Postal Marine 1: Bellicose

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either
the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely
coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 Ben Wilson.

Cover Design by Donna Harriman Murillo, courtesy of 99Designs.com.

Book Design by Ben Wilson

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, posted on the Internet, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

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http://dausha.net

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2014-03-02

ISBN-13 9-78098-3952-107

Six months. The Imperial Postal Service normally needed only six months to turn a civilian into a Postal Marine. Danel Bophendze, however, posed a challenge. His drill instructors commented that as scrubs went, he was the runt of the litter. Over the past nine months, he heard hundreds of off-color phrases about how he would never become a marine. Most of them were variations of his personal favorite, “you can't pour water into a rock.” He was not stupid, just in mourning.

Despite their dire predictions of permanent failure, Postie Bophendze made it to Imperial Postal Marine Orbital
Korunda
. He no longer put his helmet on backward because it fit better that way. Now he possessed the characteristic iron rod backbone of all Marines. As he waited in the passenger lounge, he tried to demonstrate his new-found ability to stand rigidly straight. His feet were firmly planted to keep balance should he be attacked. There were many Marines around him, and he tried to emulate them.

Instead, he kept looking around for the nearest trash can. He had never been off-planet until he joined the Postal Marines. The gravimetric field that provided the orbital's artificial gravity was never constant. Hundreds of fluctuations a second made him feel like the deck was pitching and swaying.
Why did I eat a big breakfast before leaving planetside?

The nearest trashcan was several meters away, and he was in the queue to board.
Steady, Bophendze. This is the life you chose. You're going to have to learn to keep your breakfast down.
The lie did not make it any easier. He knew he did not chose to be a Marine. He blamed Providence for that. His stomach continued to churn.

Off in the distance, Bophendze saw a chief pick up a microphone. “May I have your attention. The transport to
Temasek
we're waiting on has ghosted. I will spare you the prediction on when it will arrive. Needless to say we will be boarding another ship.”

Bophendze wondered what ghosting was. He recognized the term from training, or somewhere. He looked around at the other Marines. The more seasoned Marines looked to the deck or made some unauthorized religious gesture. Now seemed like the best time.

He set his duffle bag on the deck and ducked under the queue strap. He took a few measured steps toward the nearest trash can. He felt the deck lurched again and he hurried his last few steps. He managed to heave all of the morning's breakfast into the can. It took him a few beats to clean up.

“Postie! I ought to make you eat that.”

Bophendze stood and turned in an awkward fluid motion. He was at parade rest by the time he finished twisting. It seemed like the right thing to do. Everybody on the orbital outranked him.

“The only reason I'm not is you don't look two days from being a scrub. Some of the other marines have learned to throttle their emotions.” The chief slapped him on the shoulder. “You'll get there.”

Bophendze tried to keep his eyes fixed forward. Instead, he broke protocol and looked at the chief—only with his eyes hoping the chief would not dress him down for the glance. This close, he could see several faint scars on the chief's face. One of the ears looked like part of it was fake. He expected a reassuring smile to accompany the shoulder slap. The chief was stone faced.

His mind raced to find the right way to ask the question.
Don't speak unless spoken to, and only then to answer a question. How do they expect me to operate that way for the next twenty years?
“Chief, now that the transport ghosted. What do we do?”

The chief looked at Bophendze and narrowed his eyes. It took Bophendze a moment before he realized he was still staring at the chief. He locked his eyes forward.
Come on. I've got to be able to ask a question!
He found a sensor on the bulkhead across the room and locked his gaze.

Bophendze's anxiety intensified with the growing pause.

“In all likelihood, the ships we're all waiting for will not wait. We do not miss a movement, Postie. That ghost won't be here anytime soon, maybe not in our lifetime. There's a mail picket heading out in the next half-cycle. We'll all be on it.”

In our lifetime? What did I sign up for?
Bophendze tried to remember what a mail picket was. He thought it was a cargo transport. “Yes, Chief.”

“The next jump tends to be short, maybe 20 cycles, depending on whether the planetside AI can sort out the ghosting error of that ship.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Bophendze could see the Chief scanning the room.
Always looking for a threat? A lifetime of mental condition yellow?

The chief's voice grew louder, as if speaking for the benefit of the Marines around him. “Like I said, I'm not going to make you eat the Emperor's food that you thought you could just throw away.”

“Thank you, Chief.” Bophendze mirrored the Chief's volume.

The chief got quieter. “See that woman over there. Hard to tell at this stage, but she's pregnant. She's carrying a future marine. Her husband saw fit to get himself killed during a routine inspection. Cargo ships aren't family friendly. I expect you to escort her until we get to the next orbital. Do you think you can manage that?”

A flush of emotion came over Bophendze. A widow. His voice was broken. “Can somebody else do it, Chief?”

The Chief moved his hands to his hips as he leaned forward. “You don't care to honor a fallen comrade by escorting his widow?”

How can I tell him?
Bophendze sniffed his nose and swallowed. “I'm sorry, Chief. I didn't mean it that way. Like you said, I'm barely out of boot. How do you expect me to escort her?”

