A Day Off

A day off. Wonderful. Mostly, he wanted to be outdoors. It would be a bright, cool day. The fields around the space base beckoned him with waves of long golden grass. To the ssouth, the tall dark clusters of bank trees stretched over the river that ran near the barracks and his sleeping quarters.

His bunk was a klick away, and instead of stepping on one of the base shuttles he decided to walk. A razorhawk was scanning the nearest hill from its comfortable cushion of air, rarely flapping. Yad decided that was how he would spend this day: arms stretched out on the breeze, gliding wherever his feet took him.

Half-way to the river a formation of jogging troops approached him on the other side of the road. Yad was nearly ready to feel sorry for them when he suddenly tripped and stumbled, collapsing into the gravel right in front of the company. It had been as if some unknown hand had pushed him to the ground.

Several of the soldiers gave a mocking laugh, and the entire company stared at him with amusement as they pounded past him, before the Sergeant put a stop to their fun.

When Yad stood up and patted the dust from his clothing, he noticed that his trousers were ripped. The old crick in his neck began acting up. He put his hand there to rub it and felt something sticky. His palm was bleeding from a sharp stone. Better be careful today, he thought, and resumed walking.

At the barracks he grabbed a roll of antiseptic cloth from the infirmary and wrapped his hand. Then Yad veered away from his bunkhouse and found a nice spot under an old tree where the sun’s morning rays could reach him. It was pleasant enough, but Yad couldn’t help feeling that he should be feeling sentimental. Instead something odd had prickled his attention. The hue of the sky over the Wolf river was too yellow, and he could have sworn that the flow of the Wolf was now toward the steppes, backwards. It couldn’t have been tidal; they were fifty klicks from the sea. Maybe he fell harder than he realized.

He wondered how the sky on the fourth moon of Synaria would look, and if time really changed near the gravity storms. In n about one hundred days he would know.

Yad lay back into the grass and began stepping through the mission in his head, chewing on a stem of whipweed. This was no good. He needed some interaction. As if sensing this, a soldier ant bit his ankle and sent Yad cursing and slapping to his quarters.

Graduate Primary Yad stooped into his small private bunk area and changed again into townie clothes. He put on his thin nymex regulation Airman jacket, figuring it might help get him noticed with the girls at the cantina. What the hell, he was going to let go some steam.

On his way out he checked his data uplink for any messages. But when he logged on he got an error saying his username had expired. Yad thought it quite odd. Could they not have waited one more day?

Out back, just before Yad lowered himself into his roadster for town, he noticed his crew pilot, Major Frank, getting on the shuttle back to the assembly field. The Major was wearing his beige flight suit. He was gone before Yad had a chance to yell.

Didn’t the Captain say they were all relieved today? What was Frank up to? Was it possible they were leaving him out of something?