Vuxten's implant pinged twice before he answered it. He was outside the buildings of the Forward Operations Base, sitting on a stack of expended rocket tubes that were waiting their turn to go into the reclaimation systems. He was watching all the humans run around, still working, still doing their jobs, despite the fact that it had been confirmed that there was no immortality any more.
"Lieutenant Vuxten here," he said, touching his implant in case anyone came up and tried to talk to him.
"Lieutenant, this is General Ko'Draka's Aide, Major Dullekas," a woman's voice said.
"I read you, Major," Vuxten said, looking around and wondering why the General would want to someone to call him.
"The General wants to speak with you and someone else. According to the FOB's systems he's only like ten feet from you but for some reason he's not answering his datalink," the Major said.
"Who?" Vuxten asked, looking around. All he could see was a handful of Ordnance troops beyond a sign that said "NO EM AREA" that ran a holo-fence around the ammunition they were fabbing up. Vuxten had been startled to find out that some ammunition required two or three different nanoforges to run up a single round, which is why humans still devoted munitions storage in their vehicles and weapons.
"Staff Sergeant Casey. He's only got one eye and wears a patch," the Major said.
Vuxten looked and saw him over by the two massive nanoforges, watching artillery shells being run off. "I see him. He's in his loader frame."
"Get him and bring him to Briefing Room Three," the Major said and cut the link.
Vuxten sighed and put his hands on the side of the expended rocket pod so he could push himself off and drop to the ground. His suit was undergoing maintenance.
Again.
In some ways he missed his old suit. It was a bit clunky, the 40mm launcher never quite worked right, but at least it was fast, tough, and did the job.
The new one was heavier, felt slower, and seemed to spend three times as much time in the hands of the maintenance techs.
Vuxten headed past the 'gate' in the holofence, seeing "DATALINK DISABLED" float up in his vision as soon as he crossed the gate. SSG Casey was checking the rounds as they left the nanoforge, before they went through the paint sprayer. He was standing next to a large Treana'ad, talking as Lieutenant Vuxten walked up.
"...see any bubbling in the 'weld' the round is no good and you send it to the reclaimer, Dominguez," Casey was saying. "These rounds are wet-print cores with dry-print casings and prop charges."
"Yes, Sergeant," the big Treana'ad said. "What about that one?"
"Good catch. The 'weld' is twisted right there, which means that the nanoforge is starting to run hot," he looked up and saw Vuxten. "Can I help you, sir?" he asked, noting the Lieutenant bars on Vuxten's lapels.
"General Ko'Draka's aide wants to see both of us, Sergeant," Vuxten said.
"I knew this was coming," the Terran sighed. He turned back to the Treana'ad. "Get Nikikilk to help you. Make sure he knows where his rifle is," he turned back to Vuxten. "Privates, am I right?"
Vuxten just nodded as Casey moved away from the inspection line.
"Welp, best go see what the plotters want," the Terran said.
Vuxten followed him to the edge of the holo-fence and waited while he exited the frame and grabbed his rifle from the carrying slot.
They started heading toward Operations Six, where Briefing Room Three was located.
"Any idea what they want, sir?" the Terran asked. Vuxten noticed that his eyes weren't glowing while the majority of everyone else's eyes were either red or amber.
"No clue, Sergeant," Vuxten said.
As they moved toward a group power armor troops exiting their armor an argument suddenly turned violent, one of the power armor troops lunging forward and tacking the other Terran.
Sergeant Casey rushed over, grabbing them both by the collars of their adaptive camouflage and pulling them apart.
"AT EASE THAT SHIT!" Casey yelled. Both troops turned and looked at him and he just stared back. "What's the problem."
Both Terrans looked at each other, then at Staff Sergeant Casey, then at Vuxten, who was moving up behind Casey.
"She took one of my boots," the other Terran said. Vuxten suddenly realized they were both female.
"I did not, you blind heifer," the other yelled back.
Staff Sergeant Casey shook them both by their collars, yanking them around.
