Chapter 1:
“Get up.” The voice was harsh and deep
He didn’t open his eyes when he replied, “Why?”
There was a pause, and he inched open one eye to take in the guard. He was built like a mountain and he stank of stale sweat even from the other side of the bars. Eric Wintermane, formerly an Ensign in the United Colonies Navy, didn’t get up from the thinly padded slab they called a bed in the stockade.
“You’ve been mustered boy.”
This caused Eric to open his eyes. He even rolled his head towards the guard. He didn’t get up, “Anyone tell the Navy they put me up on charges of assault and battery? I’ve got eighteen months left of a twenty-four month stay.”
“Yes, even reminded them that it was assault and battery on an officer.”
“He was hardly an officer.”
The guard shrugged his shoulders, “Didn’t say he was a good one.”
“Did it help?”
“Nope.”
“What commanding officer would want me?”
Another shrug, “Beats me but then I don’t get paid to ask those kinds of questions.”
“I suppose not. What if I refuse?”
“I was told to bring you before the Warden in uniform kicking and screaming if I have to,” The guard looked down at the duffel bag he was holding in one meaty hand, “Rather not.” The guard tossed the duffel towards Wintermane. It landed with a thud on the floor next to him.
“That’d be real rough on my already shot reputation.”
“Could look at turning over a new leaf.”
“Suppose I could.”
The guard laughed and walked away, he called back over his shoulder as he did, “You got fifteen to get dressed.”
Eric sat up and put his feet on the ground. He stared at the duffel bag. He wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to open it. He had never liked the Navy. He had never wanted to join but there was a legacy, a duty and so in the end he had signed his life away for six years. He was only two years into that six and it had already felt like a lifetime. In his little cell amongst the other inmates he was simply prisoner 21121701-X. He was anonymous and he reveled in his new anonymity. If someone asked his name he told him his first, never his last. No one knew he was ‘One of those Wintermanes’. He liked it that way.
Time ticked by the duffel bag sat there and didn’t move. For a minute Eric thought of pushing his luck but he knew the guard and knew the mountain of a man would have no problem pumping him full of tranqs and carting him off unconscious to the Warden. With a sigh Eric drug the duffel towards him, he unzipped the bag and sighed a longer heavier sigh at the neatly folded uniform he saw. Eric stood on bare feet and slid the orange jump suit off and with it his quiet life in cell 4201 as prisoner 21121701-X. He dressed in the uniform provided.
Fifteen minutes later the guard returned and Eric stood for inspection. He wore black combat fatigues neatly tucked into black combat boots. Over a white t-shirt he wore the long sleeved brown fatigues. His last name emblazoned over the right pocket for all to see. On one arm the flag of the Colonies, on the other the Naval seal. On each shoulders epaulets the single bar of an Ensign. A black beret was rolled up and shoved through the epaulet on his left shoulder. The guard smiled widely when he returned to the cell. Eric snapped to attention.
“Boy, you clean up right well.”
“Gee thanks.”
The guard slid the door to the cell open and Eric marched out with a scowl on his face as he past the still grinning guard. The guard set off past other cells whose occupants openly gawked at the transformation of their quiet neighbor. A few cat calls followed and a few others whistled. Eric took it all in with grim determination.
Eric was thinking one thing over and over again as he followed the guard out of the cell block, up an elevator to the prisons top floor and into the well appointed waiting room of the Wardens office. This had better be good.
Eric was admitted after only a few short minutes of waiting. He stood in front of the warden’s large oak desk. He barely resisted the urge to go through the papers on top of the desk. A door to the side of the dark office slid open. Eric snapped to attention when the Warden appeared. The Warden was a large man and well past middle-age. Rumor had it that he had been some big shot at one time but a falling out with some powerfully political figures had ended him up a Warden in charge of the Navies largest prison facility in the middle of a still very sparsely populated Antarctica.
The Warden circled Eric several times and then finally with a shake of his head walked to his large leather chair.
“You need a shave.”
Eric nodded, “Yes sir.”
“Do you know why you’ve been mustered?”
“No sir.”
“Neither do I. I tried to stop it you know but they over rode me.”
“They?”
“I’m assuming your family had something to do with this.”
Eric shook his head, “They are more disappointed in me than you are sir.”
That drew a smile from the Warden, “You are a disappointment to the human race Ensign.”
“Yes sir.”
Eric met the Wardens gaze. A tense silence fell over the room for several minutes. Eric was about to speak when the Warden stood up and leaned on over slightly, “Son, just remember that they can ship you back here just as easily as they’re shipping you out.”
“Yes sir.”
“Dismissed Ensign.”
Eric snapped off a crisp salute, the first he’d given in many months, spun on his heels and left the office. The door nearly slammed behind him and the guard appeared quickly.
“We’ll get you things and then you’re to report to the shuttle bays in thirty.”
“Just enough time to get into trouble.”
The guard glanced at him, “Can’t you wait until you get off-planet?”
“Why waste all those tax payer dollars to get me shipped back here.”
The guard laughed and led his former prisoner through processing.
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