Green Memories:
San Wan came with Ranakah's shuttle to fly us back to our ship. On our last leg of the journey though, he told us we'd be flying over the University of Hopewell. I'm not sure exactly how this college got it's name; but I thought it was kind of catchy. Hope and do it well. We all needed more hope in our lives and though I wasn't exactly sure what this research study was totally about; I had been looking forward to spending some time there.
Well, as they say I guess; the only sure thing in life is change!
We sat quietly in the shuttle as San Wan zipped through the outer atmosphere to the other side of the planet. We were informed that the trip would take about two hours and I wondered about how it was that Ranakah flew this every day? That's a lot of commute. I thought to myself as I looked at the console panel. Apparently though, this shuttle bore the capacity for auto-pilot; in which Ranakah spent much of the time conversing over the planet's Inter-lock Com system in meetings with colleagues from the college.
I peered out the window at the bare surface beneath us. Savawarh was a planet with a good deal of red clay rock punctuated only by rivers, streams and giant bubble colonies. We passed over several bubbles; mostly containing green houses and crops.
San Wan had told us that his home planet of Aardat was very different. Aardat had bubble colonies too, but not because outside of the colonies was barren. No, the bubbles were to protect the Aardatians from the hostile animals that roamed the planet. Unlike Savawarh, Aardat had a tropical climate and was teeming with vegetation and wild animal life. It more resembled Earth of dinosaur era and like the Earth of the past; contained many animals that were for the most part - dinosaurs. The great creatures of Aardat though where quite different from those of Earth, in that most of them were primarily carnivorous. Thus the reason for the bubble colonies. Apparently the great creatures on Aardat found cognizant intelligent life to be rather tasty. Maybe that's why Aardatian men, among the creatures of lesser physical stature on their planet, could run so fast.
I sat quietly staring at the sand between my knees before I reached down and began twirling my finger in it. My squiggles and lines began to form faces and planets and ships. All memories of what was now gone. I wiped my had over my crude art project.
"That's been my life." I mumbled quietly to my desert friend.
"That is but the life of all." He responded as he gently laid his hands over my smeared drawing and scooped up the sand.
"But the Lord endures forever." I whispered as I poked at the "life" he now held.
"And He gives and takes away." I added as I squeezed out one handful of sand and let it run though my fingers back into that proverbial sea the refuses no river.
"But that's what eternal life is for." He reminded me. "That men not loose hope."
"Hope and faith." I peered up at him.
"Yes." He smiled. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for."
"And the evidence of things not seen." I completed his thought as I looked intently at him another moment or two. "So, even with all that I've lost? I don't need to loose hope, even if I can't see the end?"
"No, you don't." He let out a little chuckle; as the tears came dripping down my face.
"That's good." I whispered.
"That is my Father." He smiled. "And yours too."
I chuckled to myself in a bit of irony, as the memory of my first actual 'combat' mission came to mind. We were on a battle cruiser sent to rescue a troop transport that went down in the mountains of the northern quadrant of east hemisphere of Aardat. The transport was having navigational issues and crashed in the foothills of the Martonian province. We were rerouted to the scene to assist with the rescue efforts before the planet's wildlife ate all the clones barricaded inside the ship.
We all went in small fighter ships, flanked by stingray drone planes. It was quite a ride as we dove, banked and glided down to the surface; battle guns ablaze. I was on the aft port gun and by the time we'd landed the first sortie; I'd lost my lunch about 4 times.
We ended up docking by linking to the outside fuel coupling of the transport, because it was too dangerous to fly into the actual docking bay. Too much risk of the birds getting into the ship. Even so we ended up having to provide fire cover for the guys leaving, as they had to armor up and crawl through the rigging of the fuel couplings. It took hours to get all the 2000 or so men from the 143 Battalion out of the transport.
I flew six sorties on that rescue mission and man; if it's one thing I know - never crash on Aardat! Most everybody made it out, although we did loose four fighter planes and a couple dozen drones; a total of about 250 soldiers.
That was the first action I saw. I thought to myself as my mind chronicled all the battles I was in. A total of six missions our squad had been called to in the first two or so years since I'd left the cloning facility. So much death. I peered up at my friend one last time. What an ugly place we've turned your creation into. The thought floated by. Is there any good we've done? I began to wonder as I found myself desperately searching my memory. Than suddenly Ketura popped in there.
Earth's Intern:
One of the few young Earthling who'd gotten an internship on our battle cruiser; Keturah was a math genius working on some project with computer astro-metrics. She was 15 years old, and as I recall she; (or maybe more her parents for allowing her this internship in the first place) created quite a stir back on Earth. Her father had worked in Earth's Space Defense Command and was very familiar with how our army operated. He was perfectly confident of the safety of his daughter on a battle cruiser with three battalions of clones.
