Eric Spears

His uncle’s office hadn’t changed. The deep space as seen through glass walls was unnerving as Eric locked his eyes on his uncle.

Mike Spears already had his jacket off, indicating informality and he motioned toward a seat.

Sitting down Eric waited for an outburst or some other form of disapproval from his uncle.

“You are getting shafted Eric,” his uncle said looking at him.

Eric nodded, not sure if his voice would betray him.

“Marine Public relations has gone so far as to hire a couple civilian firms to help with the damage being inflicted by the UE agents,” Mike said rubbing the bridge of his nose. “It isn’t cheap but we are being pushed hard.”

“I’m sorry sir,” Eric said.

Mike shook his head.

“You haven’t done anything you shouldn’t,” Mike said. “It is just after the Rock Republic incident I think the UE bastards have latched onto you. They did find the mole in Fleet and I understand they actually managed to compromise the Army networks. As far as we know the Marine networks are secure, but the Army is bigger and uses a lot of out dated equipment with a lot of old code in some of their systems. Not primary combat units, that is kept up to date, but in secondary emergency response systems, like emergency network relay nodes and boosters. They piggy backed off that into more secure Army networks.”

“I’ve stopped accepting e-mail from anyone I don’t know and my public contact ID has been changed,” Eric said. “Even other people in the platoon are getting hate mail and death threats.”

Mike nodded without apparent surprise.

“Well,” Eric’s Uncle said. “You should know that Republic Intelligence is monitoring your e-mail and tracking those people down for analysis. Nothing I can do about your public contact ID.”

Eric nodded. That is what he had expected.

“However, there is another problem, seeing as how you are a video star,” Uncle Mike said.

Eric raised an eyebrow.

“Good news is that you have been selected for Operation Shadow Strike,” Mike said and Eric smiled.

“But we haven’t completed the trials?” Eric said.

Mike nodded.

“Well, yes,” Mike said. “The UE attack on Everette has sped things up and Major Moore was directed to make her decision sooner rather than later. RepInt is pushing to get Operation Shadow Strike moving because of recent breaches in security.”

“Thank you,” Eric said.

“Now the bad news. Lots of people are keeping tabs on you,” Mike said. “Which means any top secret missions are going to avoid you like the plague. Officially you are going to be rejected.”

Eric dropped his head. That had been his one hope. Maybe if he could leave for five years people would forget about him.

“Which keeping you around is still a problem so you will be re-assigned to Fleet Security Force and assigned a deep space cruiser,” Mike said.

Eric winced. If his uncle wanted him out of system and gone for a while then that was a way to do it. Not that he could blame his uncle, or fault the logic. Deep space cruisers went out for five or more years but had the ability to stay out for decades.

“Yes sir,” Eric said.

Mike nodded.

“Don’t take it so hard,” his uncle said. “Things could be worse. You don’t have Han assassins after you and the idiots who hate you right now have short memories and will have forgotten you within the next month because their hate will be focused somewhere else. Such morons are easily manipulated.”

“Thank you uncle,” Eric said without emotion. That was supposed to make him feel better?

His uncle shrugged.

“Deep space cruiser duty isn’t so bad,” Mike said. “I hear they are going to change the uniform to brown pants.”

“Brown pants?” Eric asked raising an eyebrow. There was a gleam in his uncle’s eye.

“Before the AI wars back on Earth there was some space series where expendable troops wore red shirts, the series after the AI wars kept with that but instead of red shirts they wore brown pants.”

“I don’t get it,” Eric said.

Mike smiled broadly.

“Well, way back in the seventeen hundreds,” Mike said enjoying his story. “A planetary nation had officers that wore red shirts. They said it was so if they got shot their troops wouldn’t notice the blood and wouldn’t lose their fighting spirit. Well, there is a joke that their opponents got scared easily and instead of a red shirt to hide their injuries they wore brown pants to hide the fact they shit their pants. So the expendable troops learned that red shirts meant they were expendable and decided to wear brown pants to hide how scared they were, or something. So on a deep space cruiser, since things are so boring, on those rare instances that Marines are called on they might need brown pants.”

“Uncle Mike?” Eric said and Mike smiled. “Your jokes suck.”

Mike chuckled.

“Deep space duty isn’t so bad,” Mike said. “It will give you a chance to work on your certifications and who knows, in five years when the war has heated up even more you will be eligible for cadre status.”

“And I could be the only non-combat veteran in the Corps,” Eric said.

Mike shrugged with a half smile.