It was unclear how many survivors had escaped the compound aboard the starship. No staff were present in the crew manifests of the Red Listed ship that had been recovered. Their fate would remain unknown.
It appeared Grotto was going to chalk up the complex as a loss and have the entire facility scrapped instead of attempting to re-open mining operations. Samuel left the debriefing having been told that the Reaper fleet would remain in orbit for an estimated two months as the marines switched over from combat duties to salvage operations.
Samuel was perfectly fine with that, having no desire at that moment, to ever take up a firearm again.
It wasn’t until he was back in the compound, after the rush of battle had faded, that Samuel realized he’d left Aaron unattended and leaning up against a wall.
Apparently, at some point during the violent chaos, Aaron had bled out through a deep puncture in his side. Samuel could not recall if he’d had the wound before or after the marine had set him against the wall and that not knowing troubled him deeply. Casualties were to be expected, according to the debriefing administrator, and this was the first hot mission for the Baen 6 Reaper fleet.
Regardless, Samuel could not shake the sick feeling in his stomach.
3. REST AND REFIT
The marines were housed near the aft of the ship in a series of suites, commonly referred to as “racks” by the people who lived in them. Each suite consisted of two rooms, each room housing a pair of roommates and each block of ten suites shared a single shower and bathroom facility.
Samuel was still feeling shaky and nauseous from the ascent shipside, and though he’d already been to the mission debriefing and had plenty of time to readjust to the artificial gravity of the ship, he couldn’t quite feel at ease.
Twice in one mission he had come close to dying and although he had faced a number of industrial accidents without injury, the prospect of immediate death by violence was new to him. He wasn’t sure how he expected to feel after his first hot mission, but the tightness in his chest and the knots in his belly seemed at once too much and too little. It was as if a pressure was building up inside him that demanded release. Samuel entered his room just as Oliver was leaving, and the marine grabbed Samuel by the shoulder.
“Oh no, you don’t, marine! Nobody just showers and goes to bed their first night shipside after a mission,” Oliver informed him jovially, as he spun Samuel around and pulled the young man along with him back down the hallway, “Especially after your first mission! Time to get a load on!”
“I’m not much of a drinker, Oli,” argued Samuel meekly as he let himself be dragged alongside Oliver. The two men turned the corner and walked down the gangplank towards the mess hall, which doubled as a cantina during the evening cycle. “I’m still kind of twitchy from the fight, you know?”
“Look kid, a few cocktails and you’ll even out, that’s kind of the point,” chuckled Oliver as they entered the cantina.
The room was packed tighter than Samuel had ever seen it during mess hall hours, but he immediately saw his squad mates as they offered up hearty cheer. What they said he couldn’t make out through the din of the other sixty odd voices. Ben saw them coming and waved Samuel and Oliver over to the handful of tables they’d pushed together.
All of the surviving members of Tango Platoon were present, other than Mag, who was no doubt still in the med-bay. Before Samuel could say a word, Jada shoved a shot glass in his hand and playfully pushed his hand to his mouth so he would be forced to swallow it.
The drink was semi-sweet, as if it was distilled from a fruit of some kind, but it burned like fire on the way down his throat.
“To the face!” shouted Jada as she picked up a bottle and poured another round, which she then handed to Samuel and Oliver, keeping one for herself. “We were waiting to toast the fallen until you guys got here.”
Wynn Marsters and Lucinda Ulanti, were sitting next to Jada. Wynn nodded at Lucinda and the veteran stood up as she addressed the cantina.
“Salvage Marines! Form up!” she bellowed across the room, instantly silencing the other voices.
Samuel watched the bosses of the other platoons and their squad leaders leap to their feet, quickly followed by the rest of the recruits in the room.
“I speak for Tango Platoon,” Boss Ulanti said, raising her glass. “Tonight we drink to the early retirement of Yvonne White and Aaron Baen. They stood by our sides and paid the price so we didn’t have to.” Boss Ulanti swept her gaze across the room and back down to her platoon, “This is the job.”
With that Lucinda and the rest of the marines in Tango Platoon knocked back their shots and again Samuel’s throat burned, though this time not quite so fiercely as it had before. He was still blinking back tears from the stoutness of the alcohol when another boss stood up, one who he did not recognize.
“I speak for Bravo Platoon. Tonight we drink to the early retirement of Max Baen, James Horlick, and Mitchell Sanders. They stood by our sides and paid the price so we didn’t have to.” The unknown boss held up his glass, “This is the job.”
It continued like that until all of the platoons had named their dead, and by the time it was over the shots were going to Samuel’s head and he was thankful for the opportunity to sit down.
The rest of the evening seemed to go by increasingly fast, and as he drank and joked with his platoon mates he found that the tightness in his chest had abated. The knot in his stomach seemed to lessen with each drink he knocked back. Soon he was caught up in the fervor of celebration alongside his fellow marines, and he found he recalled less and less of the horrors of the mission they had completed.
At some point in the night he realized that Jada was kissing him. Though he’d been intensely attracted to her since basic training, not once had he imagined actually touching her. Samuel thought of himself as an honorable man and he’d made a vow to Sura when they’d been married.
However, with his passion inflamed by combat and the fact that he had survived, not to mention heavy drink, the planet of Baen 6 seemed terribly far away. There was a beautiful woman kissing him and she was right there, she was real. Eventually Jada led Samuel by the hand to her suite, and in the darkness of her bunk they made desperate and life-affirming love.
As the morning cycle transitioned into the day cycle Samuel shuffled into the mess hall still shaking the cobwebs from his brain and feeling as if his mouth had been stuffed with cotton. He had awoken in Jada’s bed extremely hung over. His companion from the night before was polite enough, she had made it clear she intended to sleep off her equally powerful hangover and had little interest in conversation.
Samuel entered the food line and the server piled his plate high with powdered eggs, fried protein paste, and several of the strange citrus fruits that smelled as if they’d been the same fruit the booze was distilled from.
He took a seat in an empty corner of the mess hall. At that hour it was not overly crowded. Most of the ship’s crew were already on shift and the majority of the marines were likely still sleeping off the prior evening’s revelry.
Typically, marines were not allowed such luxuries as sleeping in since training regiments were part of daily life, even when in transition between missions. Samuel dimly recalled being told the night before, that the first night shipside after a mission, the combat troops were given a day’s rest to recover, both from their mission and resulting celebrations.