It was bothersome, at the very least. The thruma munitions shipment had weighed on his mind for nearly a month at this point, pestering him like a bug bite on his back that he couldn’t quite reach. At night, the nightmares would come, and during the day, the unease sat on his chest like a stone. He wasn’t sure he could just sit on that information, and yet, life went on. He called Penelopi and Tay once a week through the Yomin Tech Voicecom System that acted much like an old Earth cellphone. The YTVS were hard to get on, as there was a waiting list and only twenty three lines existed on all of Makemake. Still, he’d managed to get his scheduled time each week, and it seemed his family was doing good without him, or at least surviving well enough, which brought him some comfort.

Still, the thrumas weighed on his mind. He’d seen what they could do and what their purpose truly was.

Come one day, he couldn’t handle it anymore.

It was breakfast time for him, and as he ate, listening to Cpl. Yarns prattle on about a boy he worked with, Shishone’s mind, ruminating on the thrumas, finally cracked.

He turned to Yarns, looked him straight in the eyes, and, cutting him off, said, “Yarns. This is a defensive platform right?”

Yarns stopped, and pushed his food around with his fork for a moment, seemingly caught off guard. “I mean, yes?”

“Against any would-be rebels, right?”

“Yes…?” Yarns said, casting a curious stare at Shishone.

“Then why would they need bombardment weapons?”

Yarns’s eyes widened, and a sharp glimmer passed through them. “What? Bombardment weapons? Where? I haven’t seen any, and I’ve been all over Makemake.”

Eyes falling, Shishone quietly said, “About a month ago, there was a shipment. I got a brief glance at the ship manifest, and they were importing thrumas.”

Yarns squinted at him for a moment. “What’s a ‘thruma’?”

Shishone sighed. “It’s a plasma delivery system.”

“P-Plasma?” Yarns exclaimed, taken aback. Then, in a quieter tone, he leaned in and said, “Plasma? Are you sure?”

Shishone nodded.

“Nah, no way. The whole solar system is basically united save for a few enclaves, there’s no reason we’d need those, right?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Shishone said, sitting back and staring at his food. “I don’t understand it.”

“I… don’t know,” Yarns said. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Yarns sat back and blew air through his lips, staring up. Then, running his hands through his hair, he said, “Well, what are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” Shishone said with a shrug. What could he do, really? He was a corporal. The fact that he was in the flight tower was a miracle in and of itself. He had no power to find out what was going on. “One of the Lieutenants said that the last person who saw something like this and said something vanished.”

“Vanished?” Yarns said, blinking. “That’s kinda wild.”

“Yeah.”

“Well I mean, obviously you can’t say anything then,” Yarns said.

Shishone shrugged again. “I might.”

Yarns’s jaw all but dropped from his face altogether. “Why?”

“Because I’ve seen what those weapons can do. It’s horrific. I need to know why they’re here.”

“But you’ve got such a cushy job, you’ve got a family, you’ve got people relying on you, don’t say shit that’ll get you evaporated,” Yarns said with a snap, looking genuinely stupefied.

Shishone let his gaze fall, and he stared into his food for a moment, blankly. “On Ceres,” he said softly, “I saw people eaten alive by plasma. It melts your skin first, then your bones, and then your insides. You literally melt alive.”

Yarns looked disgusted, frowning with a tense, pensive look in his eyes. “That’s genuinely terrible…”

“It is. I need to know why those munitions are here.”

“I understand,” Yarns said, biting his lip. “Don’t do anything stupid. We’re partners on this rock, okay? Where you go, I’ll probably end up going, so don’t sink me if you start to go under, okay?”

“I’ll try not to.” Shishone pushed his tray back and stood from the table, dusting himself and his jumpsuit off. Then, he straightened his short hair, and looked down to Yarns. “I’m going to find Major Thobias. Wish me luck.”

“You’re insane, but good luck,” Yarns said, taking a bite of his mushroom-synthesized egg product. “You’re gonna need it.”

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Shishone nodded, and then turned away, heading out of the mess hall and into the greater halls of Makemake.

The based, formally known as the TGFB - the Terran Government Forward Base - Make-Indu, was laid out in as a band across the rock’s surface. Wide and thick, tall and long, it was a very real metal scar upon the surface of Makemake. One great transit hall ran through the center, connecting end to end with a long rail and train system, and multiple smaller trams ran along the edges to take people from stop to stop. Shishone made his way out of the side passages, their vaulted steel and wires and lights giving the base an almost cathedral-like feeling to it, an air of militant reverence.

The grand transit hall was even greater. Glass-roofed trains, four of them to be exact, ran along the center of the hall, and on the edges, jeeps and carts hummed along, all under a great reinforced glass vaulted ceiling that exposed the lights of the inside of TGFB Make-Indu to the dark, brilliant star-speckled vastness of space. Plants ran along the walls, along with sconces that illuminated the whole hall in a bright white glow that made the greenery shine. There were statues along the way, of those who came before, those who built the TGFB, and some few war heros from the Asteroid Belt Insurrection, some in steel, some in true marble. It was beautiful in construction, too much so for a normal military installation, but here in the Kuiper Belt, Shishone was learning, things were far from normal.

