you think you’ll get as former TA?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “My father was TA, but he got kicked out early. I don’t know any other veterans.”

“There’s a reason for that, Grayson. Shit, we just killed a few hundred welfare rats last Saturday night. How do you think they feel about the military right now? The TA gets sent out every time the welfare cities get out of control. What do you think will happen to you if you show up back home with your shit in a duffel bag, and a government bank card with a million Commonwealth Dollars on it?”

I chew my lip at that. What she says makes perfect sense, of course, and I feel like an idiot for not having thought about this before. There are no recent veterans in our PRC—people who leave for Basic never come back. I always figured it was because they didn’t want to come back, not because they couldn’t.

“No, we were all locked in the moment we signed that paperwork in Basic. You can’t go back home after five years, and you don’t have enough money to do anything else, so you sign for five more, and then five more. Before you know it, you’re a lifer. You go for the ten-year bonus, then the fifteen-year bonus, and then you figure you might as well stick it out for twenty.”

She looks at me and circles the rim of her coffee cup with one finger.

“They know that most of us are going to keep re-enlisting. And seriously, what the hell are we good for in civilian life? I spent the last eleven years as a combat grunt. I know small-unit tactics. I know how to blow up shit and kill people. Can you see me working as a commissary clerk somewhere?”

“No, I can’t,” I say. “You’d scare the fuck out of the civilians.”

“That’s no longer our world, Grayson.”

“Well,” I say. “Guess I better get used to the thought of becoming a lifer. Unless they court-martial me, and kick me out.”

“What do you want to get out of the military? What would you ask for if the President put that medal around your neck tomorrow?” Sergeant Fallon asks. She studies me with a slight smile, as if she already knows what I’ll say.

“Seriously?”

She nods in reply. “Seriously. Private Grayson, Medal of Honor. Sky’s the limit. What would you do with that ticket?”

I don’t want to answer, because I don’t want to sound like I’m not loyal to my unit, but I find it hard to be dishonest with Sergeant Fallon. So I tell her the truth.