Jay Allan - Tombstone

He let out a deep breath. "Well, Darius, the first part of that answer is the fact that you're asking the question at all. I just told you that you could leave any time you want to. Why are you asking me questions at all?" He paused for an instant, but continued before I could answer. "It depends on what you really want, Darius. You're smart enough to get by as a thief for a while, at least until you step on someone else's toes and you end up mining meteor fragments on the moon. Or more likely dead."

He rolled up his sleeve. "You see this arm?" I looked at him, confused. "I got this blown off as a private. My first battle."

I thought to myself, this guy needs work on his sales pitch if that is his idea of an inducement. But I kept listening anyway. I was curious where he was going with this.

"This is a new one. A perfect regeneration. You'd have to be a member of the political class here for that kind of medical priority. But in the Corps all you have to be is a Marine. What was your medical priority rating before you ran? Zero?"

I frowned. "So you're saying if you get my arm shot off you'll grow me a new one? You’re a lousy salesman."

"No." He looked at me with the first hint of impatience I'd seen from him. "I'm saying that the Corps is someplace that respects all of its members. We don't prioritize our people and throw most of them away because it's expedient. An injured Marine gets the care he needs, whatever that is. Private, general…it doesn’t matter. A Marine in trouble gets the support he needs." He stared right at me, his eyes boring into mine. "Haven't you ever wanted to belong somewhere? To be part of a team where everyone has your back?"

"So it's that simple? I say yes, and you make me part of this team you're talking about?" I had to admit to myself, the prospect of not feeling totally on my own every second was appealing. I also thought it had to be bullshit.

He laughed. "Far from. If you say yes, I will give you a chance to make it. If you sign on you will do six years of training." He paused, smiling wickedly at the blank expression on my face. "Yes, that's right. Six years. You'll get the education you never got before, and you'll learn how to really use that reasonably effective brain I think you have. You'll also work like a dog; like nothing you have ever experienced. You think they worked people hard on that farm?" The wicked grin widened, becoming downright maniacal. "You'll end up face down in the mud puking your guts up from physical training you can't imagine now. Our program is serious." He paused, and the grin slowly vanished. "It's dangerous too. People die in training. You may die in training."

"So you sell the Corps hard and then try to scare me away?" My head was spinning. I didn't know what to think. "So if I make it through your training, then what happens?"

"Then you graduate as a private." His voice was serious now. All the earlier informality was gone. "And when you make your first drop you're one of us." Long pause. "For the rest of your life."

"After my first drop?"

"Graduating from training gives you the right to drop with a Marine unit. Completing the drop makes you a Marine. We're combat veterans, every one of us. You may end up being a mechanic or a computer tech in the Corps, but the first time out you're a private and a combat soldier. Even our medical staff starts out fighting."

"Everybody starts as a private?" I was intrigued. This was very different from the society I'd seen my whole life, where birth and connections were everything. It amused me to think of a Senator starting out as a field hand on the farm.

"Everybody. You may be a general someday, but until then you'll always know that whoever ordered you into battle has been there himself." He was exaggerating to make a point, but it turns out he was right…I would become a general one day, and I would never ever forget what it felt like to climb into that first lander.

"So fine, the Corps takes care of its own. That's all great, but it still sounds like going out there and getting all shot up for the politicians who sit behind desks and tell everyone else what to do. The Marines may have a different attitude, but they still fight for the system that worked my father to death on that farm."

"I knew you were smart." His grin was back. "Most recruits aren't this much of a pain in the ass." He hesitated, as if he was trying to decide how to discuss delicate matters. "Darius, the system is what it is. I'm not here to defend it or even worry about it. But if you become one of us you will see a whole universe you can't imagine now. The colony worlds are nothing like Earth. I'm posted here, but this isn't my home any more. When I retire it will be to Atlantia or Arcadia or one of the other frontier planets. Earth is dying, choking to death on corruption and repression, but not mankind. The future isn’t here; it’s out there." He pointed upwards.

He got up and spun the chair around facing the right way. "We're not offering you a job, Darius. We're offering you a home. One you need to prove yourself worthy for. When you hit the dirt on that first drop you are reborn; your sins are washed away. It's in the Marine Charter…a full legal pardon. If you want, you can come back to Earth when your ten years is up. You can walk right onto that farm and tell the administrator you killed one of his supervisors a few years back. You can tell him to eat shit if you want. They can't arrest you, and if they tried they'd have a Marine strike force showing up to get you out."

He sat back in the chair, sitting closer, looking right at me. "When you muster out, if you want to settle on a colony world, you'll get a land grant or resource allotment. We take care of our own, and once you're one of us, you're always one of us." He slapped me on the knee and got up again. "Think about it, Darius. I'll have some dinner sent in here. Then sleep on it. We'll talk in the morning." He turned and walked out without another word, and the door slid shut behind him.

I sat for a long while just thinking about everything he had said. My first reaction was to tell him to forget about it. I was only sixteen - six years of training seemed like an eternity. And leave Earth? Fight on other worlds? It was just too much.

But then a lot of what he said came back to me, and I started to think about it. I had grown up on the lowest rung of the system. My parents were penniless Cogs with no prospects to improve their lives or mine. I got only a rudimentary education, little or no access to medical care, and barely enough food to survive. At the time, that just seemed to be the way of things. A Cog’s life is ruled by necessity, by the daily struggle to get by. There wasn’t time to think about anything else or to contemplate the inequities of the system or the failings of the government. The utter powerlessness and vulnerability made all that seem very far away. A Cog worries about getting food today, not a better life tomorrow.

When I ran from the farm, I started to become someone else, but only to a limited extent. My horizons had expanded, but not all that much. I stole because I didn’t have what I needed to survive, and later because I got better at it and could live a more tolerable life, albeit at the expense of my victims. I had my crew, but we were drawn together by necessity and opportunity, not by any great commitment to each other.

I tried to imagine what it would be like to be part of a group like he'd described, but it was just too much to deal with. I put it out of my mind and drifted off to sleep determined to turn Captain Jackson down, to go back to my hideout and lay low and be more careful about picking my targets. For some reason, I believed him when he said they would let us go. But I thrashed around all night, my decision made consciously but still conflicted somewhere deeper inside myself. Something he said got to me on a level I couldn't entirely understand or control. When he came back the next morning I tried to say no, but all that came out of my mouth was, "Yes, I'm in." I was on my way.