John Ringo - Cally's War

“Get off the farm. Get rejuv. See more of at least some world without having to be a colonist. If I didn’t want to be a farmer’s wife on Earth, I sure didn’t want to be one on some other Godforsaken planet. There just wasn’t much for me back home. My brother’s going to work the farm, and I could either have had three little kids by now and be working my butt off as a farm wife where I grew up, or I could be here. I picked here. And if they ended up shipping me off to kill Posties, well, they’re the reason I never got to meet my maternal grandmother, so I pretty much figure our family owes them.”

“The rejuv was a selling point for me, but I also almost didn’t join because of it. They don’t like juvs much in my old neighborhood,” he said.

“Maybe by the time we get out in fifty years the prejudice won’t be so bad. Or the drugs’ll be more available and there won’t be a reason for hard feelings.” She plucked at the edge of the table.

“Optimist,” he smiled teasingly and she grinned back and in that moment she looked so beautiful he stopped breathing for a moment just looking at her.

When he finally inhaled it was sudden, and then her eyes were caught in his, both looking, and somehow neither of them were smiling anymore. Suzannu broke the moment by calling out his name and sliding a pizza tray on the counter. He took the chance to tear his eyes away and go get the food.

Watching Sinda eat a piece of pizza was fascinating. She picked it up with one hand and supported the pizza slice with two fingers of the other hand under the tip. He was sure she was going to dump a load of the toppings in her lap, but she didn’t. She bit into it delicately, closing her eyes to savor the first bite.

“Mmmm. That’s good.” She opened her eyes to take another bite and Stewart realized that not only was he staring, he also hadn’t gotten himself a piece and was letting the pizza get cold. He pulled a slice onto his plate and attacked it with a knife and fork. Yes, it would be in character to pick up the whole piece and have some of it drop in his lap, but it would also make an embarrassing blotch on his silks and he didn’t want to look quite that bad in front of Sinda.

You’re too old for her, idiot, he told himself, but he didn’t commit any embarrassing feats of clumsiness during the meal.

“So, Pryce, what do you do for the general. I mean, aside from briefing new arrivals on the history of the command.”

“And passing canapés?” He grinned.

She laughed, and as her head tilted her hair caught the light. He looked her in the eyes. Restraining the urge to talk to Makepeace’s really spectacular chest was always an exercise in willpower.

“I coordinate the weekly reports of the agents, and the Tuesday and Thursday special reports on our major investigation,” he said.

“Is that the organized crime one?”

“Yep, the tongs.” He nodded.

“I read the background material, but it didn’t explain why you don’t just go in and shut them all down.” Her head was tilted to the side, curiously.

“It’s been tried. About twenty years ago.” As he spoke, she leaned forward, hands clasped on the table, listening intently. “Suddenly Fleet Strike’s traveling arrangements got very uncomfortable and late at the worst possible times, and there were problems with the chow aboard ship, and environmental conditions in the troop quarters were always going on the fritz. So the General of Fleet Strike talked to the General of Fleet and the upshot was that we treat the tongs as legitimate civic organizations and only arrest and prosecute individual members we can catch in actual crimes.”

“Okay.” She nodded, but he suspected from the slightly glazed look in her eyes that she still didn’t understand.

“So what did they do about all the problems in Fleet?” she asked.

“Fleet fixed them,” he answered slowly.

She nodded again, and it was all he could do to keep a straight face.

If this had been a normal date, or a date at all, he might have reached across the table to hold her hand after they finished eating, and they might have gotten refills on their drinks and sat and talked for awhile after they finished eating. As it was, she said she had some shopping to do and he said he had some things he needed to take care of back at his quarters, and they went their separate ways.

On the transit car back to his quarters his mind kept replaying flashes of silver-blond hair, Sinda laughing at one of his jokes, the way her mouth pouted up when she took a sip of her drink. The ride seemed to take no time at all.

Cally opened the door to her quarters and took her packages inside. It was only her second day and the institutional green and gray were boring her to tears. She tossed a large red shawl over the ugly gray plastic nightstand that came with the room and put the cut glass vase she’d bought on the table, filling it with yellow silk roses. She used tacky clay to stick a couple of posters of unicorns and pegasuses — or was it pegasi — on the walls. Strange obsession, but she’d had covers with more obnoxious ones. At least the pictures were colorful. She’d even managed to find one that wasn’t in pastels.

What is that obnoxious beeping? She looked at her PDA, but it was fine. She looked around the room for a source of the beeping, finally localizing it to the shawl-covered end table and the top drawer in it. Oh. It’s the phone. Who the hell wouldn’t just page my PDA? It’s registered in the directory… oh. Paper-boy.

She lifted the phone out of the drawer and looked at the red light blinking on it in time with the beeping. She had to look at the thing’s buttons for a moment before she found the play message button. There was no message, and she had to experiment with more buttons before she found the combination that would get the phone to display the number of the last caller. She read it off to her PDA and told it to call the number, waiting for an answer.

“Hello, Beed residence. May I help you?” a woman’s voice answered.

“Um… yes, I guess you can. Is the general in? I’m his secretary and he may be trying to reach me.”

“Oh, is this Captain Makepeace? Hang on and I’ll get him.”

Cally waited, sitting down on the bed and splitting the PDA screen so she could use the bottom half as a remote. The cube from last night still had a bunch of movies she hadn’t seen yet. It had been in the original Makepeace’s purse when they made the switch, so she supposed it reflected her taste in movies pretty well. She started it to get the advertising tease out of the way, turning the volume to mute. She still had a few seconds wait before the general finally answered. Most people in this day and age took their PDA with them everywhere. Well, unless they had an AID. Knowing Beed, he had probably been whole rooms away from whatever he was using to call her. Cally imagined a big, black, rotary dial phone sitting on a table somewhere and suppressed laughter as he started speaking.

“Hello, Captain?” It certainly sounded like the general.

“Yes, sir. You were trying to reach me?”

“Ah… yes. I was trying to get a little of the red tape squared away and realized I need the Lee file. Unfortunately, I’m expecting another call and really can’t step away right now. I know it’s an imposition, but could you possibly take a moment and drop by the office and bring it around? I haven’t caught you at a bad time, have I?”

“No, sir, not at all. I’d be glad to get that file for you,” she fibbed.

“Good, good. I was just afraid I might have caught you at a bad time because you were out when I called before. Thought you might have had plans.” His voice had a hint of a question in it.