Ships of Valor 1: Persona Non Grata Read Free Page B

on ships. It's easier to grow vine plants, so we juggle nutrition around the use of space. Luna had a lot more space and with it, the luxuries of things like citrus fruit, and even apples. I'd have to be careful, I could eat myself broke if I didn’t watch myself.
    I drained the drink, and Schmiddy got me a second before I realized what I was doing. He gave me a look and then slowly said "Hell of a thing." Word travels fast. If had I come to White Caps first instead of straight to the ticketing center, someone like Schmiddy would have warned me and I probably wouldn’t have spent the last few hours traipsing around LC.
    I nodded and left it at that. I was still trying to wrap my head around the idea myself. The old saying regarding never really leaving the Legion is true, but I couldn't hang my hat up in Luna City either. I'm young by pensioner standards. Most of the old timers have me beat by triple digits. That's not to say I wouldn't be welcome, but I wasn’t the right age group yet. Most guys don't settle in until they're near bicentennials. Sort of an unwritten rule, to keep the space available for those who need it. The guys who couldn't work any longer. I was barely a quarter of that, and with deep-sleep excluded, closer to a fifth.
    I needed to find other employment, and other pastures. LC would remind me I couldn't head back to Terra, at least for the foreseeable future. I wasn’t even sure what I was qualified to do on Luna. At least on Terra I could turn my Legion skills into something marketable.
    The thing stuck in my mind was the one on one the Kellinger woman. I couldn't quite shake it, so I asked Schmiddy. “Ah, she's a hands-on type. Delegate the good, but handle the bad herself. Remember Bris?” I nodded. “Like him. She's come down here a couple times when the corp messed up a shipment to figure out where their process failed. A bit of a looker.”
    Brigadier Brisendine was one of the slickest combat commanders I had ever seen. A tactical genius who made sure his guys, guys like me, knew and believed in the plan. Not only did he empower his troops in case things changed on the fly but when things spun out, he liked to take the wheel. Not a bad thing, just gave him a chance to make instant decisions and coordinate top down. Matched his leadership style and worked for him.
    If Schmiddy was comparing this Kellinger to Bris, then she deserved respect by proxy. A nod from him was enough to convince me she was worth following into battle.
    Schmiddy and I talked trash and war stories for a bit while I drank and ate. He got me caught up on where some old buddies were hanging their suits at the time, which was his way of pointing out employment leads. He's super old school. Big on making sure no one loses face. Lots of Legionnaires are prideful sons of bitches, myself included.
    Eventually, my internal clock caught up with me and I excused myself. That's the thing about living in space, is I set my clock based on local time, or the ship itself. When patrolling a specific sector, adjusting to the local government became a matter of course making communication easier. The Compass's clock was set to LC so adjusting wasn't a big deal, but that didn't mean anything since Luna runs all day and night. Having a big dome above and no actual sunlight, there isn't any real night or day, so it's a matter of what I was used to and the other people on the same schedule. My personal schedule was about a quarter day of sleep right after midnight. I could survive on as little as half that, but retirement had its perks. I ducked up to my room and crashed for the evening.
    Morning came with all its normal routine. Quick hygiene in the included pod followed and breakfast down in the canteen. It had been a few years since I'd been back, so rather than dedicating real though to my problem, I played tourist and grabbed some basics from out in town. Luna is a major hub, making it easy to get the most recent tech, and replace old gear