Ensign Anavel Gato sat on the windowsill of his Zum City apartment, gazing towards the baroque rooftops of Zabi House. Behind it, across the Mall, lay the Zum Tower. Gato was glad that wasn't easily visible. He'd hate to have his view dominated by his workplace.
Gato stood and returned to his couch. Even on his off-day he was dressed as if for a second job or a country club, in pressed grey slacks and a polo shirt. The only seeming concession to any rebellion in his appearance was the length of his greying blond hair, which he'd been growing since he graduated from the Academy. Long hair was a prerogative of Zeon officers and he intended to use it.
Around him, his furnishings were well-designed and tasteful, dominated by golds and browns. He thought it looked as if he lived in a sunflower, but his mother liked the scheme and had chosen it for him. "You want an apartment you can entertain in, dear," she said.
Gato spoke his parents' language. "Entertain" meant "to be able to have a girl realize he was a good catch". He thought that such decor would be more likely to make any woman he dated think he was a mama's boy, but it kept his parents quiet. Gato had other things on his mind than females.
The doorbell rang and he got up to pay for his dinner of delivery Thai food. This was his life in a nutshell: just handed to him. The apartment was paid for out of his housing allowance, any cuisine he wanted was a phone call away with an ample budget for liquor to go along with it. All he had to do was show up at the HHC of His Majesty's Own Home Regiment (aka the Palace Guard) from Monday to Friday at 0800 (unless he was Duty Officer) to work in an office until 1700, with 90 minutes for lunch. It was the highest prestige post in Zeon, and Gato awakened every morning bitter and resentful.
At 0500 on Monday morning, Gato awakened in his usual dark cloud. The post-PT endorphins made him feel a bit more cheerful until he was in his green uniform and heading into the office again.
"Staff meeting at 0900," Lt. Horvath told him, and he felt a piece of his soul die. His lips twisted together in an attempt to bite back the stream of complaints he desperately wanted to let free. Another one? How many hours this time? Let me guess; this is about the importance of wearing the proper decorations on our uniforms, right? No, wait, it's about the grave importance of having the updated covers on the weekly TPS reports, isn't it?
"At least they're letting us bring our coffees into the theatre," he mumbled to Horvath as they walked down the carpeted ground-floor hallway.
"Good thing too. I asked Major Reynard what this is about and it's bullshit."
"And you were surprised?"
"No, I mean it's really bullshit. I mean, what kind of nut case would want to volunteer to leave here and go to fucking Solomon to be in a combat arms unit? That place is going to be the front lines when the war finally starts, and you know it will."
Gato quickly decided he didn't want to sit near Horvath during this briefing and lost him among the other attendees.
Two hours later, he'd mentally interpreted what the recruiter was saying. We're looking to the elite of the Zeon military for motivated officers meant they needed mobile suit qualified officers for Solomon because no one was volunteering. Flexibility and heartfelt patriotism meant no one was volunteering because of the upcoming war Horvath had mentioned. Large bonuses as compensation for space duty meant cramped living conditions, long patrols, and hours spent in overheated mobile suit hangars that stank of hot metal, mechanical fluids, and human sweat.
He signed on for the duration.
