by F. E. Arliss
“The rent on this unit pays for many of the repairs we need and for much of the management fees as well,” Chloe said. “Where are we supposed to get those if we rent the unit for free?”
Her mother waved her hand dismissively, “Well, darling, you’ll think of something. You always do. Shall we look at the unit now? Come on girls, this will be so fun! We can come up with some design ideas and then Chloe can have the changes made!”
“Mom, the rent for this unit pays my salary, if we rent it for free how am I supposed to get paid?” Chloe yelped.
“Like I said, darling, you’ll think of something. Come on, let’s go decorate!” said Selma and sailed off with Gervais and Delilah floating along behind. Chloe couldn’t move. She was literally stuck in place. “What the hell did they think they were doing?” she wondered. “Could they really be that out of touch?” Sighing, she went to find out.
Chapter 4
Seriously?
Leo stepped off the transporter pad and stalked across to the stainless steel and glass air lift shaft. Punching the door button and stepping inside when the door whooshed open, then savagely pushed the “E” button that would sweep him to the Executive level. Again, he wondered what the top brass wanted with him. Even though he was a Colonel now and in charge of thousands of men, his rough world of constant battle was miles away from the groomed and silent offices at headquarters.
Leo stepped out of the lift and approached the door of Headquarters, Chief of Militarized Forces, the overseeing branch of Orbit Guard. He could see the doors standing open to the inner office and several men he identified as Generals could be seen talking quietly amongst themselves.
“Come in, come in!” one small, wiry general with horn- rimmed glasses and an entirely bald head, came toward him smiling. “You must be Colonel Reinegaard!” he exclaimed, while trying to maintain eye contact and look away from Leo’s scarred face all at the same time. It made his bald head appear to strobe slightly in the harsh overhead lighting. “I’m General Windecker, welcome to Militarized Forces HQ, we’re looking forward to seeing you and explaining why we’ve called you here.”
“Have a seat Colonel, we’re eager to get started,” said General Windecker. “As you may know, being Command Colonel on the front lines at Orbit Guard Frontier Command, we have a great deal of trouble keeping good personnel in the ranks. With the duress of combat and the isolation of the posts on our station and ships, we’ve had a higher than hoped for attrition rate when re-enrollment comes around for our soldiers. We’re hoping to institute a program that will reward prolonged service and allow our forces to be more productive on the front lines. One of the biggest complaints we’ve had when asked why soldiers were not re-enrolling for additional tours was the inability to have their girlfriends or spouses near them. It’s too much of an emotional toll over the long haul of a tour of duty in the isolation of forward command for them to be willing to stay on. We’re hoping you can help us with that Colonel.”
“What the hell?” thought Leo. Even though he knew that the isolation and loneliness could be very real for the men, and that he also had thought a time or two lately about having a relationship with a pang of wistfulness, he’d quickly shoved those thoughts back down the rabbit hole they’d belonged in. No women had ever shown interest in him unless he’d paid them. He didn’t imagine that would suddenly change now he was a Colonel. “How can I help with that, sir?” he asked. “What did you have in mind?”
“Well Colonel, the men respect and admire you, and if we can get you on board with a program to bring women into the frontier services as support personnel, we’d be ahead of the game with getting the men to accept them on post,” the General stated. “What do you think? Could we get you to sign off on bringing a contingent of women into Orbit Guard at the frontier posts?”
Leo wasn’t sure how he felt about having a gaggle of women under his feet on the frontier. The last thing he needed was a bunch of harpies or hysterics littering his base. On the other hand, he knew that women coming to the frontier posts was inevitable and could prove to be a welcome distraction during long postings. “If the women were confined to support posts or rear positions I don’t believe that would be a problem, sir,” Leo said. “I’d be happy to support that sort of deployment of women.”
General Windecker sighed. “We had in mind something a little more supportive of the idea,” the General said, grimacing slightly at the other Generals in the room. “We know that if we can get a leader the men respect on board, it will cause far less discussion and dissention amongst the men. We’d hoped that we could send the first contingent of women support staff out with someone you were seeing.”
Windecker continued, “The first group of women will be called Frontier Corpsmen. Personnel tells us that we can’t call them corpswomen, hence Corpsmen. They’ll have a commanding officer, most likely a Lieutenant with a Master’s degree in Counseling that we’ve hired. There will be about twenty-five women in the first group of women. They will mostly consist of Engineering Assistants, Cooks, Housekeepers, and Medics. We’re hoping that one of the women that you’re seeing will be among that group,” General Windecker stated, lifting his brows a fraction in suggestion.
Leo stared at General Windecker questioningly. “I don’t have anyone I’m seeing, General,” he stated. “So how do you propose I am to accomplish that?” the Colonel asked, trying to keep his exasperation under control.
General Windecker reddened slightly and said, “Well Colonel, we’ve set up an interview process for you to talk to a few of the professionals who will be going out to the frontier in the first group of support staff. It will be just a few minutes to see if any of the women interest you on a personal basis,” Windecker shifted uncomfortable under Leo’s ice glare.
