Jethro: First to Fight by Chris Hechtl Page B

from the kid's IFF, but the dossier had a more
in-depth file. A human male stared at him on his HUD. He had piercing eyes and
black stubble for hair. “A rifleman. Three months experience in basic infantry.
He went through the accelerated boot program,” Schultz said, making a
distasteful taste. “He comes recommended by Lieutenant Silverman.”
    “Oh?”
    “Yes. Replacement for Miles,” Schultz
informed them. The bear nodded slowly. He'd expected it. He'd hoped to pick
someone up from F platoon, but that just wasn't in the cards. F platoon was
scattered all over the system, they were all making names for themselves, and
rising through the ranks to noncom or even commissioned positions. Still, it
was a bit short for a general infantry man with only a few months on his ticket
and a less than stellar training record to get a recon posting. “Another
shooter is in the pipeline, a Veraxin female. We'll be seeing her a bit later.”
That sobered their meeting.
    ...*...*...*...*...
    After the bear had left, the squad
headed to the mess deck. The galley was full as usual, so they patiently took
their turn standing in line, shuffling along until it was their turn. Once they
had their trays full they took the seats in the Marine section and wolfed down
the food quickly so the next grunts in line could sit.
    “What was that slop?” Hurranna asked.
She wrinkled her pert feline nose and twitched her whiskers in annoyance.
Whatever it was it obviously didn't agree with her tender feline sense of what
was and wasn't edible.
    Jethro wrinkled his nose and poked at
the remains on his tray. “What in the mess? I'm not sure if it was soybean
surprise or some spam substitute.” There was even a line to get rid of the
trays. Once they dumped the wreckage into the recycler and stacked the empty
trays they headed back to Marine country.
    “You can tell we're becoming
institutionalized if they start screwing the mess up like that!” Hurranna said
shaking her head mournfully.
    “It's just because they're low on
protein. At least it's not nana Matriarch's bug soup,” Jethro replied. He was
curious about how low on protein Firefly really was. It wasn't like they
couldn't recycle a lot of the protein. Like Hurranna just pointed out they
could grow protein in the form of soy or other beans if they do not have any
real meat available to vat clone and grow, but it was a poor substitute for
Neos. They flopped down on their racks and got comfortable. Sergei immediately
closed his eyes, one arm used as a pillow. From his flicking tail they could
tell he was still annoyed. Jethro glanced at Hurranna, but she was looking at
herself in the mirror on the inside of her locker door. He turned back to the
liger.
    Sergei was also looking a bit dyspeptic.
He groaned. Jethro flicked a glance his way. The liger opened his eyes and
glared. “Do you have any idea how many of those damn things I had to eat?” he
demanded.
    Jethro chuckled shaking his head. He
picked at his slop as he reminisced. Bug sandwiches and stew were a not quite
fond dinner memory from their childhood. When protein sources would get low the
pride would cut back on rations and the kits were the first hit. Kits were
expendable, they could always make more after all. It was the law of nature
with their kind. Or at least it was. The matriarch would try to make up for it
with any source of protein. Any . She knew the importance of keeping
their generations going. She admitted once that she'd gotten the idea from a
very old anthro cartoon about a lion cub who befriended a warthog and a rat
thing. Some sort of dog... he shook the thought off.
    “What's he talking about?” Asazi asked,
pointing the end of her fork at Sergei and looking from one Neo to the other.
    “Trust me you don't want to know,”
Hurranna said, laying back with her hands over her stomach. She closed her
eyes. “Crunchy tacos with twitching legs sticking out... Yup, them's were the
days. Made going through survival