The Chief laughed. “By keeping your pants on, Postie. Not that you can make her more pregnant. You make sure she gets on the cargo ship. You make sure she gets a good berthing area. Keep the other marines from messing with her. If she asks for anything, you do it for her, understand?”

“Yes, Chief.”

“Good. Anything that involves keeping the pants on, that is.” The Chief looked over at the woman. “She's in a vulnerable state and might be looking for a meal ticket and might want to trap you. You don't need that. The Postal Service will take care of her, but she doesn't know that yet. She's carrying a future Marine.”

The Chief walked off.

Bophendze went over and picked up his duffle. With half a cycle, he wondered if he would have time to go to the latrine and get the taste of secondhand breakfast out of his mouth. He looked over at the widow as the well of emotion started to rise again. She carried the same look on her face his mother used to. The world bore down on her.

He took a few deep breaths and walked over. “Ma'am. I'm Postie Bophendze. I've been asked to escort you.” He hoped she would refuse.

She mechanically nodded her head, not even looking directly at him.

He tried to think of the right thing to say. As he did, he noticed many of the marines starting to file toward a shuttle further down the hangar. “I'm sorry for your loss.”

She started to cry.

What did I do?
He could feel himself wanting to join her. He had an order, though. It helped him push the emotion down again. “I didn't mean to upset you. We've got to get on that shuttle or we'll both be stuck here. Let me help you with your bag.”

Her bag was smaller than his. It was as if she was just packing for a short trip to visit her parents instead of a permanent dislocation. After shouldering her bag, he reached out for her hand.

As she took his hand, her softness took him off guard. His mother's hands were rough from years of hard work. This widow was not much older than he was, and apparently unaccustomed to physical labor. He did not smell any perfume, but something about her started to intoxicate him. Remember what the Chief said. He began to guide her toward the shuttle.

She kept her eyes on the deck as they walked. As they got closer, she turned her head and started to wretch. He ran over and grabbed a trashcan. He made it back in time.

“I have the same problem, Ma'am. Why can't they make the gravity more stable?”

She looked at him. “It's morning sickness, you idiot. What kind of scrub do you think I am? My life has been on orbitals!”

“I'm sorry, I just thought—”

“That's not what you were hired to do, Postie. You were hired to do what you're told. They only reason you're escorting me is because somebody told you to.”

“Yes, Ma'am, that's true. It's hard for me—”

“Don't give me hard, Scrub. Until you've lost somebody close to you, you don't understand hard. I don't need your patronage. Leave me alone.” She pulled her bag off his shoulder and started dragging it down the hangar toward the shuttle.

He started to cry, despite his best efforts.
Two somebodies.
His duffle bag fell off his shoulder.

The marines kept away from him as he cried as if he had been infected with some virus they had not been properly immunized with.

How long will mom's death bother me? What did the counselor say? ‘A normal part of the grieving process.’ Isn't there a way I can jump to the end?

He chuckled despite himself, breaking the spell his mourning cast on him. There were fewer marines around him now, most having queued to board the transport. He picked up his duffle bag and joined the queue.

The Imperial Postal Service named cargo transports with little flourish. Bophendze looked at the identification markings “MC3-S-AP3 531.” Massive Cargo Type 3, Self-Defendable.
What did the AP3 stand for again? How do they expect me to remember all the stuff they taught me in boot?

He could not remember what it meant to be Massive Cargo. As he walked down the connection link toward the ship, he concluded that massive in space had to be different than on the ground.

It looked larger on the inside. The cargo hold was packed with the pungent smell of korunda. The spice was so popular the Imperium officially renamed the system
Korundanoi
before Bophendze was born. Korundanoi was also local slang for cowardice. Bophendze always wondered if the two meanings were linked, but nobody ever gave him a straight answer. He never understood why
Eugenoloi
was unacceptable to the Emperor as a system name.

He looked out of the connecting link to Korunda below. The sky was a cloudy meringue, its blue-brown haze blurring into blackness. For the first time he saw his birth planet the same way his mother had when she first arrived. He was fascinated by how enormous it looked from high orbit. He put his hand on the window and bowed his head briefly. Only the queue's forward momentum kept him from lingering at the passage's window. As he looked around, none of the marines had any fascination for the view.
Seen it a thousand times.

The cargo ship had rows of cots, barely enough to sit in and high enough that falling could present a serious problem. Bophendze noticed the gravity was lighter on the transport. His stomach informed him the field was also more variable than the orbital.

The Chief's voice came across the ship's intercom system. “It's only 0.1 miles to get to a decent enough libration to jump out. A little less than three cycles. From there it's a short jump, the AI says with high confidence despite the ghosting. So, don't get too comfortable. We won't be here long enough for it to matter.”

Bophendze tried to remember a mile was a percent of light speed over a cycle.
Why can't they just stay three cycles?
Then he remembered that just like cars, space ships had different speeds in realspace, transports tending to have less than combat vessels. Distance in hyperspace was more arbitrary, based on the astrometric calculation of the ships artificial intelligence. By his calculation, they would be traveling for a week.
Twenty cycles? Don't get comfortable because it's a short jump? Why don't they just call it two days since it's the same thing?