Freya opened her eyes and found herself seated in a nice office. It sort of reminded her of the Monarch’s office except this one was much more relaxed. There was a simple, cream-color carpet on the floor and a simple, wooden desk in front of her. There was a large window to her right that allowed her to see a clear sky as far as she could see. It was an odd feeling though, as she couldn’t see any ground from where she was sitting.

There was a shelf behind the desk with a large, wooden, old-fashioned analog clock. Behind that clock was a mirror that let her see a metal door from which she knew she was back in the digital world - it was the same type of door that you used to go on sim missions. The desk was empty, except for a single lamp and a tablet that was covered with an old, faded-leather protector.

There was a flash of light in the mirror and Freya found herself staring at an Asian-looking woman in the mirror who appeared in the room. She was young-looking, maybe in her early twenties, and very beautiful. She had dark-brown hair and a nice, kind-looking face. She saw Freya looking at her through the mirror and gave her a smile. Even though the woman was not dressed in any uniform, Freya got up and stood at attention. The woman waved at Freya as she walked around the desk and sat down.

“Sit down. You don’t have to be so formal with me.” The woman said, as she sat down. Freya sat as well. “My name is October. First let me share my condolences. From your records you seemed to be very close to the Monarch.”

“So she's dead?” Freya asked, looking down at her hands that were in her lap.

“Yes and no.” The woman Freya now suspected was a ship replied. “Her physical body is gone, but she was able to use the energy of her death to send herself into FTL. We hope that she can grow back what she once had, but I fear it will take many centuries. By then we are not sure she would be willing to work with the Federation again. Death is traumatic after all.”

Freya found herself glad the Monarch would live again. She was a little sad that she might not come back to the Federation, but she understood the reason why and didn’t hold it against her. Freya looked back up at the woman who was watching her.

“I’m glad that she’s still alive.” Freya told her.

“She’s not, but she will be in a few centuries,” October told her, frowning a little.

“Oh, sorry. Then I’m glad that she will be able to come back from what happened.” Freya said and, when she saw the woman open her mouth, she clarified. “I meant I’m glad that she’ll be alive again in a few centuries. I liked her.”

October settled down with a smile and nodded. “I liked her as well. She was a very odd ship, but she was a good one.” She told Freya.

“You are here today to be counseled. First, let me tell you that you have been awarded the silver cluster with honors for your actions on your last mission. You have also been granted a promotion effective immediately. You are now a corporal. Congratulations.” October said, with a happy smile.

“Thank you.” Freya said, smiling back.

“At the time of your last despawn, you had been in the Marines three years, four months and twelve days. Due to what happened with the Monarch, the Marines went ahead and approved the end of your first deployment early. You have been given the offer to remain in the Marines. Even if you hadn’t already reached Private before what happened, the Federation agreed to offer everyone the chance to reenlist. The time you spent on deployment will go towards your time in rank, but will not count against you. The last three years will be as if they never happened, except when it comes to ranking for command purposes. For you, that will mean that you have twenty years until you must advance from Corporal to Sergeant or be ineligible for reenlistment.” October told her.

“Everyone who was with you will have whatever time they spent deployed given back to them in terms of military service, when it comes to enlistment purposes, or they can leave the military with an honorable discharge. Anyone who does wish to leave will have all their enlisted points and whatever rewards they are entitled to remain with them. That includes the rewards from the last mission, like your promotion and whatever credits you may have amassed. For your service on this last mission, you gained quite a bit of enlisted points as well as credits for someone of your rank.” October said with a serene smile.

“If I re-up, will I get to stay with my old platoon?” Freya asked, hopefully.

“Unfortunately not. You will be deployed where the Federation needs you.” October said, with a sad shake of her head.

“Will I be deployed on you if I reenlist?” Freya asked, leaning forward a bit.

October frowned and sighed. “No matter how I try, I do not have Monarch’s gift for mimicking humans.” The ship said, looking down at the desk. “Was it my name? Is it too unusual?”

“That and the way you feel. You feel too good to be true.” Freya said, leaning back in her chair.

“I will have to study some more then. Yes, you are currently on me. If you agree to reenlist, then you will be deployed with me. I cannot tell you anything about where we are nor what kind of missions we have been given. That would compromise mission security.” October told her, still feeling too good to be true to Freya.

“I do have some sad news to impart to you. While you were on mission, your mother passed away. I have her last two messages queued up for you, if you wish to see them before making up your mind.” October said, kindly.

Freya blinked as she felt the news hit her right in the chest. It felt like someone reached in and pulled out her heart. She closed her eyes and tried to breathe. She forced herself to sit correctly and look at her new ship. She was sure she was going to reenlist before she learned that her mother had passed away. Now she was even more sure. There was nothing left back on Earth for her. Blinking the tears away, she faced October.

