That meant six months until I saw him again. Six long, lonely months, so soon after we’d put a fragile bandage on our wounded marriage. Approximately one-hundred-eighty-days – not that I was counting – of me staring up at the blue dot in the sky, wondering if Jackson was looking up at me, too.
And wondering if the affection my in-laws had showed me would hold, or if they’d do me dirty again now that I’d finished saving their son’s life. Did I wonder if Jackson would remain committed to our marriage when I returned to Earth? You bet your sweet potato I did.
The military dropped another communications blackout as the fighting increased. It became evident that the hoped-for swift, decisive victory that put their “important installation” safely back in American control would not materialize. They would have to settle for a long, bloody brawl if they wanted that vital fortification in uncontested territory again.
I still didn’t know why they wanted it so badly. Why it was worth so many lives. Doctor Flannigan did, and he promised me, as we scrubbed the blood from our hands, that we weren’t pissing lives into the dusty wind.
“It’ll come out why someday, son,” he said. “And when it does, you’ll realize why we couldn’t retreat and give it over. These brave women and men, what they’re fighting for has meaning. I’d tell you what it is, but then I’d have to-”
“-throw me out an airlock,” I finished with a rueful chuckle. We’d had this talk at least six times by then, and I knew the score. “It’s all right. Jackson said the same to me before he left. Not the airlock part. The ‘this has meaning’ part. I’ll find out someday.”
Eventually, someday came. And then, Ididunderstand. Jackson, Doctor Flannigan, and M4-CH+M4-KR were right.
But that was later.
* * *
Three months after my first stumbling toddler steps on Mars, I walked with confidence up a ramp and onto the troop transport shuttle that started my long trip home. Doctor Flannigan hugged me goodbye and told me not to get too comfortable on Earth. He expected me to get my ass in gear, finish my required residency, and report back to his medical bay for more excitement. I laughed at him.
Not hard enough, though. The idea had already taken root.
The first, shortest leg of the journey was a shuttle to the massive troop mover that waited in orbit. After that, we all settled in for the almost-three-month roadtrip back home. No rest stops, no tourist traps, sure, but also no one shoutinghe’s touching me!ormake him get off my part of the seat!
Jackson’s fireteam had kept me company on Mars and made me feel like one of their own. They kept it up on the journey, too, and I’d never had friends like them. When they weren’t trying to improve my horrific basketball game or pummeling me at poker, I managed to fill the hours on my own.
That trip gave me plenty of time to write my papers on the application of Trigeneris in extreme edge cases, and the build-up of waste byproducts in the wake of heavy Regeneris and Trigeneris use. I also had observations for best practices in using Trigeneris to treat wounded patients, since in my three months, I’d used both extra doses I’d brought with me.
One was on a Boudiccan named Claire, whom I now believe to be from an immortal alien species possessed of superpowers and badass heroic nonsense in their genetics. I do not believe anything short of a nuclear detonation at her precise position will stop her. When she heard about what happened with my brother-in-law, she promised to gossip like a chattery magpie until everyone on Mars knew what happened. If Laramie ever deployed here, he would find himself short on friends.
On that long trip, I also had too much time to wonder if Jackson would have decided to leave me again. Recovery is a hell of a drug. So is gratitude. Coming down from those, not to mention his recovery from a one-night stand with Death, might change his mind about me.
I didn’t think it would. But three months on a spaceship and six months of silence do things to your head. Doubt is insidious and shitty, and you have to stay vigilant against it. Otherwise it can eat at you and leave you a hollow husk of despair.
The third leg of our journey was a short layover outside of Luna. We had to pack into the atmospheric transport section of our massive troop mover. The habitation section, which had spin gravity and a shape that didn’t care for atmospheric excursions, would stay behind. The mood on the transport became excited, even jovial as Earth’s blue sphere loomed in our vision.
We were almost home. A handful of those on board had Mail Call Mates waiting for them, and they jittered and worried about the futures they would walk into when they disembarked. Those of us who’d lived through that already exchanged knowing glances. No one could prepare those poor, nervous souls for the adventure that waited for them.
Especially not me. Not when I didn’t know what adventure waited forme, either. How had Jackson’s recovery progressed? Had the Trigeneris left him with any permanent side effects? Could he stand unassisted, walk again, breathe without wheezing?
Did he still want me?
When we’d parted on Mars, I’d told him I’d left my Subaru at Schriever Air Force Base. Convenient, since that was where the transport would return us to Earth. I swore to drive home, pick up clean clothes, then break every speed limit on the way to Wyoming. We wouldn’t be apart even a minute longer than we had to be.
Still, as we endured re-entry, and the transport descended toward the Continental Divide, I wondered what I would find when I pulled into the ranch where Jackson recuperated. Affection? Apathy? Broken hope and a realization that our love had endured too much to hold? I didn’t know. All I could say was that, as I lined up with the soldiers to disembark, I understood a little better why Jackson had dreaded our first deployment as a couple. There was just so much uncertainty in coming home.
Bright, brilliant sunlight flooded the compartment as the ramp lowered to the ground. All of us squinted. Mars has sunlight, but the days can never match the golden illumination of a Colorado spring. And it was spring now, those first, chilly days when the weather decides it’s in a good mood and wants to share it with everyone.
I watched a nervous soldier walk halfway down the ramp before he broke into a run. The sound of cheering from outside said he’d found his match, and that all his worries had shattered against the reality of new love. That set the tone for all the rest. Tired troops perked up, walked down the ramp with a new bounce in their steps as infectious joy took hold.
Infectious enough to pull a grin onto my lips. I remembered being down there myself, staring at couple after couple as they united, or reunited, with a shining happiness that had radiated to us all. God, that seemed like ages ago. Years and years in the past, whole epochs behind me. I’d been a different man then, one who’d bitterly thought of his own down-the-ramp moment denied.
I didn’t miss that man. He’d needed time to grow. No. He’d needed a husband to teach him how to leave the broken past behind – where I desperately hoped it would stay. But that was up to me, wasn’t it? Whatever happened, my happiness sat inmyhands.
My turn at the top of the ramp. Sure, this trip down several yards of metal onto a runway wouldn’t be what I’d expected when I enlisted, but it wasmine. I had earned my place among these valiant warriors in boots and fatigues, just as I had earned my place in the world. These steps, wherever they took me, belonged to me.
Metal clanked as I walked down the slope toward the tarmac below. There was the nervous soldier, still in the arms of the match that M4-CH+M4-KR had made for him. Another of the jittery troops gazed lovingly at his own new spouse, who had green hair in a magnificent rooster comb. There, parents hugged a young woman who’d just finished her first Mars deployment, and over there, Jiaying and Xasan stood, grinning as they – watched me? Dillon and Paulie waited near them, also grinning, gazes locked on me.
Dillon jerked his head to one side. I looked past happy couples, relieved parents, siblings and spouses and cousins…