The Ongoing Interstellar Correspondence of Judy and Private Mercury

Darling,

I’m so happy to be writing to you now, we’ve made it away from the outlying asteroid belt in the Drasto system and are now on a sub-hyper-speed cruise to the main star. We soldiers are basically off for the next month, so I’ll be able to write more often and tell you about all the crazy things that are happening in this rusting tin can of a ship. I’ve heard about the looting in the Southern Work Area and the floods, please write and tell me you’re ok. I don’t know what’s going on in the gov’t down there, but I think the President might have to get his mind off — and the Virgo system and attend to domestic tranquility! Information is scant up here, please tell me my sweet girl is alright!

I was telling you about my wrecked recon mission to an asteroid last time, let me finish that story and then tell you about the ongoing fallout. So, we were in an expedition ship on the expedition deck, getting ready to take off. Our initial orders for when we were on the rock were being rolled out on the mission screen. I was the backup pilot in case the autopilot failed. The ship would drill a hole in the rock and Nebs would oversee me and Dixon while we took soil samples and installed monitoring equipment. We’d be getting regular updates on the situation around the rock from the crew back at the Cruiser, in case there were any hostiles, which there obviously wouldn’t be. At the end of the roll out, we got a first update from Private Grecian (a minor friend from Basic Training days): he puts on his best walkie-talkie voice, “over over, currssht, all clear to approach the rock. Not a hostile for 200 lightyears! curssht! over” He was making fun of us for being greenies at real missions. All this was all very exciting for us, on supply line runs, we just start up the ship and fly out manually, no Designer Corps auto-programming, no mission roll out.

So the ship fires up and flies into the airlock, spins around and starts firing it’s engine to keep us up. The way this works is that as soon as the air lock opens up, we’ll get sucked out since the ship is spinning around to “make gravity”, so the ship starts firing towards the hatch as it opens, and we’re eased out. When we get out there, we see the Drasto star, DS-3, shining blindingly white, and the rock is lit up on our windshield by the Nav computer. First odd thing I notice is that there’s two escort ships hovering around the rock already, which seems unnecessary.

So we hover towards it for ten minutes or so. Dixon, Nebs and I look at each other. I don’t think anybody wanted to admit they were nervous. Dixon tried to spin a coin in the air, Nebs just sat surveying the screens. I was probably a little clammed up because I had to go out onto the rock, and I got to admit crazy Designer Kong’s warnings about fuzzy objects were getting to me. Anyway, as we’re hovering, Grecian gives an update. He actually just comes on the radio and you can hear him talking to what I gathered was one of the escorts. “How’s everything look up there?…Should we go ahead?” Silence. “Alright guys, the environment looks clear, confirm readiness to proceed.” Confirmed. We belt-in and Nebs hits execute. The thing fires up and we rock violently, then descend rapidly to the rock. As we get close to the rock, the ship jerks again as engines blast downward to start digging a hole. The Designers have scoured the rock for the right point and usually get the details right, so we get a good-sized hole that’s easy to access. Then we land with a bump, landing on the ships four outstretched legs, and the ship digs into the rock with the drill while firing directly upwards to keep us down.

After several minutes of sitting in this violently shaking ship, hovering just away from the edges of the cockpit but still shaking ourselves, and playing the usual and very against regulations game of putting a drop of water in the air to watch the waves shape it, the drill shuts down and there’s suddenly complete silence. At this point Dixon and I had to suit up and go into the bottom airlock, while Nebs stays there watching.

