Gosh, I'm going to have to speed up posting if I want to get this all done before I leave. Oh well, just a small one today, larger ones to come!


*Chapter 15: Above it all*

Captain-Luteniant Will DeSchmitt awoke to a sharp prod in the stomach. Standing over him was Captain Barnes, with his usual expression of scorn and contempt. "Sleeping on the job again are we? What if those (-) reptiles were to mount an invasion hmmn? Would we have to explain to the Queen that the reason she was now in a slave camp was because one of our officers wanted a brief kip?" Will scowled "Oh come off it captain, nothing ever happens here, in case you don't remember, the war is over. We won, I think." "Aye! But you can't trust those (-)ed shells; you know as well as I do that there are still pockets of resistance! The fact that they won't accept benevolent Rabbit rules just goes to show how ignorant they are." Will decided not to get into another argument; the Captain was a devout royalist and imperialist who could yell loud enough to be heard halfway across the ship, even when the engines were at full power. He changed the subject before he got another lecture. "But sir, surely the first thing the radar and scanner screens will do when they detect something is to bleep sir. It’s what they're designed to do. Its quite loud, and I assure you it has a sufficient awakening capability." "Nevertheless, we must remain eternally vigilant!"

Will sighed and went back to examining the screens. Purgatory would be like this; it was after all, where all the inept, stupid, dangerous or unlucky officers were sent. He himself was only here because the Field Marshall had conducted a surprise debriefing at the same time his daughter was... on the base. It was slightly worrying that all of Carrotus' orbital defenses were under the control of people you normally wouldn't give metal cutlery; but on the other hand the actual amount of power they had was deceptively little, they would warn of an attack, notify the proper authorities who would then go about doing the actual defending, or, as was increasingly the case with the bored and underutilized army, offending.

*bleep-bleep!*

Blast! Notify...scan...right. Another bloody asteroid. Will went back to his chartroom. It was of course one of only 14 the system's computers would allow past the firewall, but even an online discussion of stamp collecting was edge-of-your-seat excitement compared to an average day on the orbital station.

.