"That's enough! Control yourselves," he yelled at them. He pushed them both away. "I get it, tempers are hot. If the boots are that important, then both of you, take them off, right now."
"Excuse me, Staff Sergeant, but we're both Warrant Officers," the one on the right who had complained about the boots sneered. Vuxten noted both of the Terran's eyes were bright red.
"If you're going to act like children, I'll treat you like children," Staff Sergeant Casey said, turning and facing her. "Take off your goddamn boots or, so help me Electronic Vishnu, I'll knock you out and take them," Casey said, staring down at her.
Both of them opened their mouths, then flinched from whatever expression was on Casey's face that Vuxten couldn't see. Their eyes suddenly cooled to amber.
Both knelt down and removed their boots.
Casey turned and tossed them to an armor maintenance tech. "Throw those in the reclaimator."
"Yes, Sergeant," the Private, a Telkan like Vuxten, said.
"My feet are going to get wet," the one on the left said.
"My socks are getting wet," the one on the right said. "I'm an officer."
"Tough. You're out here fighting like goddamn Privates behind a strip club and now you think you can hide behind being an officer? You're lucky I don't just put you on report," Casey snapped. He turned to Vuxten. "If you'll continue to allow me to escort you, sir."
"Come along, Sergeant," Vuxten said, leading the way again.
They were ten paces away before Casey said anything.
"SUDS blows out and suddenly everyone's acting like jackasses," he muttered. "Making power armor troops officers was a mistake."
They moved around the chow hall, a boxy, armored building, and headed toward the building.
"Can I ask you a question, Sergeant?" Vuxten asked.
"It's against my religion, that's why my eye hasn't been replaced," the Terran said.
Vuxten snorted. "You knew I was going to ask that."
Casey nodded. "Everyone does."
They were silent to Briefing Room Three, which had a pair of armed MP's standing outside of it, one on each side of the door.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Inside was General Kro'Daka as well as a half dozen other officers, all of whom Vuxten recognized as part of V Corps and VII Army.
"Have a seat, Lieutenant. Take a seat, Sergeant," one of the Terran females, who Vuxten's implant ID'd as Major Dullekas, said, pointing at the two empty seats.
"Do I need my JAG representative?" Casey asked, sitting down.
"No, we just need a bit of confirmation about a few things," the Major said.
"According to the Confederate Code of Military Justice, I don't have to discuss my religion or the reasonings for decisions made for me by my Elders that are recognized by Space Force or the Confederate Military," Casey said as Vuxten said down, sighing with taking the weight off his sore knee.
"This is slightly different, Sergeant," The Major said. All of the Generals and their staffers just stared silently. She looked at Vuxten. "Your people, the Telkans, need a representative and you are the highest ranking Telkan in service.
"Yes, Ma'am," Vuxten said.
"And it is estimated that your decisions carry more weight than anyone else might among your people," the Major said.
"More than likely, Ma'am," Vuxten said. He looked around and saw that every Terran there, their eyes were amber.
With the exception of Casey.
"So we decided to include you in this discussion, as it has importance to you and your people," The Major said.
General Kro'Daka gave the whistling sound of a Treana'ad chuckle. "What the Major is skirting around, son, is that us high ranking brass wanted you to be present so you can see the decisions being made."
The Major's eyes flickered red for a moment, something that Vuxten filed away as she didn't like being interrupted, before she sighed and looked at Staff Sergant Casey. The Terran just stared back calmly.
"For those of us unfamiliar with your religion, are you permitted cybernetic implants, cloned tissue, or SUDS?" the Major asked.
Casey sighed, the kind of sigh Vuxten had heard before, hell, that he'd made before.
The sigh of someone who has repeated something so often it had gone beyond tired and into resignation.
"I'm allowed a cybernetic implant if it is part of my work, or needed to save my life. Cloned tissue is only part of the issue, but it is allowed in the case of major organs to preserve life function. I'm also not allowed genetic modification or prosthesis outside of extremely rigid confines," he said in the tones of a man who had rehearsed the speech many many times before. "SUDS is absolutely forbidden."