Long story short, we’re down there in our suits hooking up magnetic equipment to monitor the rocks energy potential; Dixon’s bolting one of the sides in, the explosive bolt explodes and hits a tube on the outside of Dixon’s suit. I get a signal that he’s in distress, code for breathing problems. Nebs dispatches the rescue pod, which jets down. I start jetting back up with Dixon and the pod, and we reach the bottom of the ship. At this point, the pod goes off to the side to ease Dixon into the airlock. My role in this scenario is to oversee his insertion into the airlock. Suddenly, the pod stops, Nebs and I get a computer message saying that we should revive him in place due to the risk of tube rupture in the airlock during the “whoosh” when the pressure changes. An arm from the ship extends a tube covering and I try to use it to plug the leak. Dixon’s losing air fast and suddenly grabs my arm and the tube cover flies off and starts slowly descending into the hole. I tell Nebs to send me another covering device and some air. He says that’ll take him 2 minutes because he’s got to get it and load it into an extension arm. I plug an external air hole into Dixon’s suit and he revives a bit. I then have to make a decision: Dixon’s weary, but he’s in command. I have to issue the order to Nebs to open the airlock instead of waiting to repair the tube rupture and risk him losing pressure in the whoosh while the airlock fills. Nebs says “are you sure? We lost a guy in training that way one time, his lung exploded.” I actually get tweaked and yell back “we’re both gonna run out of air before you can get us extra tubes!” He opens it, and we both go in with me hooked up to him and us both losing air quickly because of the leak. I cram my fingers around the thing during the whoosh and can feel the edges of the tube pushing against my glove. We just get through the whoosh and then it’s all over.

While we were reviving Dixon, we get a message from the main ship with the usual check in, request for incident overview, etc.. We then get an order that I should go back down and finish bolting the magnetic device in, and retrieve the tube-saver! I say to Grecian that Dixon’s on the edge and we should revive him. I hear him click out for a sec, then he comes back in and says “command” wants us to continue, doesn’t even name the colonel demanding I go back down while Nebs deals with Dixon.

In the end, I of course suit up and descend back down through the airlock. I finish bolting in the magnetic device and hit the initialization code on the control panel. I then have to grab some rock in a container. While I’m doing this, Grecian gets on the radio and tells me to hurry up, “we need you to vacate the area soon so we can move on”. I wonder what the hell the rush is. Finally, I go poking around a little cave area that looks like it was there before the drill. The tube cover is lit up on my screen, sitting there. When I get to the thing, I see, swear to god, something on the ground, just a little patch, but it actually looked like fur! Just like designer Kong said. Crazy.

So I get back into the excursion ship and we head back to the cruiser. We get a full debriefing when we get there. There’s the customary dressing down of Dixon, should have followed proper bolting procedures, didn’t wait for area clear signal from me, blah blah. They’re light on me, surprisingly, they even say I made the right decision to open the airlock. I think I could sense they were annoyed that I asked Grecian to let us go back before finishing installing the equipment, though. I felt it was the right the thing to do, but I guess the mission comes first! A guy named Roby then debriefed each of us individually. This seemed excessive, but then I guess I’d never been on a real mission before run through the broader military command. Supply stuff has its own command, and we got a reputation for being a bit less serious! I was glad we got to be real soldiers for a day at least. Roby asked me a bunch of questions about the nature of the rocks inside the drill hole, what all I saw, probably to give the Designer Corp data to analyze mining potential.

So that was our crazy first mission. It was dangerous stuff, though not like real combat, obviously. The soldiers who were in those skirmishes with the Virgo solar bands get to hold their heads a little higher for that, I guess. I guess I shouldn’t want to see war, but that seems to be part of what helps you hold your head high around here.

Anyway, baby, I hope you’re sleeping well and dreaming of me, and I hope you’re handling the floods alright. Write me your stories, I want to know what’s been happening in these past months while we’ve been in the time warp. And it’s getting damned boring again up here!

With Love,
Mercury

Dear Judy,

So sorry for the long delay in writing you, but I’ve had no time to write, or even read: we arrived at an asteroid belt almost a month ago (we’re pretty far out already), and Captain Stansted sent Dixon and Nebs and me on a recon mission! We were out on the rock when our ship reached a SLS-COM station (or Super-Light-Speed communication station, for you civilians) so I missed any chance of communicating with anyone (soldiers in the field don’t get any Com-Link time). Judy, you wouldn’t believe the time we had on this rock. Nebs was nearly killed, Dixon had a harrowing incident with his breathing apparatus, and I had to actually issue orders because the chain of command broke down. Cornstroke’s got us all on rest time so let me tell you about it:

