This wasnt our home and they had made it clear to us that we werent welcome here.
I was third generation here. Both of my parents had been taken by them; long dead now. There were fewer and fewer of us each year. There were rumours that it was now too hard to maintain a position here and we were pulling out. Something about a new station being built. I didnt know anything about that. I was barely a sergeant, certainly not an officer. I just had to keep doing as I was told. Maintain my position as best I could and make sure that, when they came, nothing important was left behind.
His name was Clifford. It was an old name. He was the one steady presence in my life that I had since my parents had gone. Even before that, he was there. An uncle almost. When I enlisted, he became my mentor. My way up the ladder. Everyone had one of them out here. Someone to help, someone to watch their back. He was mine and I was his.
He raised his hand from the doorway and I raised mine in return. From here I couldnt hear what he was saying, but it wasnt important. I already knew everything he had to say to me, so I stayed where I was and watched the freight ships slowly rise into the sky, preparing their orbital jets for an injection burn once they passed a certain height. I would be on one of those if the rumours were true. I tried not to think about it.
Clifford’s room was to my left. It was circular, like most structures out here and was surrounded by a narrow catwalk. At about 90 degrees to the door, and the path that led from it to the building I sat outside, was a small gantry gun. It ran around the front of the structure and kept it safe from anyone who would want to assault it. A single soldier, a private under my watch, manned the gun. His eyes firmly fixed ahead of him, watching and waiting for what he and I both knew was the inevitable assault on this post.
As I stood, replacing the standard issue helmet we all wore, I could hear yelling coming from the room behind me. I struggled to ignore it, but I turned anyway and saw Clifford yelling. He wasnt yelling at me. He was standing at the edge of the doorway and he was yelling at the private on the gun. The private, true to his training, didnt look around. He kept himself on his task and I made a note to commend him later. I kicked myself for turning. I knew better than that.
The main part of the building, the administration area, was almost empty. It always had been devoid of people, but now the furniture was being removed.
“Sergeant,” a lance corporal said as I passed while she was undoing the bolts on another rail of chairs.
“Whats going on?” I asked.
“Been told to take all these to the loading bay,” the woman replied. She couldnt have been more than 19. The same age as I had been when I joined. “Staff Felix is in charge of this, I think.”
“Ok, carry on,” I said and looked around for Felix. I didnt know him at all. We’d met maybe twice. I always thought of him as a stuck up pencil pusher. But I thought that about everyone who worked in logistics.
I found him stalking after a lance corporal who was not pulling their weight as much as he thought they should be. He caught my eye and stopped, muttering something under his breath. “Sergeant,” he said a little bit condescendingly.
“Staff,” I replied neutrally.
“What are your orders right now?” he asked and I immediately knew what the next words out of his mouth were going to be.
“Same as they have been for the last week,” I replied. I knew he knew what they were. Everyone here knew what they were. They all knew who I was and why I had these orders. The man in front of me was the only man who showed no sympathy.
“Has there been a change?”
“The predictable progression,” I replied. I knew he already knew that too. You dont get to staff sergeant without knowing who to go to for information.
“Which means you have maybe another month before the change,” he replied.
“If it continues to the same pattern we have seen, yes,” I said.
“Then you’re free to help me here,” he replied smugly, as if he had outwitted me in a strategy game we had both been playing.
“If it were,” I pushed the sleeve of my coat up to check my watch. “An hour earlier, absolutely. But, unfortunately for you, I have an appointment with the Captain.”
“How convenient,” Felix replied. “One day I will see you working a real job.”
“Like yours?” I asked sweetly. “Sitting behind a big desk, giving out orders to people you know cant talk back to you?”
He said nothing and made a big show about pretending to see another lance corporal not doing their job properly and left without another glance.
The Captain was sitting in his office, staring out the window which overlooked the valley this post had been built at one end of. He didnt see me approach and only turned slowly to face me when I knocked loudly on his door.
“Ah, yes,” he said then furrowed his eyebrows. “Did you just walk past Kathy before coming to see me?”
“She isnt out there, Sir,” I replied, taking the seat he had waved out while speaking.
“Oh,” he said and then sighed. “I suppose she is out helping with the whatever this is.”
“Sir,” I said without much conviction, and then added, “are we leaving?”
“At some point,” he said. “Non-essentials first, then the rest of us.”
“I wouldnt have considered myself essential, Sir.”
“While Clifford is still here, I still need you,” he replied. He was reading some documents on his desk that had a navy blue stamp on the top of them. I was not meant to be here, nor was I meant to know that these documents were here. “We are leaving before,” he started and looked up at me. My eyes were on his and he nodded slightly before returning his gaze to the papers, which he stacked in a neat pile then returned to the folder next to them.
“There isnt much I can do,” I replied. “Youve read my reports.”
“I have. I know this isnt the most favourable position to put you in, and if it wasnt for that, youd have already left.” He picked up another folder and slid it over the desk to me. No blue stamp on this one. No stamp at all. “Your new orders. Just need my seal.”
“Sir?” I asked, opening the folder and reading the short paragraph on the single piece of paper inside. “This cant be right.”
“I said the same thing,” he replied and leaned back in his chair. “I even threw it back up the line. I wanted to know who decided this.”
“It wasnt you, Sir?” I was confused now.
“Ha,” he said. “I wanted you to stay with me. Im heading back to the staging zone. I have a ship back there with my name on it. I had suggested for you to accompany me. Chief of something or other. Get you on the fast track through a commissioning school.”
“Sir?” I was flabbergasted now. “Im not officer material.”
“We both know thats a lie, sergeant. Cliff knew it too.” I felt a tear prick the corner of my eye at the captains preferred name for the man I grew up with. “The powers that be consider you far too useful for that, though.”
“A field unit, though,” I said. “It doesnt feel right.”
“It never does,” the captain said. “My guess is they want you in a powerful non-commissioned role. “A more hands on leader. I told them youre too smart for that and it would be a waste to leave you in the middle of a warzone. Your experience here has taught you far too much about these creatures to risk your life fighting them.”
“I appreciate the kind words, Sir,” I said, “but I actually had plans to head back home. To hand in my rank and-”
“I had heard you were considering that,” he nodded. “Its a mistake. What happened to Cliff was not your fault and I only gave you the orders to watch over him so you could realise that. Perhaps even hear it from the man himself in his lucid moments.”
“He,” I started to say. More tears.
“He is passed lucidity,” the captain nodded. “I had a feeling. Theyll be coming for him soon.”
“And they think,” I said, suddenly angry. “That I should be out there, potentially facing him? Or my parents? Or any of the others weve lost?”
“They have to get him first,” the captain said. I looked at him almost speechless. “Speak freely,” he said, after standing, and closing the door so no one else could hear.
“There is a single gun protecting him,” I said. “Manned by someone who is barely out of school. We are gutting this building and youve implied weve shipped out people already. How exactly are we going to protect him?”
The captain took a deep breath and fixed his eyes on mine. He wasnt Clifford. He wasnt my father. He was my boss and the look in his eyes said that it might have been a mistake to let me speak freely. “Sergeant, these orders,” he tapped the folder in front of me, “are genuine and legitimate and in the coming days I will run out of reasons to not sign them. You will be shipped to the front and you will take command of a small squad of infantry. I cant stop that. I will do what I can to have you brought from there to me as soon as I take command of my new post. I will have a new rank and new powers and I will use them to see you brought to a place where you can do more use for your people than the middle of a swamp. But right now, your current orders stand.” He opened his drawer and pulled out a small handgun. “Make sure nothing important is left behind.”