As the old man sat there, his eyes widened as it all came back to him.
Christopher Erin McDermot lay on his stomach, a pillow under his crossed arms proppped up his chin as he glanced over the clustered and busy piece of paper. His orders. The formation of Joker Squad. Would this be his last team? He'd already lost two others to this damned war. He wanted out. But he had re-upped months ago for at least four years.
Between his sworn 'sentence' (that was what he now called his enlisted time) and any war time extensions, he was convinced that it would be a long time before he saw the end of this war.
He looked around at the grayish room surrounding him. There was a cluster of his bags beside his bed, apart from that there were four bunkbeds, one of them occupied by an older man in civilian dress (sleeping beneath a maroon ball cap) a few storage chests, a desk, and a long narrow window revealing the star filled depths of space.
A frightnening ring erupted from the small black phone on the desk. Christopher rolled off the bed, in the blink of an eye he had drawn what he called his desert dagger, a nicely crafted knife he had once come across on a hot, desertish world. He quickly looked over to the man on the bed to see if he had noticed his extreme paranoid, then he shook his head as he sheathed his knife. He sighed. They had drawn him out of the Hot Zone way too fast, he thought. Twelve hours ago he was being shot at and his comrades, members of the 22nd Infantry Garrison that he had been stationed with, were being devastated by the enemy force.
Explosions, mists of blood wetting his face, dying men's last wishes, gun shots and chaos. He tried to hold back an invountary shutter before answering the phone but he failed. "Hello?" He asked.
"Honey, is that you?" It was a sweet but sad sounding voice, the voice of his Australian mother, millions of miles away on the thirteenth replica of Earth.
"Yea, it's me. How is everybody?" He asked
"Everyone's good, your father's getting better, A lot of people ask about you Chris. Do you know when your next leave is? I just got a contact address in the mail because they said your old one was cancelled."
"Yea, they're moving me, part of a new squad, I dont know what more I'm allowed to say. They pulled me out of a skirmish earlier but i can't say where, It's probably still going on and you know the about the Press. My next leave, uh...pretty soon, maybe a few weeks or a month nopefuly." As he said this he had to frown, he knew it was a lie. With the shortage of men he doubted he'd get his leave when it was due.
"Well, the times running out on here, this address expires in a few minutes. I love you Chris. Your fathers in town, picking up some new stocks for the farm. I wish he'd been here to talk to you. I miss you so much. I can't wait to see you."
"I love you too mum, tell everyone i said hello okay. Tell dad I love him. I miss you guys. It's beepin on my end though so i gotta go. I love you." He said as the phone beeped louder. Then it stopped and the line was dead. he hung it up on the cradle as the door drew his attention. He turned around slowly to see two men standing in the doorway, one in loose black clothing, the other in a newer, popular, outfit. They both carried big green, military issued bags.
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