Outback Stars

Chapter One If Jodenny spent one more day on the planet Kookaburra she might try to kill herself again. Not funny, she told herself, and not true, but morbid humor was her only defense against the prospect of spending the next eight hours stuck in a cubicle, routing invoices that nobody at Fleet gave a damn about. Nearly dying on the Yangtze was one thing, but bureaucratic suffocation promised to be no less fatal. First thing Thursday morning she headed to the Assignments building, but as she drew near she saw that Matt Lu had beaten her to it. "Forget it." Lu shaded his eyes against the sun. "No requisitions came in and the Survey Wing didn't post any new jobs." "What about the Aral Sea?" Jodenny asked. The freighter, with its complement of five thousand crew and colonists, had been in orbit for a week. "Leaves today for the Alcheringa. Trapped for another day in paradise, that's us." He gave her a jaunty salute and headed off toward the mess hall, circling a miniature sculpture of Wondjina Spheres as he went. With the cadets on holiday, Alice Training Base's peaceful air was broken only by the hum of robots cutting the grass on the soccer fields. Beyond the main gate, a lush eucalyptus forest stretched all the way to the pink sandstone of the MacBride Mountains. Earth must have looked like that once, back before the Debasement, but Jodenny had no time for beautiful landscapes and instead went inside the cool, ink-scented lobby of the building behind her. Before Jodenny could ask, the ruddy-faced sergeant on duty said, "No, Lieutenant Scott. Yes, I'm sure. Yes, I remember you'd be eternally grateful if I called you the moment anything came in. So would Lieutenant Lu, Lieutenant Armstrong, Lieutenant Bell" "Quit your blabbering, sailor." Chief Pau came to the counter with an armful of files. "Take these down to Processing and shove them up their asses, why don't you? Goddamned paperwork." As soon as they were alone, Pau leaned over and gave her a conspiratorial wink. "Thirty minutes ago the Aral Sea sent out a priority call for a supply officer. The requisition is in the commodore's queue." "Chief, I love you," Jodenny blurted out. She regretted the inappropriate words immediately, but Pau only grinned. "Better get over there before everyone else smells blood in the water, Lieutenant." She slipped out the back door, brazenly cut across the V.I.P. parking lot, and reached the commodore's suite thirty seconds later. The cold, quiet offices were carpeted in blue and curtained in gold. Models of starships and a massive Team Space pennant provided the proper military decoration. Campos's aide, busy on a link, held up a hand to forestall her from barging in on the commodore. From behind closed doors, Jodenny could hear an angry voice. "Do you really think I'd throw everything away?" a man was saying. "Fifteen years in, pension on the horizon, and I'm going to take up with an able tech half my age? I'd be an idiot!" Campos's reply was too low for Jodenny to distinguish any words. A moment later the door was wrenched open and a lieutenant commander, his face red, stormed past Jodenny and out of the suite. Jodenny kept her gaze averted. She waited a respectful moment and then knocked on CamposRMcDonald, Sandra is the author of 'Outback Stars ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780765316431 and ISBN 0765316439.