Starfist_Lazarus Rising by David Sherman & Dan Cragg

Author:David Sherman & Dan Cragg [Sherman, David & Cragg, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 034544373X
Amazon: B000FC0ZKS
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 2003-12-02T00:00:00+00:00

Jente wasn’t the only woman present who didn’t work at Big Barb’s. Kona, a widow in her late thirties from Hryggurandlit, sat close to Sergeant Ratliff at the table the squad leaders shared with Corporals Kerr and Dornhofer and Lance Corporal Schultz. Their table wasn’t as crowded as the others. The more junior men generally preferred to party away from the sergeants, and most of them were wary of Schultz. No one at their table drank as much or laughed as long or as hard as everybody else; the men and most of the women were older and ruled less by their hormones.

Stulka, who was one of Big Barb’s girls, was the youngest and most flirtatious. She was fascinated by the quiet threat that radiated from Schultz no matter how relaxed he was, and her hand flitted from his thigh to his shoulder to his cheek to his back in an endless round of contacts. Schultz didn’t seem to notice. Gotta, the brunette from the party, sat primly next to Kerr. Blond Frieda, who had helped Gotta break Kerr’s foul mood, was with Dornhofer. Klauda hadn’t forgiven Kerr for the way he’d dumped her onto the ground when Big Barb startled him, so she paired off with Sergeant Linsman. Linsman didn’t say anything, but he thought there might be something unmilitary—certainly un-Marine—in a sergeant having a girl who’d been dumped by a corporal. But he decided to overcome his scruples in the spirit of the liberty. Sergeant Kelly neither knew nor cared to know the name of the woman who propped her leg over his knee. She was pretty, friendly, and available, which was all he cared about that night. He wasn’t even aware that she was one of the “nice girls” Top Myer had warned them about. She certainly wasn’t acting like a “nice girl,” not the way she levered herself onto his lap and allowed him to kiss her.

Ratliff wasn’t known for being reflective—in that group, Kerr was the reflective one, though Schultz sometimes surprised people with his perceptiveness and analytic abilities—but he was the one reflecting.

“Look at them,” he said. “They seem so happy, so carefree. No one who didn’t know would guess the hell they’ve just returned from.”

Kerr looked up from idly twining a lock of Gotta’s hair around his finger. “The return from hell is exactly why they’re so happy,” he said. “On some level, just about every one of them believes he should be dead. So they celebrate the life they aren’t sure they deserve.”

Ratliff nodded. “Party hard, just in case the universe realizes it made a mistake and takes them.”

“Right.”

“Hell of a way to make a living.”

Linsman snorted. “Do you think anybody does this to make a living?”

Nobody said anything for a while. Kona almost imperceptibly increased the distance between Ratliff and herself.

Ratliff couldn’t let it go for long. “I keep looking and not seeing faces I saw the last time we were here. And I see faces I’ve never seen here before. It makes me wonder how many faces will be different after our next deployment.

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