Carbon Life

by HR Ringer

  "Thanks Corporal." She retrieved her badge and walked the orange line past several parked shuttlecraft into the squat, featureless building. Entering through the main door, she walked up to the service chief behind the counter and held out her badge and travel orders. "Serviceman 3rd Class Samantha Traynor reporting for transport."

  Service Chief Jaclyn Walsh looked up from her terminal and held out her hand. "How's it going, Traynor?" Walsh took the orders and badge; placing the badge under the optical reader beside her terminal, she compared the results with the info she'd called up on the terminal. "Service number and DOB?"

  "8256-DH-7968, 58/03/21, Ma'am," Traynor responded.

  Chief Walsh made several additional entries to the information form displayed in front of her; she paused for a moment, then continued after a prompting tone from the terminal. "Okay," She held up her paperwork and badge. "Here's your ID and travel orders. Your ride is through that passage…," here she indicated a hallway to her left, "…lift off in seventy-three minutes. The rest of your gear is already loaded. Good luck, Serviceman Traynor… have a safe flight"

  "Thanks, Chief," Traynor replied as she took her travel orders and badge. Reshouldering her pack, she turned to her right and entered the short hallway leading to the flightline. Taking a quick look outside when she reached the end of the passageway, …'umph. Still drizzling...,' she peeked through the door beside her and discovered what appeared to be a rather small lounge area, devoid of life. She decided to stay dry by waiting in there for half-an-hour or so.

  * * *

  *** ALLIANCE LUNA BASE • ARRIVAL AREA ***

  Xiùlán claimed her gear bags in the reception area as she looked up at the status display. She found her name near the bottom of the list of incoming trainees, along with her room assignment. Entering the information into her omni-tool resulted in a displayed schematic of the facility with a highlighted path to her assigned quarters. She looked around behind her and found the entrance to the hallway; picking up her gear, she started to turn, only to collide with another trainee walking in the opposite direction while looking over her shoulder.

  "I am so sorry," Xiùlán stammered as she helped the trainee to her feet. "Did I hurt you? Are you okay?"

  "Totally my fault, Serviceman…?" the trainee started to explain. "Sorry, my name is Traynor… Serviceman 3rd Class Samantha Traynor."

  "Yuán Xiùlán… Serviceman First Class," Xiùlán said, offering her hand and smiling.

  "Xiùlán? Chinese? Then that's your given name, right?... family name Yuán?" Samantha asked.

  "Most occidental people are not aware of that… Samantha; fewer still can correctly pronounce my name. You honor me," Xiùlán replied with a bow.

  "Spent a summer in Shanghai my second year of college… picked up a few words, learned my way around a bit. My friends call me 'Sam'," she replied with a smile and bow of her own.

  "Shanghai's my home. Am I a friend, then…Sam? Just like that?" Xiùlán asked.

  "I like you, Yuán Xiùlán," Traynor replied with a shy smile. "Let's get together for… lunch?… dinner? See you soon." With that, she shouldered her pack, turned on her heel and headed for her quarters.

  As Xiùlán watched Traynor stride away, she had a hunch the young woman would soon become an important part… an integral part… of her future in the Alliance. Picking up her own gear, she walked to her quarters as she thought about the seemingly random encounter.

  * * *

  *** LIVE FIRE TRAINING COURSE CHARLIE-SEVEN ***

  * 0940 - 1305 *

  Yuán didn't think her body could hurt any more after the previous day's training session. Her legs felt leaden, her lower back was on fire, her arms were numb. Yet here she was, running and dodging live-fire (low-impact ammo, to be sure, but still enough to cause injuries). Today's objective was to take out a sniper's nest somewhere in the area ahead. Complicating the exercise? Another recruit would also be attempting to neutralize the hidden sniper; whomever got there first would then have to defend themself from the other recruit.

  Moving from one bit of miserably insubstantial cover to the next, she continued to gain ground until she stopped behind an outcropping a bit bigger than those she'd been ducking behind previously. Her back hard against the rough surface, she resorted to an ancient observation technique… pulling a small mirror mounted on a telescopic shaft from her pack, she used it to peek past her cover. She saw the laser targeting beam a split-second before the mirror was sent flying from her hand by a minute piece of metal traveling at a small fraction of light speed. 'Gǒu shǐ! Zhè shānghàile! she thought as she grabbed her wrist. 'Hǎo dōngxī, zhè bùshì wǒ de tóu zài nàlǐ! [狗屎！這傷害了！- Shit! That hurts! 好東西，這不是我的頭在那裡！ - Good thing that wasn't my head out there!]