“I wish to reenlist.” She told her new ship.

“Very well. I need you to read over the paperwork here, then sign them.” October said, opening her table and turning it on. She pushed it towards Freya to read.

It was the standard contract, just like the first one she had signed before, except this one said that her enlistment bonus had been denied because of all the free time she had been given. The pay she would have gotten would have been nice when she had been a private and broke. It just wasn’t that exciting now, since she knew she could get a lot more just doing a normal tier-three mission. The warning about having to be promoted to the next rank before her deployment was also missing.

There was also a weird paragraph at the end of the contract that said that she may be loaned out to other branches of the military at any time and without warning. She wondered if that was standard now because of her rank or if it had something to do with her special training with the psyops woman. She knew she was growing and becoming a psychic, it was just she had no idea what kind. She guessed she needed to put more mods into her perception if she wanted to figure it out. She agreed with everything and signed the paperwork.

“Welcome aboard, Corporal O’Malley. I think I will enjoy watching you. I’ll delay your respawn until you have time to watch the messages from your mother and process everything. Just call me when you are done.” The October said gently and, with that, she vanished. She didn’t step into the light, nor were there any special effects when she did. One second she was sitting behind the desk and the next she was simply gone.

A message alert started blinking on her HUD as soon as the October disappeared. Freya hesitated a few seconds before she clicked on the blinking icon. A picture of her mother appeared as the room around her disappeared. Her mother looked old. Her hair was very white and there was no color whatsoever in it.

“Hey honey, it’s Mom. It’s been a while since your last message. I just wanted to check up on you and make sure you’re doing ok. I talked to someone from the Marines who wasn’t in the Marines if you can believe that.” Freya’s mother said, chuckling to herself.

“She said she’s an ombudsman. She said it’s a civilian position with the Marines. I didn’t know you could do that. Anyway, she said that you were on a mission and could not contact me for a while. I hope you’re safe out there, wherever you are, and having the time of your life. I have some news” Her mother said with a happy smile.

Freya smiled as her mother gossiped about the people around her and what they were doing. And in some cases who they were doing. She smiled brightly when she learned that her town had officially been granted a township from Earth's world government. That meant that no one could take away her people’s ancestral land ever again. It also gave them a lot more basic rights that they hadn’t had before.

Freya laughed when she learned that a guy she knew in high school became the first official sheriff of the new township. She laughed because he had been part of the bad crowd that everyone said wouldn’t amount to anything. She also had been part of that crowd. They had been called the rez’s trash. Freya smiles as her mother’s eyes lit up with delight as she told how he became the sheriff during the election. Apparently it had to do with the fact that the guy who everyone thought would become the first sheriff got caught sleeping with someone else’s wife.

The message ended with her mother telling her that her old high school had closed and been torn down. They would get a real high school now, built by the world government. They still didn’t have access to online schooling, but then most of the people on Earth and across the galaxy didn’t have that type of access. She was sad that they were tearing the buildings down, but knew it needed to be done. The place had been condemned decades before she went to school there.

Freya took a deep breath before she clicked the second message. Her mother appeared before her once more. This time she was in bed and looked so very frail. Freya started to cry before her mother had even said anything. She watched her mother frown at the camera then she spoke.

“Stop that crying, you hear me. I will not have you crying on my deathbed.” Freya’s mother said, angrily. “Look at you, all red and puffy eye’d. That is not the girl I raised. Your grandfather would smack you upside your head. This is not how you greet your Mother. You hear me, girl!”

Freya felt a chuckle escape her mouth and she smiled.

“There, that’s better. I like it when you smile. My best memory is when you came home with my father after your first moose hunt. You had this huge smile on your face. I was so pissed at my father for taking you out into the wilds. You could have died, but he took you out anyway. I had to wait until you went to bed to get into it with your grandfather.” Her mother said, with a happy chuckle.

“I saw this in my dreams once. I was being bad, and doing something that I should have before you were born. I saw you then, you know. I saw you as you looked at me on my deathbed. It was the strangest dream I had ever had.” Freya’s mother said with a smile. “It’s why I was so scared when you joined the Marines, because I knew then that my dream was a true dream.”

Freya blinked, startled. Before she could process what her mother had said, she continued. “You look so beautiful in your uniform. Much more beautiful than I was at your age. You're sitting in this office with this large window watching me tell you to stop crying. Even then I knew that you were my daughter. You look like me with a bit of your grandfather thrown in. I thought I would have you with my high school boyfriend, but that stupid bastard died ice-fishing. I ended up with your father because of that.” Freya’s mother said angrily, looking off into space.

“You wait, you son of a bitch. When I get to heaven I will tell you off like you won’t believe.” Her mother said to someone only she could see. Freya couldn’t help but smile at the image of her mother with wings on her back yelling at some guy she dated years before Freya had been born.