First off, you might be wondering why we have to do recon on an asteroid. I was wondering this myself when I first got the order from Stansted to report to the briefing room near the excursion hangar. Dixon, Nebs and I headed up to what they call the Contingency Deck, which we’ve never even been able to go to before since only officers are let up there normally. The excursion hangar is up there. We usually are in the servicing hangar, which is much more dingy. Anyway, we get to the briefing room and, when the door opens, sitting right there in front of us is a row of officers with serious brass. They’re not Cornstroke’s level, but pretty close–majors and lieutenant colonels, about 8 of them. We didn’t even know there were that many high-ranking officers on our ship. Stansted is standing to the left of them and, after we saluted him (Dixon was so nervous he was shaking) he told us to sit down across from the brass. They all sort of nodded at us. Stansted then did a rundown of the mission in his usual tone like nothing was special, like he was sending us on a supply line run. First, he called up a hologram map of the asteroid belt and showed us where we had to go. The map expanded out to show the belt as it swooped through a few star systems to illustrate exactly where we had to go on the rock. The idea was to check out whether we could put some bio-energy-capture capsules on the rocks to take advantage of their path past the stars. We just had to see if the terrain was good and to go underground a little to see if we could house the support machinery there. When he was done explaining this, one of the lieutenant colonels thanked him in this barking, gravel-y voice and then said to us that the mission would be important for improving relations with the communities in the Drasto system (where we are), that the installations would display goodwill, and that the people back home were relying on us all to help keep the Drastos on our side in case the planets in Virgo decide to attack. It all seemed very over-the-top for how small our mission was. He even warned us that there might be spies from Virgo hanging around the rocks, which seems ridiculous to me.

After that it was over. Stansted said we had 30 minutes to get ready to fly out, a civilian support staff would be waiting at the excursion hangar, and the order of command was Dixon, me, then Nebs, though we’d be taking orders remotely from an officer in stationary orbit around the rock. He ordered me to go and get the mission plan from the Autism Corp and then clicked his heels (meaning we should stand up). We saluted him and the brass, though the brass just stared at us and nodded, and then we left.

Then I got to go visit the Autism corp, which is always a fun experience! First, when you enter the corp, one guy inevitably sees you’re a Neuro-typical and sends around a notice and these little speakers at everybody’s desk whisper “NT incoming” to them. You can see their blood-pressure rising. I have to admit it’s a little strange for me too: it’s amazing that people who can design spaceships can’t make small talk. (Though in the grand scheme of things, I’d rather be able to design spaceships that make small talk. In any case, this was the first time I had such a big mission to get plans for–I usually go there to pick up maintainence routines–so I got to go to a higher-level Designer.) So I get to the desk of a certain Designer Kong. He at first gets up to greet me, then sits down, then says, haltingly, how are you? I try to put him at ease: “I’m fine, I’m fine, don’t get up, I just need to take these mission plans” which were sitting plainly on his desk. Kong: “Oh, that’s, um, that’s fine”, his eyes darting everywhere. I take them, and as I’m starting to walk away he says “this is quite a long spaceflight, huh?” You don’t want to upset these guys, lest they design a maintainance routine that has you climbing into an active airlock for repairs, say, so I turn back. “Yes,” I say, “A long way to come for diplomacy. We should have just called the Drasto’s on the phone”. Despite not being funny, Kong starts laughing at this remark loudly. I think that’s it and try to walk away again. As I’m turning, he starts again: “my wife back home says she can’t find our radio signal in the sky now on our telescope. We used to make our own telescopes and she would always find ways to make them stronger. If you add chromium to the receiver shaft in the right places, you know, you can really boost a signal.” I know how it goes with the autism corp, so I stop him: “you know, I have to get up to the excursion deck in five beats, so I’ll be going”. “Oh, yes, of course” he says. Then, as I’m turning again, he says “you know if you find anything underground there that has fur, I wouldn’t talk about it to anyone, not even Cornstroke.” This was a very odd thing to say; autism corp or not, he shouldn’t be suggesting that I withhold information from the command. And what has fur on a rock? “Why’s that?” I ask. “Just don’t think anything of something furry if you see it.” You never know what the autism kids are thinking, so I just disregarded this, but it’s odd of them to saying something so incongruous. He was sweating and jittery so maybe his meds have gotten imbalanced. I think I might have to report him.

