Chapter Two
When Paulson Kenz picked up his mail, he expected to find bills, junk mailers, delinquent notices on his student loan, even another eviction threat because his low-paying job didn’t earn him enough to pay the rent and eat both in the same week.
The urgent draft notice, however, was far worse than any stack of bills or legal notices.
Paulson stared at the official envelope for a long time. Some of his friends in equally dire financial straits had talked about joining the military, but in the same distant way that they might talk about travelling to the Moon or signing up for a stint at one of the asteroid colonies.
Paulson knew he wasn’t military material by any stretch of the imagination. A recruitment officer should take one look at his scrawny figure and muscles that could at best be described as “bookish,” and laugh out loud before telling him to find a job as an accountant or librarian.
But libraries weren’t hiring these days, and Paulson had no aptitude for accounting. With the increasing attacks by the alien Sluggos, however, the Earth Planetary Navy wasn’t so picky.
His dismissive parents always told Paulson he was going nowhere, and now he had arrived—at nowhere. But now, as he held the EPN summons in his hand, he felt a chill. He would much rather be going nowhere than going into the planetary navy. Only the most desperate of military forces would take a bottom-of-the-barrel recruit like him, and if the EPN was that desperate then the human race was in dire straits indeed.
Retreating into his small apartment, he thought about calling his friends or his parents, but he didn’t think his voice was stable enough for conversation. The draft notice allowed for no appeal. He needed to think about this, but the more Paulson considered his fate, the more terrified he became. He had been aware of the horrific alien invaders that attacked helpless vessels in the Pacific, but since he lived in a farming city in the Midwest, with little local industry, automated agriculture, nothing to attract tourists and very few job prospects, Paulson hadn’t paid much attention to the Sluggos.
The notice commanded him to report to the training facility at the La Diego Naval Yards within three days.
The draft summons was legally binding and intimidating. The fine print said that any prior employment or contractual obligations were henceforth superseded. Payments and debts would be put on hold until the end of his EPN service.
Paulson read pages of instructions, a list of what to pack, and a helpful pamphlet on ways to prepare for this “exciting new phase” of his life. He fixated on a paragraph that advised him in the strongest possible terms to prepare a detailed Last Will and Testament before departing for the training facility. “Don’t leave your family and loved ones with estate entanglements. Do the last brave thing in the event that you are unable to return home. A sailor in the Earth Planetary Navy must be prepared.”
“I’ll be prepared to die at sea,” Paulson muttered. He didn’t even know how to swim, but he supposed that wouldn’t matter. If he fell overboard into a sea roiling with voracious Sluggos, treading water wasn’t going to be much help.
Sitting alone in his apartment, glad that he had managed to get the power turned back on, he activated his entertainment and information screens to watch the news, which suddenly seemed relevant to him. A terrible nautical engagement and complete defeat had just occurred five hundred miles off the coast of Hawaii. Paulson felt physically ill as he saw the frantic jittery footage of creatures that seemed to be equal parts teeth and slime. The Sluggos swarmed across the deck of the destroyer that had engaged the alien infestation. Crewmen snarling, yelling in pain, sprays of blood, a tentacle the size of a redwood tree crashing down onto the Far Horizon, collapsing the bridge deck and communication mast and cutting off the transmission.
On the report, a tall young man with haunted-looking eyes wore a pristine white officer’s uniform, his chest bedecked with so many medals and decorations that he had trouble standing up straight. He stood at a podium addressing hundreds of uniformed sailors who stood at attention. Hundreds of media reporters directed their imagers in the officer’s direction.
”I am Admiral Bruce Haldane,” he said, “and I recently survived the Far Horizon engagement. I’ve faced the Sluggos three times now, and I’ve watched them destroy brave sailors, wreck civilian ships as well as military vessels. I am convinced there can be no negotiating with these creatures.”
Paulson thought he seemed arrogant.