  A quick inspection confirmed her gauntlet had taken the hit. A puncture to her suit would be a potentially fatal error, not to mention a DNC for today's session. Reaching around to the belt over her shoulder, she grabbed one of her Mark 14 grenades, a high explosive device that she hoped would distract the unseen sniper long enough for her to gain a bit more ground. She armed it, then backed away from her cover and threw the device past the outcropping on its right side.

  The weaker lunar gravity helped loft it several meters further than she could have otherwise achieved; she began moving towards her left as she remotely detonated the Mark 14. The blast lit the terrain in an impressive manner, resulting in several shots fired just to the right of where she'd been hiding. Staying low, she ran to a larger outcropping sixteen or so meters distant.

  From this new vantage point she had a clear view of the opening in the rocks from which the hidden sniper was firing. Yuán could not see the sniper or rifle from this location, but expected the unseen shooter was scanning the area around her with a motion detector. She armed another Mark 14, again setting it for remote detonation. Moving to her left to keep as much of the rock face as possible between herself and the shooter, she stood, stepped to her right and threw the grenade in one smooth movement, then stepped back to her left a split-second before the bullet whizzed past her right side. The grenade flew in an arc towards the breach in the rock face; she detonated it just as it dropped into the opening. The explosion was accompanied by the high-pitched squeal of several hundred thousand credits worth of Alliance VI tech being shredded into scrap.

  Xiùlán carefully moved towards the smoking aperture, crouching and staying in cover. Once under the opening, she rechecked that her hardsuit computer was still recording everything she heard and saw, then raised her omni-tool in camera mode to risk a quick look inside. Seeing nothing but smoke and scrap metal, she pulled her shotgun, set her camouflage generator to 100% and jumped into the recess. Visually confirming there were no other targets, Xiùlán turned back towards the opening only to be kicked backwards half a meter and to the ground by a bullet hitting her square in the center of her ceramic chest plate. Two more rounds zipped past overhead as she lay on her back, gasping for breath, attempting to regain control of her diaphragm. 'Xī, Xiùlán, Xī!' She rolled over and got to her hands and knees as a mocking voice came over her comlink.

  "Hey Chop Stick! How's yer chest feel? Ya gonna need me to massage yer tits?" followed by a braying laugh that sounded like a donkey.

  'Gǒu shǐ! Zhēn de ma? Zài 44 shìjì de wǒ bèihòu de wénmíng, zhè jiùshì wǒ? Yīgè tā mā de kuàizi!?' [狗屎！真的嗎？在我身後的44世紀的文明，這是我嗎？一個他媽的筷子 - Dog feces! Really? In the 44 century civilization behind me, this is me? A fucking chopstick(s)!?] She replied over the comm, "In your dreams, asshole!" Xiùlán recognized the owner of the voice, a self-righteous, bigoted, alien–hating human from the lower mid-west section of the North American continent. Joesiar went out of his way to put down and verbally abuse anyone that looked a bit different; female recruits were especially targeted for insults, belittling and sexual innuendo. Unfortunately for everyone on the receiving end, Joesiar never seemed
to get caught. Rumor was he had an uncle high up in the chain of Alliance brass.

  She used her omni-tool to plot the trajectories back to their source. Joesiar was still out there, probably in the same spot, waiting for her to show herself. Lazy bastard had parked himself in good cover and waited for her to take out the sniper. She had only a heavy pistol and a shotgun; neither would accurately reach him from here. Finally able to breathe normally, Xiùlán checked her chest plate… the round that hit her was a low-power non-enhanced alloy pellet. No damage to the plate, but she knew she'd have an ugly purple bruise in the middle of her chest by tonight. She glanced around at the wreckage caused by her grenade and spotted it… the sniper rifle being used by the VI she'd destroyed. She crawled over to it, picked it up, 'Gǒu niáng yǎng de zhòng dá yī dūn!' [狗娘養的重達一噸 - Son of a bitch weighs a tonne!] and inspected it, sighting down the barrel and checking the targeting computer in the receiver; amazingly, it appeared totally undamaged, and still had a good heat-sink.

