Lovers in niches surrounding the perimeter of the Bay took advantage of the sexually integrated warrior class. They rocked and moaned and grasped one another. It was a united, if unorganized, effort by each and all to push the tension-tant resent far ahead into the horrors of the future. After a while they would rest from their labors, draining the last of the bottles and lighting the last of the cigarettes. And before thoughts turned inward each and all would notice the glow of the cigarette coal coming from the lone figure who lay on the center template strut in the middle of the vastness of Drop Bay One. They would wonder what the tell it was he was doing there.
Felix, alone and unaware of their curiosity, wondered the very same thing.
Drop was just under four hours away when Felix rested the crewline. The turnout was sparse this morning. Not surprising considering the night before. He watched several people back out as the line advanced toward the food. As the smell grew stronger, their faces grew greener until at last they couldn't take it anymore. A broad-shouldered woman wearing a warrior patch and red eyes got so far as to actually have a plate of the heaping whatever placed in front of her before she vomited loudly onto the floor.
She looked around, wildly embarrassed, to apologize at all others in the line, but found only Felix left. Puzzled, she nodded to him and rushed out the door with her palm clamped firmly over her lips. Felix looked around and laughed. He was indeed alone in the chow line. The young woman had actually emptied the place out.
He wasn't surprised, but neither was he affected. He stewed over the crumbling clean-up crew and, to the cooks' amazement, ordered them to heap whatever it was onto his tray.
"I'm hungry," was the only response he would make to their pale faces.
Actually, he was just lucky. Two hours before the rest of the ship had reveille, be had been rudely awakened by the chief of Drop Bay One who had wanted to know just what the hell be was doing sleeping on the center strut. That early start had allowed him to miss the long lines at Medical for a little something for his stomach.
After be found an empty table a fellow from his squad bay, whose name might have been Dikk, appeared beside him. "Felix, right?" the man asked.
Felix nodded without interrupting his eating. That foamy something the meditechs had given him made him ravenous.
"Well, I'd be careful with all that food if I were you," said Dikk as be sat down. "It's supposed to be real bad for you if you're wounded. Like in the stomach, you know?"
Felix nodded that he knew and continued eating. He didn't want to say that he thought the idea of not eating before this battle was incredibly naive. As far as stomach wounds were concerned... Anything that could tear through battle armor would leave not a wound but a tunnel.
It wasn't that he didn't appreciate doctors. He did. He was impressed by their knowledge, dutifully in awe of their equipment. But doctors didn't make drops. Doctors didn't have to fight for days at a time without eating anything but what they could carry. Come to think of it, neither did he. Or at least he hadn't until today.
He looked over at Dikk's nervous face and at the hunched shoulders of the handful of others who sat about him in the mess.
None of us have had to fight yet, he thought. But maybe that part was not so bad. What was bad was that they weren't ready.
Something in his face must have made Dikk uneasy. He mumbled something and left the table. Felix realized he had never said a word to the guy. He had a sudden urge to get up and catch him, to ask him if his name really was Dikk after all...
But he didn't. He sat where he was and finished the plate and lit a cigarette and watched the silken plumes rise and twist.
A few minutes later his thoughts rose to him out of the daze of smoke and fear. "We're not ready. We're not even close." Then he started, looking around to see if anyone was nearby. To see if anyone else had heard him. For he wasn't at all sure that he hadn't said it out loud.