"Why?" A Rigellian asked. Vuxten's implant ID'd her as General Nun'krawg.
Casey sighed. "God gave us one life, that's it. We're allowed to extend it through scientific means, but we only get one. When I die, if you restore me from a SUDS backup, is it even me or is my soul lost? That's just one part. People with SUDS don't value their lives as highly as someone who only gets one chance, that's been statistically proven. The SUDS system just records neural templates, there's no mechanism for actually handling the soul itself and once that is gone we are just homunculi without God's grace," he put his hands on the table. "Look, this has been even argued in court and is something I have to put up with all the time. Is there a reason for this?"
"Curiosity, right now, Staff Sergeant," General Kro'Daka said.
"Because everyone's SUDS are switched off and now you're wondering how I can do that every day?" Casey asked. He reached up and adjusted his eye patch.
"What happened to your eye?" another General asked.
Casey looked around. "The only General not in here is Trucker and that Lanaktallan," he said quietly. "You could have asked me at any time about this, maybe even looked up my religion, but instead, you pull me off of duty to explain to you that man is meant to have one life. That death is part of the natural state of the universe, from stars to black holes to people."
"We can do without a sermon, Sergeant," General Vandu snapped.
Casey turned and looked at her, snarling.
Vuxten noted that human's eyes still weren't glowing.
"Then we're fucking done here," he said, standing up. "File charges and be damned with the lot of you."
"Apologize to the Staff Sergeant, General Vandu, or leave this meeting," General Kro'Daka said. He lit a cigarette and exhaled smoke out his legs.
General Vandu growled, her eyes red, but managed to choke out an apology.
General Kro'Daka looked at the gathered officers. "We have one and a half a million troops on this planet under VII Army. Of which, we have exactly one Fifth Reformationist in our ranks," the Treana'ad said. He looked around again. "And before any of you bring Staff Sergeant Casey's valor or bravery into question, you would do well to remember he has nearly a thousand years of service."
That got mutters. Vuxten brought up Casey's record when the General handed it off and nodded appreciatively.
He'd lost his eye due to an accident in garrison and refused to get a cybernetic implant. He had an impressive record. Vuxten looked at Casey's picture in his file then at Casey himself.
The picture looked identical despite the fact that the Terran was three hundred years older.
"You're nine hundred and eighty three years old?" General Vandu asked.
Vuxten noticed that for some reason just something about Casey made her angry.
"I'm allowed anti-aging therapies while in Service," Casey said, shrugging. "When I leave the military and go home, the anti-aging therapies stop and I'll age normally."
Vuxten frowned. He had heard over and over that humans only lived to around five hundred.
"You fought in the Mar-gite War?" Vandu asked.
Casey looked at her. "Yes."
"And the Ring Wars before that?" She asked.
Vuxten wondered what her problem was.
"Yes."
"You were part of the House Mouse War?"
"Yes."
"You've never been afraid of dying the whole time?" she asked.
Vuxten frowned at why such a simple question made Casey's eyes start to glow amber.
"If you can't help but try to infer that Staff Sergeant Casey is a coward, General, you may leave," General Kro'Daka said. He sighed, puffing smoke out. "Sergeant, the decision to enter service without a SUDS network connector is a strange one. We're trying to understand why you would choose to do so."
"Because everyone else has been forced to now that the network is down," Casey said. He rubbed his face with both hands before looking up.
Vuxten noted the amber was gone from his eyes.
"Human fought on Terra for their entire existence before SUDS. They rushed into natural disasters to save one another, they went to extreme lengths to protect each other, they fought wars for what they thought was right," Casey said. "I believe, and so do others, that humans lost part of themselves, something special, when SUDS made death out to be no more than an inconvenience. Lost a bit of grace imbued to us by our creator."
"Why not replace the eye?" Vuxten asked. He held up one hand placatingly. "No offense meant, Sergeant, I'm just curious," he tapped his own cybereye.