  Moving to the extreme left side of the opening, she risked a quick look around the protective rock wall. Her reward was a flash as Joesiar fired his rifle; the round whizzed past and smacked the wall behind her. It was going to take a bit of subterfuge to get out of this hole. She plotted the last round back to its source… all had originated from the same location, some 450 meters distant. She pulled the rifle's logic board and plugged it into her omni-tool, reset the location for the rifle's auto-aim function, then replaced the board in its receptacle on the gun. Now for the tricky part. Staying below the opening, she carefully hefted the long gun up and rested the barrel on the edge of the opening, pointing it as close as she could guess at the spot where Joesiar was hiding.

  "Hey Chop Stick! Ya give up yet? I can keep yer yeller ass pinned in there rest of the day!" He emphasized his point with another round, which hit the back wall in virtually the same spot as all the rest.

  The instant his round hit she fired the long gun, then moving smoothly, she whirled about, placed the cheek of her helmet hard against the receiver, sighted down the barrel, fired a second round and ducked all in one rapid motion. The resulting howl of pain in her com sounded genuine, so she risked a quick look over the edge. Joesiar had broke cover and was dancing around (actually jumping about in the low gravity) as he held his right shoulder with his left hand. Xiùlán decided to teach the bastard a real lesson; she sighted down the barrel of the long gun, exhaled softly and fired, hitting him in the calf of his right leg as he danced around; he hollered anew as he dropped like a stone. "Dammit, Chop Stick! Now yer jus' playen' dirty!"

  Xiùlán leaped out of the hole in the rock wall; carrying the heavy long gun in her left hand, she pulled her heavy pistol while trotting the 450 meters to Joesiar's location. Despite the low gravity of the lunar surface, it took her close to a minute to reach him where he lay in the dirt. Sticking the pistol's barrel against his faceplate, she hissed, "Chop Stick? Really? Just for your information, my ass is not yellow, not that I'm going to prove it by showing it to the likes of you!"

  "Com'on, You ann. 'Chop stick' is easier to pronounce than yer name," Joesiar whined. "Gimme a hand here, will ya? My suit's leaking. How in 'ell didja get your hands on a long gun, anyways?"

  She pulled a repair kit from a utility pocket on her thigh. "It belonged to the VI that was firing at me. I didn't notice you taking any fire… hiding here until someone else got the job done for you, huh? Typical. Nǐ shì yīgè lǎnduò de húndàn, Joesiar [你是一個懶惰的混蛋 - You are a lazy bastard Joesiar]… too lazy to learn how to pronounce my name correctly! Just say 'shoo-lan'… it's my given name. Yuán is my family name, gǒu shǐ yīyàng de tóunǎo." [狗屎一樣的頭腦 - dog feces for brains]

  "Ya see, there y'all go again, speaking chinee on me," he complained. "What in 'ell did you just call me, Chop stick?"

  "Gǒu shǐ yīyàng de tóunǎo? That's 'dog shit for brains '. Sounds meaner in Mandarin, don't it? Now hold still so I can fix this hole." Joesiar stopped moving about; more importantly, he quit talking. Yuán patched the puncture in the leg of his suit, then pushed him over to take a look at his shoulder. "No hole here… your lucky day. Bet that shoulder will need some therapy when you get back to the barracks."

  "Least I won't have a big ol' purple bruise 'tween my tits in the morning," he smirked. "On you, it'll probably be closer to a hideous green, since blue and yeller make green, right?" The braying of a donkey back on Earth had nothing on the sounds coming out of Joesiar.

  Xiùlán picked up his weapons and said, "We're done here, Joesiar. Head back to the barracks. And just so you know, I will be reporting you for your ethnic slurs and misogynistic attitude."

  "It'll be yer word against mine, chinker bell," he sneered, "and I bet your fuckin' word ain't gonna buy you shit."

  Xiùlán put a boot on his shoulder and added a bit of weight, prompting him to start thrashing and hollering in pain. "I have our conversations recorded, Joesiar, right down to your last comment about me," she said in a voice full of menace. "Your Alliance career is done… Brass has no tolerance for racial bigots. Neither do I." Lifting her foot, she finished with, "Now get your miserable little ass up and move while you still can." She waited until he got to his feet and started limping towards the shelters before following after him. It was going to be a long walk, and she hurt all over.