Anyway, I finally get away from Designer Kong and get up to the excursion deck, where Dixon and Nebs and a bunch of civilians are waiting by a ship. Dixon needles me a little, being like “aren’t you going to salute me?” because he got above me in the command order. We all load into the ship and Dixon, Nebs and I head to the flight deck and plug in the battle plan drive. We were on a true excursion ship, so all the weapons systems booted up, which we weren’t used to. Nebs hit a button accidentally and a flare shot got fired onto the deck! If he hadn’t almost died on the mission, he would have been reprimanded.

Judy, let me stop the story there for now, Cornstroke just gave us 10 beats to get to the mess for announcements, and they’re going to shut down the Comm stations.

I hope Sue isn’t driving you too crazy. (I heard that back when Sue was trying to be a beautician, she was using a guiding a robotic nail buffer while chatting away about the salon empire she was going to build to bring class to the Southern Work Area, and she guided the buffer head right through the woman’s finger! I know she can be taxing.) I’ll have someone back a base send over a linker cable. This Renata sounds like trouble, but the kind of trouble that it may be useful to have around. I gotta go! Missing you worse every day!

-Private Mercury

Mercury,

I don’t know what kind of crap they play on the tubes up there to help you guys deal with the women you left stranded down here, but let me tell you: it has been eight months, two weeks, three days, five hours, and Juan is growing like a beanstalk.

We haven’t had beef in four weeks; the healthy cows, like most of the girls, went to Ohio.  The governor there’d apparently been stockpiling old landfill materials in anticipation of a natural disaster; half the state’s population was employed mixing the trash with cement.  I fully expect we’ll soon be seeing a greenish glow from Ohio’s general direction—you couldn’t pay me to go there.  So if you’ve got any leftover beef, shoot it down here in a rocket.  I’m feeling anemic.

Speaking of which, should you really get a chance to shoot anything back here, I am missing the linker cord for your stun gun.  You tell Cornstroke the folks back home need to kill some rabid animals and don’t let him distract you.  Sue spent all of Sunday searching for one and when she came back, she told me the strangest story.  Apparently, Renata had convinced her there was a linker cord on the roof of the church.  Sue didn’t think it was very likely, but Renata found half a crate of parmesan reggiano in the town clock tower last Wednesday, so she figured it was worth a shot.  When she got up there, Renata ties her to the weathervane, whispering frantically the whole time in some kind of secret language, then jumps to her death, only to land smack in a rather deep mud hole thirty feet below.  The fall must have knocked her to her senses, because up jumps Renata, apologizing high and low.  She rushes back up the church roof, unties Sue, and carries her home on her back.  I had just made dinner and didn’t know a damn thing till Renata had passed out asleep on the hammock and Sue tells me to play dumb for a couple days.  We don’t know if she ate some tainted cheese, took something funky she thought was aspirin, or was momentarily possessed by what we can only describe as a mildly annoying demon spirit.

You have always been good with people, but don’t let any of those civilian females get too friendly.

As always,

Judy 

Dear Judy,

Your perseverance is inspiring to me, despite the standing water! If you haven’t tried the hydropump in the cellar or if it’s been destroyed, tell this Juan to get a bucket! If he’s the only man around, he’s just got to shoulder a greater burden.

The galactic tour has proceeded so far without incident. Colonel Cornstroke has made several stern addresses over the videolink since we left Andromeda telling us to get ready for action once we reach our destination, which is somewhere a 1/4 of the way to the galaxy center. He appears in full uniform, covered with medals and seems to be tilted forward on the balls of his feet while he speaks, looking slightly upwards at the camera as he barks warnings about STAYING VIGILANT, CONTINUE YOUR VIGOROUS TRAINING and REMAIN BATTLE READY. His face is craggy and his spine shakes a little when he makes a big point. It’s very dramatic. Dixon and Nebs and I agreed that it’s all just to psyche us out, we’re probably going to be doing agricultural work out there. We decided that Cornstroke’s too distant. If I ever get to colonel I’ll be a warmer presence, mark my words.