“With my experience and insights, I promise to do my best to develop an effective strategy to defeat these alien monsters. No more sailors need to shed blood into the sea. I am humbled by the sacrifice of all those who died on the Far Horizon, as well as the volunteer who formerly inhabited this body.” Haldane touched his own shoulders and chest, as if to reassure himself of where and who he was. “That man gave his life so I could stand before you today and vow my revenge against the alien. Thanks to him, I can lead the EPN’s retaliatory strike and wipe out those squirming bastards once and for all!”
Admiral Haldane raised a fist, but his movements were jerky and uncertain, as if he hadn’t quite adjusted to his new body. It seemed to fit him like a stiff pair of new boots.
The crowd cheered regardless, and the media imagers captured the drawn and determined expressions on the sailors’ faces as they vowed to avenge their fallen comrades.
Looking at the crowd of EPN seamen, Paulson could not picture himself as one of them, no matter what the draft notice said. He felt as if he had swallowed a hand grenade, and it was still in his stomach, ticking down the last few seconds. He couldn’t run, couldn’t escape the summons. He was DNA imprinted, and he had been chosen by a flawed lottery system: no exceptions. And he certainly couldn’t argue that he was too valuable in civilian life.
He liked to read and ponder, but had never found the ambition to acquire a philosophy degree (which, in itself would not have led to a lucrative career). He was healthy enough, but only due to biological good fortune; he wasn’t overweight, thanks to a natural metabolism. But he was sweating now, as if he had just run a marathon. Paulson didn’t have many loose ends to tie up in his life, because he didn’t have much of a life.
He had to figure out some way to get to the La Diego base. Because budgets were tight and all finances had to be devoted to constructing new Navy warships and weapons against the Sluggos, Paulson Kenz had to pay his own way to the last place on Earth he wanted to go.
The naval training center was aswarm with new recruits, herded about by junior officers as if they were a separated mass of Sluggos in human form. The chatter of conversation in the giant intake hangar was deafening; announcements over loudspeakers were garbled and incomprehensible. The background noise seemed to increase each time important instructions were given. Paulson expected this routine would have been more organized under normal times, but the EPN was undergoing quite an upheaval as they increased their ranks tenfold in response to the invasion.
Paulson stood among other recruits, some of them shiny-eyed and eager, jabbering with nervous enthusiasm. They pounded one another on the back, laughing and trying to outdo any braggadocio from their comrades. Paulson knew about such attitudes: patriotic young men and women ready to go off and kick some enemy butt. Most often that didn’t turn out as planned. Some came home in body bags, others were lost forever. And the ones that did return were haunted for the rest of their lives.
Oddly, with so many disorganized people and so much chaos, the bureaucratic machinery hummed smoothly. Everyone flashed ID access cards and passed through human inventory kiosks into gigantic hangars where lines queued up, snaking around pedestals. Personnel Specialists studied each person that flowed into the larger base.
Paulson was confused and anxious, but he followed the person ahead of him, and he listened to instructions. When yeoman ran a quick gaze over him, studied his ID chip, then sent him into corpsman scan lines, he cooperated. He tried to keep his expression meek (which wasn’t difficult at all). The intake officers studied the records displayed on their screens, narrowed their eyes, and frowned at him, then directed Paulson into a different line. Each time he met with more skepticism, was directed into a smaller line. He could tell he was being winnowed out.
They took blood samples and urine samples; they breathalyzed him; they performed a digital rectal examination, then a dental examination (mercifully changing gloves in between). They fitted a mesh hood around his scalp and took a brain scan. They gave him vision test, and then they clucked at all the results.
One nurse who looked as if she had retired from a Valkyrie squad loomed over him, knitting her eyebrows together. She turned to the yeoman at her side and spoke loudly enough to be sure Paulson heard her, “I thought we hit the bottom of the barrel last week.”
“Sorry,” Paulson said. “If you’d like to excuse me from service, I’ll understand.”
The Valkyrie-nurse gave him such an intense glare that his scrotal sac shriveled to the size of a prune, even though he had already been thoroughly checked for hernias.
“No one’s excused,” she said. “If nothing else, you’ll do as cannon fodder.”