  * * *

  *** RECRUIT BARRACKS, FEMALE • 1645 - 1830 ***

  Xiùlán thanked the medic as she pulled a short-sleeved sweatshirt over her bare torso. He'd inspected the impact site on her chest and found nothing amiss under the skin - just some deep bruising right over the bottom of her sternum, which explained why she'd had the wind knocked out of her so badly. The visible bruise had become a real beauty, centered below her breasts… it still hurt to take a deep breath. The medic had given her seven days off from physically demanding training; classroom time would give her a chance to heal.

  She returned to her room, thinking nothing was more inviting than to lie down in her bed for a bit, but decided to hit the showers first, let some warm water wash away a bit of the aching tiredness she felt. She got undressed, put on a short silk robe (a present from her mom) and slipped on a pair of 'shower sandals'. Grabbing a wash cloth, a couple of large towels, shampoo and body wash, she removed the leather tie keeping her long hair in a ponytail, then left for the women's lav.

  The lavatory was laid out in a standard pattern: an interior partition was mounted just inside the door, blocking the view straight into the dressing/shower area on the right and the toilets on the left. There were wire mesh lockers set just outside the showers, along with basins and mirrors and a low bench on which to sit for dressing or undressing. Xiùlán chose an empty locker, pulled off her robe and hung it and her towels within. Taking her washcloth, body wash and shampoo into the shower, she took no real notice of the tanned recruit with outstretched arms, palms on the wall in front of her as she stood motionless under a showerhead, doing exactly what Xiùlán had come here to do. Another recruit, just finishing her shower, told the tanned recruit she was leaving. "Bye, Heather," came the response. Heather nodded to Xiùlán as she walked out towards the locker area.

  Turning on the water next to her unknown companion, she adjusted the temperature to 'very warm' and slipped into the stream cascading from the 'waterfall' shower head. Ducking her head into the water, she allowed it to completely soak her hair. Grabbing the length right behind her neck, she pulled it around over her left shoulder and began applying shampoo as she enjoyed the spray of water on her back.

  "Don't think I've ever seen anyone with hair that long," came a vaguely familiar voice. "Must take a lot of effort to keep it lookin' so pretty.

  Xiùlán glanced to the right at the young woman as she continued working the shampoo into her hair. "Alliance doesn't require it to be short. Worn it long all my life," she responded, mentally preparing for the argument she felt sure was about to ensue.

  "It's beautiful. I wouldn
't cut it either," came the voice, then, "Xiùlán? Is that…it is you! Xiùlán! I'm so happy to see… well, you… um, all of you, as it turns out."

  Xiùlán looked at the young woman again… really looked at her. Beautiful complexion, dark all over like a deep tan, only no light colored skin on her boobs or butt. It finally dawned on her where she'd seen this woman before. "Traynor? Samantha Traynor? Damn, I didn't recognize you… only seeing your face once, it never dawned on me you were so… so…"

  "…brown all over?" Sam finished for her. "My mum's from India… Pop's a Brit… er, British. Got my mum's skin tone, my Pop's 'tude. Bad combination, I'm told." Sam ducked back under the shower to rinse her hair and torso of shampoo and soap.

  "I wouldn't call it 'brown'… more like a warm olive. As for me, I've been told I have a yellow ass." Twisting her backside towards Traynor, Xiùlán asked with a grin, "See any yellow back there?"

  'Damn! That's a really sweet ass!' Traynor thought as she answered, "Nope. Lighter than mine, but certainly not yellow. Same color as the rest of you, actually. Who said you have a yellow ass? Wait, wouldn't be a sawed-off little bastard with pale-blue eyes, would it? Joesiar!?"

  "The very same," came the reply. Xiùlán had finished lathering her hair; flipping it around behind her, she turned back around to face Traynor as she applied her jasmine-scented body wash and began soaping herself. She gingerly washed her chest and said, 'This is a present…" she lifted her breasts upwards with her forearm while gently washing the spreading bruise, "…from the miserable little prick. Hit my ceramic plate with a sniper round during live-fire… knocked the wind outta me, put me on my back for a few. Offered to massage my tits for me… as if!" she finished with a smirk.

  Traynor whistled in appreciation. "That's a serious bruise, Xiùlán. Must be sore." 'I'd be happy to massage your chest anytime' came the unbidden thought. 'Shit, Traynor. Quit thinking about that! She's probably straight.' "Have you seen the doc?"