The Mayflower Project by Katherine Applegate

Author:Katherine Applegate [Applegate, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Action & Adventure, Extraterrestrial beings, Time travelers, Juvenile Fiction, Space travelers, Fantasy & Magic, General, Science Fiction, Interplanetary voyages, Fiction, Space flight
Published: 2011-01-25T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“MAYBE THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END,

IT DOESN’T MATTER: YOU FOLLOW ORDERS.”

Sergeant Tamara Hoyle had a simple enough task: Protect the perimeter. A standard task for any Marine. Protect the perimeter of the compound from any unauthorized persons attempting to enter or depart.

She followed orders, deployed her Marines as she had been instructed to do by her captain, kept them alert, did her best to keep them focused on the job at hand. One or two of her Marines raised complaints, fears, wanted to know what kind of a mission this was, anyway, standing guard at the end of the world when they should be home with their families, after all what did any of it matter?

Sergeant Hoyle had taken time to explain patiently. “Excuse me, son? Did I hear you right?” she demanded, levering her body forward, bringing her angry, incredulous face to within a millimeter of the unfortunate private’s nose. “You want to go home, Marine? Well, I guess you’re just about the first Marine in all of history who has thought about that. All those guys who went ashore on Iwo Jima, Inchon, any of a hundred different places, getting chewed up on godforsaken beaches, I don’t guess any of them ever thought maybe they’d rather be home drinking a cold beer.”

“All due respect, Sarge, this is different.”

“No, private, it isn’t different. You’re a Marine. You have your orders. You follow orders. Maybe you live, maybe you die, maybe you like it, maybe you don’t, maybe the world is coming to an end, it doesn’t matter: You follow orders. Is that clear?”

It was clear.

It was clear to the private. It was not clear to the sergeant.

Tamara Hoyle was twenty-two years old with two and a half years in the Corps. She was seven weeks pregnant, a fact she had not yet revealed to her husband, a Marine who was on embassy duty in Tokyo, or to her superiors. The Corps provided for an eighteen-month leave of absence in the event of pregnancy — time that had to be made up.

There would be no hiding it, of course. Tamara Hoyle was five foot nine, one hundred and twenty pounds, with the kind of stomach you get from doing a hundred crunches every morning followed by fifty military push-ups and a five-mile run. You couldn’t hide a pregnant belly on that kind of body.

Tamara Hoyle loved the Corps. She loved being a Marine. She believed everything she had ever heard (or said) about duty, honor, and country. And the Marine sergeant was determined that the end of the world would still find her little part of the Corps executing their lawful orders. Semper Fi: always faithful. Always.

Following orders had presented no conflicts between Tamara Hoyle the Marine and Tamara Hoyle the someday mother. The Marines guarding the compound had been fully briefed — it was thought they’d learn the truth anyway — and Sergeant Hoyle had accepted the fact that her baby would never be born. That there would, in all probability, be no world for her to be born into.

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