Polaris Read Free Page B

that hers did not. Meanwhile she continued to count textbooks and teach supply and demand, the Laffer curve, and price elasticity.
    Finally, one day, a Navy recruiter lingered in her room after giving the standard pitch to her kids, and they struck up a conversation about officer programs. She fit the criteria, he enthusiastically told her: she was young, single, a college graduate. She found herself surprised as she listened, surprised at how right it all felt. She gave herself one more day to think about it, and then she drove down to the recruiting office, sandwiched between the Department of Motor Vehicles and a Laundromat, and volunteered to be a US Naval Officer. Over the next few days, she filled out a stack of forms with her personal information, took a short medical exam and a basic math test. The fantasy grew in her mind with each step: military glory, exotic ports of call, her own return to Oak Lawn in uniform, an example to all.
    One week later, the Navy rejected her.
    The embarrassed recruiter was flabbergasted. He tried his best to assuage her, afraid it would turn her against the entire recruiting program, of which she had become Oak Lawn High School’s biggest supporter. He attributed it to an unusually good month for officer program recruiting, her lack of a technical degree, some kind of glitch in her application. He asked her repeatedly if perhaps she had something dark in her past that would have come to light in the initial background check, perhaps a youthful DUI or a shoplifting arrest. He finally left her alone in her classroom when it became clear that she now regarded his shoulder boards and ribbons as an insult, a reminder of her rejection.
    For two weeks she simmered about it. The school year ended, and she resigned herself to a life in her small classroom, perhaps inspiring her students toward adventure, or maybe even glory, but never tasting it herself. Perhaps after the war and retirement, she thought, she could take a budget trip to Europe and see Rome or Paris.
    Then one day as she sat at her desk in an empty classroom, compiling another semester of grades, a stranger walked into her room.
    â€œMs. Moody?” he said with a smile. “I’m Chad Walker. I’m a recruiter with the Alliance.” He handed her a business card that had no rank or title, just a name, phone number, and email address. And he wore no uniform, just a tasteful dark suit. She invited him to sit down. He somehow managed to look perfectly comfortable in the undersized desk–chair combo right in front of her.
    The Alliance needed officers, too, he told her. Men and women who would work alongside the traditional military. People like her were desperately needed. “And I believe,” he said, looking her right in the eye, “that you would thrive as a military officer.”
    â€œWould I have a military rank?” she asked. “A normal uniform? Could I do any job in the military?”
    Walker answered yes to all her questions. You’ll have all the same opportunities as a traditional military officer, he assured her. The war effort, and recent legislation, guarantees it.
    â€œSo what’s the difference between being an officer in the Alliance and being an officer in the regular Navy?”
    Barely any difference at all, he said with a chuckle. If you ascend high enough, you would eventually end up working at Alliance headquarters, rather than at the Pentagon. But in the trenches, you’ll be a military officer, with the same privileges and responsibilities.
    She said yes before he left her classroom.
    There was a background check again, and another skills test. While the Navy had asked her math questions, the Alliance asked her political questions, and she wasn’t always sure what answer they wanted to hear. Did she always vote? Had she ever run for office? Could she name the five original member countries of the Alliance? Could she name its current commander? Did she