He stepped onto a long train that pulled up to an overhang-shadowed station near the exit from the residential sector. It was fairly crowded, but the train was so long and massive that it almost wasn’t a problem. He grabbed an overhead bar and stood as the train jerked and then started to levitate, before humming its way down the track at nearly twenty miles per hour.

It almost reminded him of his final tram ride with Penelopi on that day, the day before they’d said goodbye.

Within a few minutes, the train had arrived at the administrative sector of the TGFB, where he departed. Here there were long blue and white banners hanging from the ceiling, and guards that wore blue-gold tabards over blue and white armor to signify their elite status, and trees - actual trees - and fountains and more. It was one of the most beautiful places in an already beautiful base.

He walked over to the wall of the transit corridor, crossing the street in time with the lights, and nodded to one of the guards. He could barely see the man’s eyes through the helmet visor, but the guard nodded back, and Shishone slipped through the doors and into the maze of corridors that made up the sector’s innards.

He walked through the carpeted halls, past portraits of leadership, until he reached Maj. Thobias’s office. Here, he knocked on the door, praying that the Major meant it when he’d said he had an “open door policy”. Thankfully, though, from within, he heard: “Enter.”

Carefully he opened the door, and stepped into Major Thobias’s office.

The man sat at his desk, staring at some papers with glasses on, as Shishone slipped into the room and shut the door. For a moment, neither spoke, with Maj. Thobias seeming intensely focused on the papers before him. Still, after about a minute of silence, he looked up at Shishone and merely offered a raised eyebrow.

“Corporal Shishone,” he said. “Don’t remember many faces on Makemake, but I certainly remember you. What can I do for you?”

A sudden wave of hesitation swept over Shishone’s courage. He swallowed and looked around, to the flags in the corner, the accolades and commendation coins on the Major’s desk, the photos of him on Earth, all searching for his bravery that had left him like a field mouse skitters away. He steeled himself and clenched his jaw, staring Major Thobias in the eye for a second.

“Well son?”

He cleared his throat and mustered his courage. “What are the thrumas doing here?”

Major Thobias shot him a sharp glare, before his face returned to a dull neutral, and he sat back in his plush chair. He ran his thumb along his strong chin, staring up at Shishone with what seemed like a cool, calm anger.

“How do you know that?”

Shishone blinked, caught off guard. He’d expected denial, or at least a fight; this was acceptance, and admittance. “The ship manifests,” he said, his voice faltering. He hadn’t been this nervous in a while, and it’d come upon him like a truck, fast and heavy. The way Major Thobias was staring at him, he wouldn’t be surprised if the man was already mentally signing his death warrant.

Major Thobias grit his teeth for a moment, and then leaned forward on his elbows and clasped his hands before his mouth. “Corporal Shishone,” he said, calm as a still ocean, “I like you. I know you have some infamy within the Corps, but I like you. You’re smart, you’re on task, you’re oriented and alert, you seem like a good trooper. So I have to now ask: why throw it all away, for answers that I might not even have?”

Shishone felt ice creep through his veins and throat. “Throw it all away? I just need to know. I’ve seen what those things carry, I know what they can do,” he said, stepping forward, a small bit of defiance rising within him. Flashes of Ceres, the bright orange plasma flowing out like magma, devouring people indiscriminately. “I need to know.”

Major Thobias cocked his head, noticing the flash within Shishone’s eyes. “You were there for Ceres. I know you know. And I know you need to know. But I don’t know, Shishone. And if I did, or if you did, neither one of us would be here right now.”

“What does–?”

“I’m reassigning you to infantry,” Major Thobias said, sitting back and sighing. “You will report to Lieutenant Harrison at zero-eight sharp tomorrow, with the thirty-first armored infantry brigade.”

“But sir–”

“No!” Thobias snapped. “I had high hopes for you Shishone. This was supposed to be your second chance, and I made sure you got that cushy traffic control job. You’re lucky I’m assigning you to infantry rather than reporting you at all. This is your third chance, Shishone. Consider yourself lucky. Most people in the Corps only get one. And for fuck’s sake, keep your mouth shut.”

Lips pulled taut, Shishone let his head fall. It was true, and he knew what Major Thobias meant by that. He’d survived Ceres, and was giving a chance at redemption with the Corps, and now was being assigned elsewhere to have that chance preserved, courtesy of the Major. He’d get no answers here, especially from a man who had none in the first place, and so he’d done nothing but shot himself in the foot.

He cursed himself.

“Yes sir.”

Major Thobias sat back once more and folded his arms, looking at Shishone. “I like you. I like your guts and the cut of your cloth. Keep up the good work, and get out of my office.”

Nodding lightly, Shishone swallowed his pride, and looked up, saying, “I want to stay with Yarns. I like the kid.”

“He’ll still be your battle partner.”

“Good.”

With that, Shishone did an about-face, and marched out of Major Thobias’s office, into the belly of TGFB Make-Indu, off to find Yarns and tell him the news. All the while, on his mind, Penelopi and Tay sat heavy. He was here for them, and he had to remember that.

There was a lot to remember lately, he thought.