“You want me to find a girlfriend in the first batch, is that what you’re saying?” Leo asked.
“Well, er, yes,” sighed the General. “If you could, please.”
Seriously? Leo thought to himself. They had to be joking! “Is this an order, sir?” asked Leo.
“Well, uhm…”, the General glanced at the silent audience of other Generals, catching as he did a few unspoken glowers. “Well, yes, I suppose it is,” he muttered. “We need someone with an impeccable reputation to set an example for the men in welcoming the women to the station.”
Leo heaved a sigh of silent protest. What the General really meant was that if an ugly bastard like himself could find a girlfriend among the female support staff, it would give all his soldiers hope. “Yes, sir,” he said with no external sign of any irritation. “Where will these interviews take place, sir?” he asked. In other words, he thought, where do I go to get the pretend girlfriend.
“You will be heading out to St. Louis, Missouri,” said the General. “Our studies show that the women we surveyed, that are suitable for forward positions, most often came from the Midwest. They seem to be able to cope with more rigorous conditions than some of the other areas we studied. Something about the conditions in the Midwest I suppose,” General Windecker said. Several of the other generals exchanged glances and a few chuckles burst out as well. “Something about heat, cold, humidity, tornadoes, swarms of insects, hard physical work, ever encroaching weeds, and a lack of cultural enrichment, make them a hardy sort,” the General said ruefully.
“Anything I should be aware of sir?” asked Leo with a sigh.
“No, no of course not,” said the General. “The midwest just has a bit of a reputation for having a lot of hard work, and not much else to commend it. It’s fertile ground for hard workers. I’m sure you’ll find someone among the enlistees,” he said with an encouraging nod.
Chapter 5
So Long Misery
Chloe was tired. Bone tired. She’d finally broken away from her family's indignant admonitions and driven into St. Louis this morning from the middle of nowhere Missouri. She’d had had to drive around quite a bit trying to find a hotel close to the address she’d been given. Even
though her permanent address had been Nashville, she’d been interviewed with enlistment papers that had Missouri as her originating address. That meant her application had been thrown into a batch of interviewees that were from the Midwest. It was easier than having to return to Nashville, she guessed. Chloe wasn’t sure why or with whom she was meeting tomorrow, but she was tired enough that though the hotel room smelled funky, she was just grateful for a soft bed, a shower that worked well, and the chance to eat powdered scrambled eggs for breakfast at the hotel breakfast bar. Who knew what the amenities in her new life would be like.
It had been a long long month since her sisters and Mom had blindsided her with cutting her management salary in the family apartment complex and then magically imagining that she could somehow increase income for them without pay. When they’d done that, she’d had enough trying to help them help themselves. It just never worked. She’d called all her friends in Nashville, to see if she could land a job back in her old profession of counseling. It hadn’t worked out. Chloe’d let her professional licensure lapse while in Missouri managing the family apartment complex, and no one wanted a pseudo-professional. They could get sued. Everything was always about money in the end, she supposed.
No one had wanted her, that was, until she’d seen the ad in one of the Nashville newspapers ‘Career Professional Ads’, that one of her friends had forwarded her. The ad was for a Counselor to join the Orbit Guard in a frontier position. No mention of licensure in their requirements, just a Master’s Degree and sufficient experience. Since she didn’t really have that many options, she’d applied.
What had shocked her was the speed with which she’d been contacted, interviewed via teleconference and accepted into the Guard. She’d only had to think about it for a few seconds when the contact call came through. Two years in the Orbit Guard at a frontier station serving as Commanding Mental Health Counselor to all the female troops on the base. It was a new position and it was ground breaking work in that women support troops had never been placed on a forward Orbit Guard station before. Chloe would go in as a Lieutenant, and liked the idea of being a ground-breaker. The fact that it paid really well didn’t hurt either. The salary was literally triple what she'd made in Nashville, plus there was a danger pay bonus every month. She’d make more at this job than she ever had as a licensed therapist.
She’d also relished the idea of telling her family that she was going into space and they wouldn’t be able to contact her in any way. Secretly, telling them that she was joining the Orbit Guard had been the highlight of her life up to that point. In the privacy of her bedroom she’d done little gleeful dances of delighted revenge. Crap heads! They could wait on themselves now. If they sank, well it clearly was all their own doing. For a few seconds, she’d felt bad about her glee in leaving them behind to fend for themselves. Then the realization that they thought they didn’t need her at all, and that they’d used her and returned all her hard work with a swift kick in her backside, quickly squashed that moment of guilt.
Chloe fell face down on the bed. Better get some sleep, she thought, as she had an interview with a Colonel tomorrow. What she was interviewing for, she had no idea. Orbit Guard was turning out to be a real adventure, and she was feeling hopeful about the change of scene and career. With a sense of impending excitement, Chloe drifted off to a fitful sleep.
