A dutiful, ace soldier from Mars faces a dilemma. She can accept an offer from an infuriating gen-eng man from Venus, grab her loyal cat + dig up her inner rebel and maybe become the first human to explore the Galaxy. OR she can keep flying security...
Time Stamp: 11th of the 3rd month, year 2696 CE, one second later
Location Stamp: Space cruiseliner Solar Wind, home port Mars, owned by the Stellar Cruises Inc., destination: Jupiter, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy
***
File Excerpt: Otto Shameel of human species
Born in 2646. Male. Six feet two inches. Coloring: tan skin, ruddy complexion, black hair, blue eyes.
Fitness level: high.
Character: explosive, inclined to brooding, but he is an impeccable serviceman. Married to a four spousal/two filial family unit. Has not been noticed in anything to stain his spotless reputation.
Career: entered Ven-Mar Military in 2668. Served in the Asteroid Belt Conflict.
List of Engagements: redacted. Honorable discharge with a rank of Lieutenant-Major in 2689.
Current employment status: senior security officer with the Stellar Cruises Inc.
***
I saluted Shameel in the crisp military style he still adored. "Reporting for duty!"
The assembled security personnel, my comrades-at-arms on this voyage, either snorted or did their best to suppress the sniggering.
Shameel's bushy, dark eyebrows bumped into one another once he finished the inspection of my towel, my silver-and-gray camo pants and my old army boots. His underling, a former soldier, moonlighting for the sahibs as a personal trainer! Such an ignoble thing to do! But Shameel could do shit about it. I had the corporate blessing from the HQ.
Was it my fault that the human species were as starved for cash as ever, and a lot less proud than usual? No.
Four hundred years after the Lunar Guards with their romantics, and a millennium after Copernicus, the humanity had finally accepted that our Sol, our precious sun, was a garden variety star. It shone dimly nowhere near the center of the known universe. I did what we all had to: kept my head down and survived.
He knew it, I knew it, everyone in the conference room knew it.
"At ease, Gorelko." He tilted his head to indicate I was to proceed inside the conference room.
"So, why the extra-early briefing?" I asked, positioning myself at the room's periphery.
Nobody replied, so I propped the wall next to a shell-shaped light fixture.
"We have a situation," Shameel said into our silence, flipping it from bored to rapt.
We'd never had a 'situation' situation on board of 'Solar Wind'. The space cruise liner was designed for sailing through charted waters as smoothly as humanly possible.
Daaamn! I was all ears.
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