Marko Kloos - Terms of Enlistment

“Finally,” Major Unwerth says, “you leave as soon as you get medical clearance, straight from here. You’ll report to Great Lakes for your slot in the next Navy Indoc training cycle, just like a recruit fresh out of Basic. Five weeks of Indoc, and then it’s off to your tech school. No going back to Shughart once you sign the paperwork.”

That condition is much harder to swallow than the previous two. I don’t care about losing the few months of service time I had built up in the battalion, and I don’t mind learning how to sit in a chair and hold down a computer console for the rest of my service time, but being excised from my squad with such speed and finality feels like I got shot in the gut all over again. Apparently, I can’t quite conceal my sudden dismay, because Major Unwerth frowns at me.

“It’s a bit too late for you to change your mind now. I called in a lot of favors for this. Don’t think I’ll go back and undo all the paperwork now.”

“I’ll sign whatever I need to sign.”

Major Unwerth puts his hat and briefcase down on my bed, all the way by the foot end, and extracts a neat stack of forms from his briefcase.

“Now, I can stand here and let you read all the fine print, if you want, or you can just go ahead and sign, so we can both get on with our lives. There’s no hidden clause that will have you smashing ore in a refinery ship, I promise.”

From what I know about the Major so far, I wouldn’t trust his promise further than I can pull a Hornet-class drop ship with my teeth, but I know that he’s afraid of Sergeant Fallon, and I also know that the Sarge would break Major Unwerth’s neck if he went back on his promise. I hold out my hand for the forms, and he hands them to me. I briefly skim the stack of paper—dense Legalese, just like our enlistment forms back at Orem—and turn to the last page. There’s a pen clipped to the document clasp that holds the forms together.

For the third time in my short military career, I sign a bunch of forms and change my status with the stroke of a pen.

“As of this moment, you’re no longer in the Territorial Army, Mister Grayson. Your status is Assigned Navy, as if you had just finished your Basic training. You’re still a member of the Armed Forces of the NAC, but you’re not in the Navy until you report to Great Lakes.”

I nod slowly as I hand the stack of forms back to the Major. He tucks them into his briefcase, and then looks at me expectantly.

“The PDP is TA property,” he says when I shrug in response. “You need to turn it in. They’ll issue you a new one in the Navy.”

I take my PDP, with the half-finished message to Halley still on it, and hand it to the Major with numb fingers. The PDP won’t reveal my personal files to anyone, and the data is stored on the MilNet directly. As soon as I open my new PDP, my half-written message will be on the screen, exactly at the point where I left off, but it still feels as if I’m handing over my diary to a bully. Major Unwerth takes the PDP and slides it into his briefcase without even glancing at it. Then he takes a folded set of forms out of a side pocket and tosses them onto the bed.

“These are your transfer orders, and that concludes our business. Farewell, Mister Grayson,” he says, and turns to walk out.

“Wait a second,” I say. “I don’t have my personal gear from Shughart.”

“I’ll have them send your stuff,” he says without pausing. He opens the door and walks out without looking back. He doesn’t even take the time to close the door behind him, as if I’m no longer worthy of any expenditure of energy on his part. I watch as he briskly walks down the hallway to the elevators.

Deprived of my PDP, I have no entertainment left, no contact with my squad mates or Halley. I lie down on the thin pillow again and stare at the projection window that is selling me the illusion of a windy autumn lakeshore outside.

I got what I had wanted since I walked into the recruiting office—a slot in a space-going service. When the doctor releases me for active duty, I’ll take a military shuttle up to Great Lakes, where all the new Navy recruits get their initial training, and in six weeks, I’ll go to my tech school on Luna. I’ll finally go into space and see the planet from a few hundred thousand miles away. After my training, I’ll travel on an interstellar warship that will take me dozens of light years away from this place.

So why do I feel like I’ve just been kicked to the curb and abandoned?

My stuff arrives the next day. The battalion doesn’t even bother to send out a staff monkey to deliver my few civilian possessions. Instead, they arrive in a standard military goods mailer, a little plastic tub that’s barely bigger than a meal tray. Inside are the two sets of clothes I had with me when I went off to Basic, the clothes I only wore for my trip to Fort Shughart after that.

It feels weird to see my civilian stuff again. It’s my last tangible connection to my old life. One of the sets is the ensemble I wore when I went to see my father—a half-sleeved shirt, a pair of jeans made out of synthetic cotton, and a thin hooded jacket in inoffensive gray. This is flimsy stuff that costs just a few dollars to produce, rags for the peasantry. When I try out my old clothes, I suddenly feel inferior, unworthy, out of place. In a way, I’m back to being nobody: no longer a TA trooper, and not yet in the Navy.

I change back into my hospital clothes. As drab and simple as they are, they’re a uniform of sorts, and they change me back into somebody who has business being in this room at the military medical center. I no longer feel like a hood rat who has managed to sneak into a place where he doesn’t belong.

When I get down to the chow lounge for the now-customary afternoon coffee with Sergeant Fallon, the spot where my PDP used to sit in my waistband feels unnaturally empty. I didn’t fully appreciate just how much I relied on it until they took it away.

“Hey, Sarge,” I greet Sergeant Fallon as I sit down across the table from her. She’s wearing her dark hair open today, and it’s the first time I’ve seen her without her usual helmet-friendly hairstyle. She looks a lot more feminine this way, and the strands of hair framing her face greatly soften her chiseled features. She’s an attractive woman, and if she wore a set of glasses, she could pass for a librarian instead of a soldier, if she wore clothes loose enough to conceal her rock-hard warrior build.

“Hey there, Navy puke.”

I grin at her salutation.

“Not yet. I have to wait until the doc says that I’m back to normal, and then I have to report to Great Lakes straight from here for the next available training cycle.”

“Well, good for you,” she says. “So I guess I won’t see you again after tomorrow.”

“What’s tomorrow?”

“They’re sending me to a different facility for rehab. A few weeks of some Medical Corps therapist showing me how to walk. I’ll be totally out of shape by the time I get back to the battalion.”

I’d be willing to bet half my discharge bonus that Sergeant Fallon is doing push-ups and pull-ups in her room every day already. She’s not the type to sit on her butt, watch Network shows, and eat pastries for a few weeks. I already pity the poor therapist who almost certainly won’t be able to keep up with his new patient.

“The major took my PDP when I signed the transfer paperwork,” I say. “I can’t get in touch with anyone right now. If you make it back to the squad before the Navy gives me a fully enabled PDP…”

I don’t know whether I want her to tell my squad mates that I’m sorry, or that I miss them, or that I’m ashamed I have to leave them without even saying good-bye, so I don’t finish the sentence, but Sergeant Fallon merely nods.