Lines of Departure

by Marko Kloos

  “I don’t know yet,” Sergeant Fallon says. She takes a swig from the coffee mug she’s been repeatedly draining and refilling for the last few hours. “They say it’s a crapshoot whether any ship will be able to run that blockade and make it back to Earth. I’d like to have a fighting chance, not get blown out of space with no way to shoot back. Maybe I’ll stay here and wait for them to come to me.”

  She puts down her mug and leans back with a tired sigh.

  “What about you?” she asks without taking her eyes off the SRA drop ship settling on its skids outside.

  I consider her question—not that I hadn’t made my decision pretty much the moment they put the options in front of us. We’re free to decide whether to stay part of the garrison force on New Svalbard, or join the combined NAC/SRA ragtag battle group to go back to the solar system and try to force the blockade.

  “If any ship can make it through to Earth, it’s the Indy,” I say. “Colonel Campbell says we’re welcome to tag along for the run. Stealth dash back to the inner solar system.”

  “You’re going back there?” Sergeant Fallon smiles. “Whatever happened to wanting to breathe the free air of the colonies? I thought Earth’s a shithole?”

  “You’re staying here?” I say, aping her tone exactly. “Whatever happened to sticking with the shit you know? I thought the colonies are desolate wastelands?”

  She rolls her eyes, but the smile doesn’t leave her face.

  “Last time I tried to do my job right, they shipped me off into exile. They’ve been barely holding it together as it is. What do you think Earth’s like right now, with the Lankies on our doorstep?”

  I try to imagine the PRCs, perpetually in unrest anyway, gripped in end-of-the-world hysteria, hundreds of millions of frightened and hungry people aware of their imminent extermination. I know that that’s about the last place in the universe I really want to be right now. But I can’t help thinking of Mom and Halley and Chief Kopka, and my former squad mates in the 365th AIB at Fort Shughart. If our species is going to end anyway, I want to make my stand with the few people I care about. I want to be in charge of my own fate, not wait for my death in a frozen hole at the ass end of the settled galaxy.

  “Earth is a shithole,” I say. “But it’s our shithole. And they can’t fucking have it.”

  Sergeant Fallon looks outside again and picks up her coffee. She takes a long, slurping sip.

  “Come to think of it,” she says. “The apocalypse is at our door. The survival of our species is in doubt. That’s going to be one bitch of a fight. I’d hate to miss it.”

  Outside, the snow flurries have stopped. As we watch the latest arrivals swoop in low over the runway and set down on the snow-swept concrete with blinking position lights, there’s a sudden break in the cloud cover, and the light from the distant sun paints the mountaintops on the horizon in shades of pale blue and white.

  “Let’s go and pack for one bitch of a fight, then,” I say.

  The list of people to thank gets longer and longer.

  Thanks to Marc Berte, who made sure the science in the book isn’t total and utter handwavium.

  Thanks to my developmental editor, Andrea Hurst, who suggested ALL THE CHANGES. She made me rewrite the stuff that sucked until it didn’t, and it’s a much better novel for that.

  Thanks to my local Upper Valley writer posse: Laura Bergstresser, Patricia Bray, and John Murphy. I know none of you ever got to critique this novel, but our regular chips-and-beer shop talks have done a great deal to keep me going when I considered hanging up the pen and exploring a new career as a store greeter.

  Thanks to my agent, Evan, who brokers my novel deals in the smoke-filled, shady backrooms of the publishing world where a clueless newbie like me would get shanked and left to die in the gutter next to remaindered copies of Fifty Shades novels.

  And a big “Thank you” to everyone who bought Terms of Enlistment, especially those of you who took time out of your day to write a review or recommend the novel to your friends. You are all beautiful people, with exceptionally good taste and OK I’LL SHUT UP NOW.

  Photo by Robin Kloos, 2013

  Marko Kloos is a novelist, freelance writer, and unpaid manservant to two small children. He is a graduate of the Viable Paradise SF/F Writers’ Workshop.

  Marko writes primarily science fiction and fantasy because he is a huge nerd and has been getting his genre fix at the library ever since he was old enough for his first library card. In the past, he has been a soldier, a bookseller, a freight dock worker, a tech support drone, and a corporate IT administrator.

  A former native of Germany, Marko lives in New Hampshire with his wife and two children. Their compound, Castle Frostbite, is patrolled by a roving pack of dachshunds.