"Michael Z. Williamson - Freehold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Michael Z)

To my parents:
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We disagree on so many things,
but I am who I am because of you.



Chapter 1
"Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which in prosperous circumstances would have lain
dormant."

—Quintus Horatius Flaccus



Sergeant Second Class Kendra Pacelli, UNPF, was looking forward to finally finishing the admin from
her deployment to Mtali. The entire experience had been unpleasant, from the tedious, cramped trip there
in a military transport, to the tedious, cramped tripback in a military transport. In between, the stay had
been mostly boring, very aggravating, and exhausting when it wasn't boring.

She'd been eager at first. The chance to visit another planet, even one torn by war, she found exciting.
Upon arriving, they'd all been restricted to base, so she saw nothing of the local culture. They were
shipped through the UN starport, and there were not even vendors of local food to sample. Most of the
other UN troops, predominantly from Earth, had insisted on not listening to "that raghead crap" music.
She'd heard nothing but Earth pop for the entire six months.

Then the long-term troops had resented her for her trip's duration. They had eighteen-month rotations. It
wasn't her fault, and she was there to help the Logistic Support Function, thus freeing someone else to go
home early, but that didn't seem to matter. Apparently, they'd rather have stood the extra time than have
her take a short tour.

There'd been a couple of missile attacks on the base while she was there. She'd been in an orbital station
doing admin during one, and the shuttle simply waited until it was over to land. The other one was over
before she realized it wasn't a drill, and the damage was negligible. She understood some areas had been
pasted daily and had regular body counts, but she was nowhere near those places. She wasn't
complaining, but the end result was that she had no war stories of any kind.

It had been typical logistics work; issuing, returning and accounting for gear and filing docs, except that
the days were longer, the facilities nonexistent and the entertainment lacking. She wasn't a big fan of vid
and the rec center's supply of books and games was slim. She also found few people who could play
table games well. All in all, she might just as well have stayed home and not left her dorm.

She had received additional pay and got a tax in-centive, which would mean more records-keeping in
exchange to justify the tax return. The rest of the pay came at the cost of, naturally, more admin. Sitting at
her carrel, she coded off on her travel itinerary, her waivers for tests and boards missed while deployed