"Williamson,.Michael.Z.-.Freehold" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Michael Z)

trip back in a military transport. In between, the stay had been
mostly boring, very aggravating, and exhausting when it wasn't
boring.

She'd been eager at first. The chance to visit another planet, even
one torn by war, she found exciting. Upon arriving, they'd all been
restricted to base, so she saw nothing of the local culture. They
were shipped through the UN starport, and there were not even
vendors of local food to sample. Most of the other UN troops,
predominantly from Earth, had insisted on not listening to "that
raghead crap" music. She'd heard nothing but Earth pop for the
entire six months.

Then the long-term troops had resented her for her trip's duration.
They had eighteen-month rotations. It wasn't her fault, and she was
there to help the Logistic Support Function, thus freeing someone
else to go home early, but that didn't seem to matter. Apparently,
they'd rather have stood the extra time than have her take a short
tour.

There'd been a couple of missile attacks on the base while she
was there. She'd been in an orbital station doing admin during one,
and the shuttle simply waited until it was over to land. The other
one was over before she realized it wasn't a drill, and the damage
was negligible. She understood some areas had been pasted daily
and had regular body counts, but she was nowhere near those
places. She wasn't complaining, but the end result was that she
had no war stories of any kind.

It had been typical logistics work; issuing, returning and accounting
for gear and filing docs, except that the days were longer, the
facilities nonexistent and the entertainment lacking. She wasn't a
big fan of vid and the rec center's supply of books and games was
slim. She also found few people who could play table games well.
All in all, she might just as well have stayed home and not left her
dorm.

She had received additional pay and got a tax in-centive, which
would mean more records-keeping in exchange to justify the tax
return. The rest of the pay came at the cost of, naturally, more
admin. Sitting at her carrel, she coded off on her travel itinerary, her
waivers for tests and boards missed while deployed and the return
of her issued combat equipment. She had been ordered not to
open that unless attacked, which she'd found bothersome. The
fact that to inspect her gear for safety was deemed wrong because
it generated more admin seemed illogical. But then, it was the
military.

The thing which she wished she'd put off but had waded through
first, was the documentation and her personal statement on