That was another unusual thing about this army. Interns and support staff came and went all the time on our ships. I chuckled when I recalled the looks on most of their faces when they got their tour of our ship. Especially when they'd come to the clone living quarters, which almost none of them ever had access too; (unless maybe they were medical personnel) but that's another story.
It was always fun to watch, when their tour wandered through our barrack hallways and they'd first learn there were ten of us in each room. There was usually one unoccupied space they got the chance to peer into. Talk about shock and awe. It was rather humourous. Most just couldn't understand how we lived the way we did; but since we primarily used these barrack rooms for sleeping, showering and storing our personal gear - it was never a big deal to us.
On these tours though, they usually got quite an education. Besides the barrack rooms, each hall contained a lounge, library room, extra toilet rooms and an exercise room. In each barrack room were bunks, storage drawers, over head storage, two showers, four toilets and four urinary L-coves.
There were also some miscellaneous things in our barrack rooms. The shower / toilet area contained laundry facilities and a storage locker for cleaning supplies. Besides this, there were small shelves for books or other such items on the wall, one desk with a computer, writing space and 10 cubbies; one for each of our personal papers. Not that we had that many personal papers but; there were guys in my squad who liked to draw or write music. Sanka liked to write stories and Mandell's cubbie was full of recipes. He often volunteered to pull duty in the mess hall, which we all appreciated, because Mandell knew how to cook!
We often got lots of questions and enchanted looks at our domestic lives. We'd finish day time work shifts between 4 and 6 PM, go eat and than head back to barracks. We'd clean things and get ready for the next day. We rotated laundry and Personal Hygiene room cleaning duty. One person was assigned to each and once everyone had finished their showers; "laundry man" would wash all the jump-suits and under-alls, while "Mr. clean" hit the PH room.
After that, we'd usually spend some free time either in a lounge, game room, exercise room or just wandering around the ship. I often found it intriguing how many support personal were so totally surprised by the number of libraries ships contained and how they were usually full of clones. Apparently, several hundred years ago; they'd cloned someone who liked to read!
Just as perplexing as the facilities on ship were; so also was what was obviously missing. There were no gambling or alcohol serving establishments, and nearly nothing related to sex. Clone soldiers don't get sexually transmitted diseases, have no need for birth control devices and even for non-cloned personal; pornography is absolutely forbidden. One certain advantage on a battlefield too; none of us had ever been convicted of rape!
Most support persons on the ships usually found the absence of such things somewhat comforting. Especially on supply ships; which usually contained a large number of children; both of clones over 12 years old and families of non-clones. (Adolescent clones often got internships on supply vessels.) Depending upon the rules of their planets of origin; there can also be a fair amount of females of varying species on our combat ships. Most support personal came from the 9 planets of the Clone Army Planetary Confederation; but on occasion we did get other species too; human females included.
I remember when I first met Ketura. It was one evening in one of the main libraries. She was all the way in the back sitting next to a window, with of all things - a comic book in her lap. She was watching the stars go by.
"Oh hello." I said as I'd nearly stumbled over her, while I was headed back to where Katook was.
She looked up at me "Oh hi." she said.
I paused a minute as I recognized her fire red curly hair from the photo on the news report I'd seen several weeks back.
"You're that intern from Earth aren't you?" I asked.
"Yeah, that's me!" She giggled.
"Are you being homesick?" I inquired as she'd been staring wistfully out the window.
"Oh, I don't know maybe." She signed as I pulled up a piece of floor next to her.
"Space is a big place." I said as I too sat gazing out the window.
"Yeah it is." She replied as she turned and looked at me. "So what are you up to tonight?" She asked.
"Oh, my buddy Katook and I are going to be sent to Pantori in a couple of days to help them with some contaminated lake. We know almost absolutely nothing about that planet; so he's on the computer looking it up." I replied. "I found something in a Halo book about it." I added. "But not much."
She smiled at me.
"Oh by the way; I'm Nakahm." I introduced myself.
"I'm Katura." She responded as she held her hand out and I shook it.
"So how long have you been on our cruiser now?" I asked. "How are you liking the internship?"
"Oh it's been great!" She beamed. "I"ve been here three months; I've worked mostly with clones and not a one of you has hit on me!" She laughed.
I looked at her kind of funny.
"Oh never mind." She said. "It's not important."
Ok. I just shrugged.
"I like you guys." She smiled. "You are all well educated, extremely intelligent, and a little goofy sometimes." She laughed "But this is the best experience I've ever had."
I looked at her kind of strangely, as she let out a sigh.