Chapter 6
Chance Chooses
Leo paced back and forth in the stuffy conference room near the St. Louis airport. He’d been flown into the area early this morning on an unmarked helicopter and set down on the roof of this nondescript office building. A bland faced young man named Bob, from Orbit Guard Command, had met him on the roof and brought him down several stories to this conference room. Slightly stale croissants and some weak coffee had been offered. He’d declined but for the coffee. He was used to putrid coffee and it gave his hands something to do.
Bob had given him eleven resumes to look over for the proposed ‘girlfriend’. The candidates ranged from early to late thirties and had a variety of professions that Forward Command needed. Several were nurses or computer technicians, one was a counselor, and quite a few others were upper level food service workers or engineers. One was a former drill sergeant that was to help with exercise of the troops.
The drill sergeant would be more his bag he thought. He liked competent, strong women who wouldn’t flake out with one look at his face or scream at you in a high stress situation. The counselor was an absolute no go he was sure. Gods of Vodka, who needed a touchy- feely type in Orbit Guard? What a waste of space that berth was going to be. And she was the CO of the Corpsmen. The last thing he needed was a power struggle with some weeping hysteric.
No photos had been included with the resumes, so while he had no idea what the candidates looked like, they clearly hadn’t been briefed on him either. The first two gasped when they saw him and the next three couldn’t maintain eye contact. After the first five minutes, they’d all been excused. He was tired of this charade already and he still had six more to go. He could see their vague outlines through the fuzzy opacity of the conference rooms glass wall. On top of all of this, that squirrely kid, Bob, had beaten a hasty retreat after he’d shown in the last candidate. "Where the hell was that guy?" Leo wondered.
As Leo began to pour yet another cup of the tepid coffee, the building seemed to sway slightly. Geez, was he getting woozy under the strain of having to meet women who seemed terrified of him? Nope, there it was again. A slight sway of the building, this time accompanied by a high-pitched, whining shriek as though the building was actually in pain. The sound made the hair on his arms stand on end. Oh, not again, he thought! Leo had heard that sort of sound once before on the outer reaches of Pluto when the silent worm-wave runner they’d been taking toward an enemy base had been sabotaged with a corrosive acid and the hull had breached. It had taken them just long enough to clear the orbital platform and reach full burn when the ship had broken apart, spewing him and his crew out into the dark of space. He was sure it was supposed to have killed them all, but he’d ordered his men to maintain pressurization in their suits as the jump to the enemy location was to be a short one. If they’d settled into their harnesses as usual, they’d all have been dead of depressurization. Only one of his men, a young ensign who hadn’t had enough practice to be fast with his helmet to save himself, had died. Still the scream of the metal as it pulled away into the vacuum of space wasn’t a sound he was likely to forget, and this was similar to that sound.
It had to be the iron beams of the building somewhere making that sound. In seconds, he was through the door, barking orders to the open-mouthed secretary. “Evacuate the building immediately. Call 911 and report a terror attack at this address. Call for all backup possible.”, he growled out the command in a loud urgent voice. “Go! Now!” he yelled at the women seated in the chairs to his side.
For an instant Chloe just stared at the large, imposing guy yelling at them. What was going on?” she wondered. Then she heard it too, the sound of joists giving and metal shearing away. She was on her feet and shoving the other women toward the hallway stairwell. “No!” she yelled at a large woman heading for the elevator. “It’s not safe to take the elevators. Go down the stairwell! Now!”
Chloe glanced behind her to see the secretary still glued to her chair, mouth hanging open and fingers gripping white on the edge of her desk. The big guy was yelling into a telephone that looked ridiculously small in his large hand. Chloe turned back and ran to the girl, prying her fingers off the desk, she shoved her forcefully out of her chair and hauled her toward the door. “Come on, we’ve got to evacuate! Quickly!” Chloe yelled. “Go down the stairwell! Run!”
As the young woman disappeared down the stairs, Chloe turned once more and yelled, “Come on, we’ve got to go!” to the huge, scarred man bellowing into his phone. He glanced up and frowned. Still bellowing into his phone, he gestured for her to follow him with the other hand. Instead of turning down
the stairs, he raced up. “Where are you going?” Chloe called. “We’ve got to go down!” Frowning, he simply reached back, snagged her by the wrist and dragged her up the stairs. She stumbled, bumped hard into one of the iron railings, then managed to get her shaky legs coordinated and follow him up the echoing stairwell at a run.
Later, she’d wonder what made her follow him. After all, she didn’t know him from Adam and going down had been the common-sense choice. For some reason, she’d innately accepted that he knew what he was doing. It all seemed very strange to her later when she thought about it.
All around them walls cracked, metal popped, and sheets of glass could be heard shattering. In a few seconds, they burst onto the roof to see a helicopter with its rotors whirling. The pilot pushed open the side door and gestured wildly for them to board. Being mostly dragged now by the large man, Chloe reached the open chopper door where the hulking man simply turned, wrapped two iron-like hands around her hips and tossed her onto the hard, flat seat to the rear. He jumped in and settled facing her. “Go, go!” he snarled at the pilot. With a hard shudder and swift acceleration, the helicopter was airborne over the building.
