Our current gun tech came from Aye-Stad, which I visited countless cycles ago. Our ships are from Rael. And thanks to the K’Bk, we no longer have disease, but I remember how such things as plagues used to work. The races I study still employ their immune systems, and the parallels between those systems and us as a race are striking. For we have become what Earthlings would call white blood cells. We remove foreign bodies from the cosmos. And every one leaves an imprint, a bauble of tech or a new idea, all of which we neatly coil into our lives, into our molecular structure. We are an immune system, and we are immune to death. This last, alas, is our curse.
As the shuttle takes us aft, I gaze through the cockpit past the pilot, and I imagine Second Fleet off in the distance, those ships out there identical to our own. Second Fleet trails us dutifully in case something awful happens. A backup full of backups. With my sudden demotion, I wonder what it would be like to wake up there, in the wake of my former home, with true mortality within tentacle’s reach.
Thinking of tentacles makes me realize mine have slimed up with thoughts of Gunnery. It has been a long time since I landed on a planet with the first wave. Surely this is temporary, this demotion. Didn’t Bix say so? It is simply because of the short time until planetfall. It is because of that silly woman with her second suicide. She is being punished, and so they punish us both. It should have been Kur sent here, a true Gunner.
When was the last time I fought with a first wave? Memories of bright and colorful worlds swirl together. The one thing in common is the brown mud on my boots. Slogging through battlefields. Noticing details like how the insides of sentient things have much in common: the same blood that colors red in the air, the sacs for breathing, the sacs for pumping blood through tubes, the tendrils for turning thoughts into things.
The dead and these worlds, they blur together like all colors into a dull brown. All I remember in the end is that I did my job, shooting so I would not be shot. All I remember in the beginning is the fear of death.
This is something you get over. You live with the fear until you die for the first time, and then you realize death isn’t the end. Not when you have another body waiting in a vat with a backup of your recent recollections. It is painful, though, both the death and the rebirth. Painful and expensive. Both are deterrents meant to keep us on our guard. That’s my theory, anyway. That they add the rebirth pain on purpose so you avoid dying the way a tentacle avoids a fire.
I no longer fear death, but still I try not to draw her attention. I like this me, however imperfectly it fits. I like my small scars, even if I can’t recall where I got them. I search my tentacle for an old wound as the shuttle banks around the ass of my new ship, but some scars are memories that have faded, and some memories go with scars that no longer exist.
A glimmer of stars beyond my porthole distracts me from these sentimental thoughts. I think I can see Second Fleet, those little pinpricks among pinpricks, back there where true immortality lies. Though I fear a return to Gunnery, I know I will go into battle invulnerable. Our fleet is invincible when planetfall comes. We march through civilizations the way a child splashes through puddles, for in the distance lies our safety valve. One day, of course, we will face a surprisingly resilient foe. Or we will drop our guards because a thousand conquered worlds have left us bored with victory. Someone will vanquish us, but we will awaken in bright new ships, and we will show this foe that we do not die so easily.
Bah. Listen to me. An hour back in Gunnery, and I am giving speeches meant to clench loins and rush boys into battle. Already pretending to be brave. When what I really need is a strong drink and to meet those among my new bunkmates who gamble recklessly.
To: Third Rank Gunner Hyk
From: First Rank Gunner Kur
You’ve only been gone two days, and I can still nose your stink in the bathroom! I have other insults prepared, but now is not the time for banter. I need a favor. You know your old bunk? I’m sleeping in it. Why? Because I’m sexing my new bunkmate every night! You are envious, I know. Of her! Ha!
Only one problem: She’s crazier than a hogtied rampus-mare. I’ve stopped her from killing herself two more times, and all she does is sit around, slack-jawed and oozing on herself. I’m worried if she manages to kill herself again they won’t bring her back. Or worse: that they’ll bring you back!
Har. Anyway, lend me a tentacle and I’ll forget about the fifty you owe me. Can you find out what’s eating at my sex-mate? I’d like to know before we hit the ground. Handing this beautiful creature a gun feels like a bad idea.
Fuck off, Kur
It is six days to planetfall, and instead of working on my aim with the new and improved double-barreled GAW13s, here I am in the smelly hall of records digging through files. I am looking for a girl who I’m not even sexing on behalf of a former bunkmate who little loves me. My mother would say the suckers on my tentacles have grown soft, and she would be right. Look at how little a fight I put up with the demotion to Gunnery. I would think myself spineless were it not for the invasion of Hemput III, where I got a damn fine look at my backbones before the lights went fully out.
I find the suicide girl’s records by looking up her bunk. Easy to do since I sleep in the thing. Mil. I do like that name. And so of course I imagine Kur sexing her. My brain loves torturing the rest of me.
I start a ship-to-ship file transfer to Kur’s terminal so he can pry on his own. Aware that Mil might be the one checking the terminal, I come up with an innocuous header for the message: Hey, Fart-Sac — The report you wanted. While the computer does its job, I scan the file for myself. I remember my transfer orders saying Mil was in Telecoms. Now I read that she was a Terminal Technician in the radio wing. Gad, I would kill myself too! But now our suicide girl has brains, and Kur is sexing her even more. I resolve to get out tonight and meet someone. Why was not Kur transferred instead of me?
Speaking of transfer, the ship-to-ship is taking forever. Less than an Earth cycle to planetfall, and the networks are as packed as a mess hall on garbum night. I decide to send myself a copy on the intership network, just in case. Besides, I have nothing to read. Sector 1’s written language is nothing like Sector 2’s. If you planted a bomb in Sector 2’s language and scattered the remains on a terminal screen, you would have Sector 1’s language. It’s no wonder this planet is always at war. My language instructor once said: No two people have ever battled that read each other’s poetry, and I believe that. It’s why we in Intelligence are told to avoid poetry at all costs. Learn, but do not empathize.
That should apply here as well, as I read up on Mil. I tell myself I’m doing a bunkmate a favor, but the truth is that I’m in love with a woman I have never met. A woman my former friend is most likely sexing at this very moment. A woman who seems to hate her life as much as I hate mine.
Second Squad, Gunner Troop 5, Sector 1 plays cards with some fucked-up rules. Quks are wild, but only if you have a five-tentacled Kik in your hand. And in a run, you can skip a number if all the cards on both sides are the same gender. They call this the “missing buck” play. What I’m missing is thirty-five credits, and it isn’t because of any difference in skill. It’s because I can’t keep these blasted rules straight.
“Two pair,” Urj says. He’s bluffing, and I wait for the player to his left to call him on it, but a card is drawn instead. This squad will have me broke before they get me killed.