Angles of Attack (Frontlines #3)(52)

“Yeah, I have family.” Her eyes narrow a little. “I have a little girl who’s seven and a husband who’s a civil servant. Down there, in Virginia.” She nods at the nearby bulkhead. “I haven’t seen them in eleven months. And right now I am making my peace with the idea of never seeing them again. So if you wouldn’t mind making your business quick, I would be much obliged.”

“Sorry,” I say. “Didn’t mean to rub it in.”

She looks down at the arti-grav tiles on the deck. “It’s not like you don’t have people on Earth,” she says after a moment. “We all do, right?”

“My mom,” I say. “Down in Boston, in the ritzy part of PRC-7. And my fiancée, over on Luna.”

“What did you want to see me about just now?”

“The skipper says I should take the ride to Luna. If I don’t get this hand treated for another month maybe—”

“You should go,” she says immediately. “I’m no neurosurgeon, but I know that a day or even a week is much better than a month when it comes to cybernetic implants. You want to use those fingers for more than cosmetic purposes.”

“Thanks for the advice,” I say.

“Luna, huh?” Corpsman Randall says when I turn to leave.

“Yeah. Stone’s throw away. Told her I’d be back in time for our wedding.”

“You should keep your promise,” she says. “Marriage is great. Make your own joy. God knows the universe doesn’t throw much our way right now.”

She gives me a curt smile and finishes securing the sick-bay hatch.

“Whatever you decide to do, best of luck, Andrew.”

“You, too, Nancy,” I say. I watch as she walks down the passageway and disappears at the next intersection.

I check my chrono. Five minutes to report to the NCO mess for a ride to Luna.

I could see Halley again today. We could get married tomorrow. And if we all die, at least we’ll die together. The world is about to end. What does it all matter in the end?

There’s Halley, and Mom. Then there’s Sergeant Fallon, Constable Guest, Dr. Stewart, Corpsman Randall. If I go, I get to—maybe—spend some more time with Halley before it all goes to shit. Is it going to make a difference if I stay on Indy and make the trip back to Fomalhaut, risk getting stranded in space and starving or suffocating, or getting blotted out by a Lanky ship? If I don’t stay on Indy, and they get into a bind where my presence could make the tiniest bit of a difference—

Not that I’d ever know in the end.

I check my chrono again. Four minutes, ticking down.

I walk down the passageway to the next intersection. Left: the way to the staircase below, where the NCO mess is. Right: the connector to the main passageway that leads back up to CIC.

I look at my bandaged hand. It has a vaguely triangular shape to it now, like a crustacean claw. This is not what I want to look at for the rest of my life.

Then I hear the voice of Sergeant Burke in my head. My boot camp instructor sounds as clear as if he were standing right next to me in this narrow passageway.

Nobody gives a shit what we want. We take what we’re served, and we ask for seconds, and that’s the way it goes.

We take what we’re served, I think. But sometimes there’s a menu, and we get to pick. Shitty choices, but choices.

I know which way to go, of course. I’ve known it since I left CIC a few minutes ago. I’m already hating myself for it, but I would hate myself for the other choice, too, and maybe just a little more.

I turn left, toward the NCO mess. I’ll have to go to my berth and fetch a few things first.



The NCO mess is empty when I step through the hatch a little while later. I check my chrono to see that I’ve missed the fifteen-minute window by three minutes. I turn on my heels and race down the passageway to the staircase that leads below.

On the flight deck, the engines of Indy’s solitary drop ship are growling in standby. The tail hatch is open, and there are several people in the cargo hold, getting situated in the jump seats. Major Renner is standing at the bottom of the ramp. I trot down to the tail end of the ship, and she turns around when she hears my boots on the hard deck.

“Staff Sergeant Grayson,” she says. “You almost missed your ride.”

“I’m not going, ma’am.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Didn’t the skipper order you to go and get that hand fixed?”

“He didn’t order, ma’am. He strongly suggested.”

“So you’re staying with us for the ride back.”

“Yes, ma’am. I suppose I am.”

I hold up the two small standard mail containers I prepared hastily in my berth just a few minutes ago.

“I was hoping to pass these on for someone to deliver to Luna, drop ’em in a mail tube for me.”

Major Renner looks at the two sealed plastic envelopes, mild surprise on her face. Then she inclines her head toward the open cargo bay of the drop ship behind her.

“Hurry up,” she says.

I trudge up the tail ramp and look around in the interior. There are six sailors in the jump seats to my left and right. I don’t know any of them except by occasional sight in the ship’s passageways, but they are all wearing bandages or flexcasts, which means they are the sailors who were wounded when the Lankies shot up Indy a few days ago. There are four dark green body bags in the middle aisle—the KIA we suffered in the same attack. All of the fleet sailors are junior enlisted, and despite the fact that I’m in a hurry, I don’t feel comfortable entrusting any of them with what I carry. I wrote a letter to Halley and one to my mother, old-fashioned handwritten mail that will have to do in the absence of MilNet access. I can’t leave the system again without at least some attempt to say a few last things to the two people who mean the most to me.