"I went to Harvard at 12 years old." She started to explain. "I can't tell you how much crap I put up with. Lived in off campus housing with my mother." She sighed. "That wasn't too bad; but mom always had to run interference between me, the other students, some of the staff." She sighed again. "Don't get me wrong." She corrected herself. "Harvard is a great school and I'd encourage anyone who gets the chance; to go there. Socially though, it was a nightmare for me." She sat for a minute or two just gazing at me.
"I was the geek." She laughed again. "The nerd, the one everyone stared at all the time. Just like I'd see them stare at you guys on the rare occasion any of you'd ever come to the campus." A sudden spark of anger flashed across her face. "They'd whisper; Oh look there's one of them. The army with no balls!" She frowned sarcastically.
"What?" I cocked my head and looked at her.
"Testicles." She explained, as I still looked strangely at her.
"What, we have testicles." I said.
"Yeah I know." She started laughing. "Your's just don't control your brains!"
"Oh, hum?" I responded as I had to sit and think about that one a minute, while she leaned over and slapped me on the thigh.
Ok. I shrugged.
"See I can do that to you." She laughed again. "I could do that to every single one of you and I'd get exactly the same response." She said. "I even went in the pool of the main gym the other day. There must have been about 25 of you all in there swimming laps and not one of you so much as even looked at me." She continued. "Me and the other three alien chicks that were there." She chuckled. "Pool hours: open swim, clones and women only, all other males not allowed." She started laughing and I smiled, as I got her joke; although I knew the pool hours of the main gym don't really say that.
Ironically though, she wasn't too far off of the truth. There are hours for open swim and others designated to specific groups.
"Yeah, rules in that facility, I've found to be interesting." I smiled. "We can't just wear our under-alls in there. We have to put shorts on over them."
"Under-alls?" She looked at me. "Oh you mean those body suits you wear under the jump-suits, that are under your armor?" She laughed.
"Yes." I nodded.
"Yeah the guys in the pool were swimming in just that." She commented.
"I'm surprised they let you in there." I said as she cocked her head and looked at me.
"Why's that?" She asked.
"Well usually they only let certain species in with us during the clone time slot." I explained.
"Really? What's up with that? Doesn't someone cry discrimination?" She questioned.
"Well, If someone ever has cried discrimination; I've never heard about it." I shrugged. "They primarily posted hours though, because there are those who have a tendency to leer at us." I replied.
"Really!" She looked seriously at me. "You mean you guys get sexually harassed too?" She cringed.
"Yeah, if that's what you call it." I nodded.
She sat quietly for a long time. "Well maybe I owe you an apology than." She said. "For slapping you on the leg. If someone had done that to me; I'd be mad."
"No, it's ok." I said. "That doesn't make me uncomfortable. We clones that to each other all the time." I shrugged as she paused and looked at me again.
"Has anything ever happened to you that's made you... immensely uncomfortable?" She suddenly inquired. I sat for a minute.
"I don't know; I'd have to think about that." I responded.
"No-one's ever tried to touch you where they shouldn't; or anything like that?" She asked.
"No." I replied.
"Have you ever heard of another clone doing something like that?" She questioned.
"No." I answered. "We can be executed for fondling each other. Not that it matters; nobody has that inclination period." I shrugged and let out a little chuckle.
"Really, wow." She looked at me. "I want to join your army." She giggled. "I feel safe here."
We sat quietly for a while. "Can I ask you a question?" I finally said.
"What?" Katura looked at me.
"Do bad things like that happen on Earth a lot?" I queried.
"You mean molestation?" She answered. "Yes." She looked down at her comic book.
"Did that happen to you?" I quietly inquired.
"Yeah." She sighed. "My uncle is in prison for trying to rape me when I was seven." She stopped suddenly and looked at me; than looked back at her comic book and took a deep breath.
"Sorry." I whispered. "Sorry that happened to you."
"I..I know nothing like that has ever happened to me, or anyone I know; but I've read things and I guess I can imagine - it's kind of like losing a buddy in a battle." I shrugged, albeit a bit indecisively.
She turned and looked at me. "Yeah it is." She said as the tears ran down her face. "It's exactly like losing a buddy in a battle; and coming out of it yourself with no legs."
We were quiet for another few minutes when Katook found us.
"Oh there you are?" He said to me as he paused and looked at Katura. "Hey, you're that intern." He observed.
"Yep, that's me." She giggled again.
"Well Katook did you find anything?" I inquired.
"A little bit; but not really." He replied. "I'm ready to call it a night. I'm tired of looking." Katook confessed as I let out a chuckle.
"Well OK. I'm hungry. You feel like a snack?" I asked.
"I guess so." Katook shrugged.
"Oh by the way; this is Katura." I introduced them. Katook waved.
"I'm Katook." He smiled.
I asked Katura if she wanted to come with us, she said sure; so we all headed down to one of the lounges that still served food.