We’ve been put on a 12 hour sleep schedule here, but the days are still long somehow. I have to lead a group of civilian workers in the grow room for three hours in the morning. They’re always late and they like to chat too much when they’re working. I don’t think they’ve adjusted to long-term spaceflights as well as the soldiers have. I often end up having to reprogram the cleaning robots for the starlight converters because they don’t maintain them, or have to run the things myself because they don’t keep up the pace. Maybe I’m just complaining too much, but I feel being angrily disappointed with people is one rights of leadership! I asked my commanding officer, a guy named Captain Stansted (stand up guy), to get transferred to preparing battle contingency plans, which would come with a promotion if he recommended me since I’d have to lead training sessions. I need to show him I have a brain and I’m good with people (I hope these things are true). The civilians seem to like me well enough.

I spend most of the rest of the day in the mess playing cards with Dixon and Nebs and a few other guys. Lately, we’ve had to run equipment out to guys running supply line stations. The other day, I found some frozen beef when I was cleaning out one of the freezers (another dumb thing I had to do) so I got Dixon and Nebs to help me set up a hamburger and beer stand for the supply guys on our delivery pod’s unloading dock. A lot of those guys have been out there for a while. Some of the officers really seemed to appreciate it. Only hitch is that I put nebulous Nebs in charge of the grill one time when we were not too far from Andromeda and he undercooked the burgers and got some of the supply guys sick. There was almost fisticuffs till I smoothed it over with a beer donation.

I hope you’re not losing your mind down there. I heard about the flood waters heading in to the Southern Work Area in one of our very occasional news updates on Military Broadcasting. Renata sounded damn lucky with that bull. A kid here, Tully, private from one of the Carolinas, said the bulls can get some kind of river insanity bug from the waters. You should carry around my blaster, set to stun. I wish I was down there to help you deal with everything, and so Sue doesn’t think you’re available.

I’m starting to miss you like crazy up here; it’s already been 8 months since we planted those vermilliads. I was watching one of the nebula we passed by, a beautiful swirling set of blues and reds with a bright white explosion at the center, and it somehow made me think of the vermilliads, or more particularly of the view of the garden from our spot on that hammock after we planted them. You looked as beautiful as the rose garden, fit in perfectly. The vermilliads may have died but nothing can take that day away from us, especially not this supposed war in the Virgo cluster. I feel like diplomacy will get us out of this. I hope that’s what our mission is supposed to be helping.

I think the lack of oxygen here is making me dramatic. Either that or missing you. Send me kisses, I send you at least 10.

-Mercury

I thought you should know that our vermiliads have all died. It’s been six weeks since our last correspondence and I simply have not had time to tell you until now. The farm is under seven inches of standing water and the factory hasn’t been running for the past two Mondays; the girls have all gone home to Ohio and no one knows when they’ll be back. Sue’s stayed on to help me with the goats, but I’ve no idea when we’ll be able to get them out of the hayloft. She’s grown a bit of a moustache and I’m tired of her long stares over coffee; she says she’s looking to go back to school for physical therapy but we both know she’s full of shit. The only man standing for forty miles is Juan, who is now thirteen. He says “hi.”

Juan’s mother, Renata, killed a bull last Sunday. The bull was blinded by a fever after standing in the floodwaters for four days (he’d previously been up on a hill but must have gone in search of food). Renata was trying to salvage feed corn from the top of the nearest granary and lost her grip; the bull heard the sound and came charging. All Renata had was the metal shovel she’d been using for the corn, but the bull was weak: his speed and her stance resulted in one headless bull. Renata’s been praying on the roof of the church for two hours a day since. Juan’s been to the farm each day, asking Sue to help him get her down. Renata can climb up, but she can’t get back down. Something to do with a fear of inclines.

Speaking of which, I hope that your galactic tour has progressed well. Your letters are the only reason I haven’t drowned in seven inches of septic water.

Belatedly yours,

Judy Carter