"Because I lost it and an eye is not necessary for life," Casey answered. "If it had been, like, both kidneys, not one, but both, I could have been put on life support till a new one was cloned."
"It says here you have a cybernetic heart," Vandu snapped, her voice slightly triumphant. "Doesn't that go against your religion?"
"Except in the case of organs vital to the continuation of life," Casey said. He sighed.
"Why not cloned tissue?" another General asked.
Vuxten almost sighed in frustration.
"It's listed as a cybernetic implant, but it's a hybrid, cloned tissue with cybernetic parts," Casey said. "Look, are you going to ask me anything or just harp on me about the fact I've taken some damage over the last nine hundred and some odd years?"
"I wanted to see if you had any insight that might help us deal with the ongoing SUDS issue," General Kro'Daka said.
Staff Sergeant Casey sighed. "Give everyone the choice to moved to non-combatant if they so choose. Not reclassify MOS's, but be put on Temporary Disability Retirement Listing, that way it doesn't effect their time in grade, time in service, or seniority standings."
Casey pointed at Vuxten. "See, his people get it. Something that our Traena'ad, Mantid, and Rigellian allies get. Some things are worth defending even at the cost of your own life," Casey said. He stood up. "If you're that worried about having to face the same difficulties as every one of our allies, if you're that afraid of death," he looked at Vandu and Vuxten could feel that the human was trying to goad the Terran female.
"Then maybe the military isn't for you," he finished.
Vandu jumped to her feet. "What did you just say, you son of a bitch?" Sparks sprayed from under her hand, the fizzing sound lost in the loud crack her hand made against the table.
"Maybe it's time to see who still has the balls to stay in the military now that there's actually a penalty for failure," Casey said, still not turning around.
Vuxten saw that he hand clenched his left fist and there was electrical arcs playing across his knuckles.
"Now that you might actually die in service, like every single one of our allies, you've found out that war isn't some fun game, that it's a terrible thing with a horrible cost," Casey said. "That seems to bother some of you."
"Sucks, don't it?" Casey asked, walking toward the door.
"Don't you turn your back on me, soldier," Vandu snapped.
"General, sit down and compose yourself," General Kro'Daka snapped. "Staff Sergeant, you're excused," the Treana'ad General got out right before Casey opened the door. When the door shut he turned and looked at everyone.
"The Staff Sergeant's idea is a good one. Any soldier who's SUDS is out who no longer wants to continue in service will allowed to exit the service," the General said.
"You can't force someone who's SUDS is no longer functioning into combat nor can you punish them for their SUDS malfunctioning," General Vandu said. She tapped her fingernails on the table. "Forcing them out of the military is against the CCMJ."
"If they refuse to fight, refuse to do their jobs, you can punish them. My God, that's the backbone of any military," another General said.
"You cannot order a soldier with a damaged SUDS into combat," Vandu countered.
Vuxten sighed.
He could tell this was going to last all day.
------------
Vuxten was sitting on a stack of tracks for Terran heavy tanks when Staff Sergeant Casey came up to him, the loading frame hissing and clicking. There was thunder in the sky and the rain was light.
"They decide anything?" the Terran asked.
Vuxten shook his head. "I went out for a bathroom break and never came back."
"You know, Vandu has managed to avoid every combat theater," Casey said.
"General Tik-Tak has managed to avoid combat," Vuxten countered.
"General Tik-Tak has managed to avoid combat in combat zones by ensuring the combat arms guys can defeat the enemy. Vandu has avoided every combat theater."
"Oh," Vuxten said.
"I just checked," Casey said, starting to turn away.
"What?"
"Her position in V Corps," Casey said. He paused. "Do you know what it is?"
"No," Vuxten admitted.
"She's in command of the power armor troops, including you Telkan."
Vuxten watched the Terran stalk away, yelling at his men to get their shit together. The thunder crackled as he said one word, nice and soft.
"Shit."