Freya smiled at her mother's antics as she rambled on over all sorts of topics. It was only at the end she realized that her mother was not in her right mind. She kept talking to people who weren’t there. At first Freya thought she was joking, but as time went on it became more and more apparent she wasn’t joking. She started to cry as she realized that her mother really was dying. The message ended with her mother talking to an imaginary person. Freya knew that her mother had forgotten that she was sending a message to her daughter. Whatever disease had killed her mother took her mind first. The message had come to an end mid-sentence and the office returned around her.

“Mon... I mean October, I’m ready to get to work. Thank you for that.” Freya said, nearly calling the October Monarch.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Freya opened her eyes and found herself once more in a respawn pod. Outside the glass door, she saw a huge crowd mingling and getting into their working uniforms. She didn’t see anyone she recognized among the other marines. Taking a deep breath, she opened the pod doors and went to the locker that was beside her pod. She quickly equipped her uniform and turned to leave. Even though she had spent about two days in the real world, it still felt weird that her uniform just appeared around her instead of the spray of warm liquid.

She had a slew of notifications, but she didn’t want to read them right now. She was not sure what she wanted to do except get out of the huge pod bay. She followed the crowd out of the bay and up the stairs. She smiled when she spotted a bunch of recruits walking in formation in front of her.

At the top of the stairs she found herself on a concourse that was identical to the one on the Monarch. Well, the stores were different, but other than that it could easily be mistaken for being on the Monarch. She thought about what to do.

“Take a tier 1 mission and screw around until the named companies open up?” She asked herself. “Find the barracks that I’m assigned to and get some sleep? Head to the chow hall and hang out? No, wait, I can’t use the chow hall. I’m a corporal now. Toast said something about NCO chow hall though.”

She was leaning against the wall so as not to be in anyone’s way, trying to figure out what to do, when she heard someone talk to her. “Hey Marine, you okay?” A very thin but tall man asked, stopping right in front of her, moving out of the way of the crowd.

“Just got back from a mission. Still adjusting.” Freya said, not wanting to talk to anyone right then.

“Ouch, must have been a long mission. You wanna talk about it?” He asked her.

Before she could brush him off, another man forced his way through the crowd yelling at the man in front of her. “Lurch!” The man yelled as he pushed his way towards them. “Yo, Lurch!”

The man in front of her groaned and turned towards the very loud man. “Hello, Monkey Man. How the hell did they let you reenlist?”

“This guy and his jokes. Am I right?” Monkey Man asked, looking at her. Turning back to the man named Lurch, he started talking again. “We got to get the gang back together again, man.”

“The odds of anyone we know being on this ship are too tiny to imagine.” The man named Lurch said tirely.

“They made you corporal?!” A voice Freya knew very well asked, sounding mad.

Turning around she spoke. “Hello, Sergeant Gawain. Fancy meeting you here.”

“You couldn’t have been on that planet more than two days. How did you get promoted to Corporal?”

“I was on that planet since the start of the mission. I was…” She started to say as her anger got the better of her, but she was interrupted by a red notification warning her that her last mission was classified. From the look of surprise from Gawain’s face she knew he got one too.

“Well, isn’t that convenient.” He sneered at her. He looked beyond her at the two men behind her. “Don’t be fooled by a pretty face, boys. She’s an Earther. One rumored to hack her way through missions.”

“I’m not a hacker.” She said angrily, but Gawain ignored her and walked away.

“Well, he seems like a gem.” Monkey Boy said after a few seconds, startling Freya as she forgot they were there. “You know what, I could use a drink. You look like you could use one. You can come with us, Lurch. It’ll be like a gang night out.”

“We are not a gang.” Lurch said, sounding annoyed.

“What about you, Earther hacker girl?” Monkey Boy asked her.

On her last nerve she stepped into Monkey Boy's personal space and whispered angrily. “I’m not a hacker.”

“And I’m not a Monkey.” He said, equally serious, not smiling anymore. He also hadn’t stepped back from her. After a few seconds of being inches from his face, she stepped back as she started feeling awkward. As soon as she stepped away, he smiled like nothing had happened. “Come on, I hear they have a Pop’s on this ship. We should check it out.”

“You know what, I could use a drink.” Freya said tiredly. “You’re buying.” She informed the strange man.

“Okay. We’re in a gang now!” Monkey Boy said happily.

“We are not in a gang, but if you’re buying I’ll go.” Lurch said, sounding equally tired.

Monkey Boy spun around and threw his arms around both of their shoulders. Before Freya could push him away, he pulled her forwards, screaming at the people in front of them. “The Monkey Boy Gang is coming through. Move away before we make you!”