The Forever War #3

3 About a month later, we left for our final training exercise, maneuvers on the planet Charon. Though nearing perihelion, it was still more than twice as far from the sun as Pluto. The troopship was a converted „cattlewagon“ made to carry two hundred colonists and assorted bushes and beasts. Don‘t think it was roomy, though, just because there were half that many of us. Most of the excess space was taken up with extra reaction mass and ordnance. The whole trip took three weeks, accelerating at two gees halfway, decelerating the other half. Our top speed, as we roared by the orbit of Pluto, was around one-twentieth of the speed of light-not quite enough for relativity to rear its complicated head. Three weeks of carrying around twice as much weight as normal.. . it‘s no picnic. We did some cautious exercises three times a day and remained horizontal as much as possible. Still, we got several broken bones and serious dislocations. The men had to wear special supporters to keep from littering the floor with loose organs. It was almost impossible to sleep; nightmares of choking and being crushed, rolling over periodically to prevent blood pooling and bedsores. One girl got so fatigued that she almost slept through the experience of having a rib push out into the open air. I‘d been in space several times before, so when we finally stopped decelerating and went into free fall, it was nothing but relief. But some people had never been out, except for our training on the moon, and succumbed to the sudden vertigo and disorientation. The rest of us cleaned up after them, floating through the quarters with sponges and inspirators to suck up the globules of partly-digested „Concentrate, High-protein, Low-residue, Beef Flavor (Soya).“ We had a good view of Charon, coming down from orbit. There wasn‘t much to see, though. It was just a dim, off-white sphere with a few smudges on it. We landed about two hundred meters from the base. A pressurized crawler came out and mated with the ferry, so we didn‘t have to suit up. We clanked and squeaked up to the main building, a featureless box of grayish plastic. Inside, the walls were the same drab color. The rest of the company was sitting at desks, chattering away. There was a seat next to Freeland. „Jeff-feeling better?“ He still looked a little pale. „If the gods had meant for man to survive in free fall, they would have given him a cast iron glottis.“ He sighed heavily. „A little better. Dying for a smoke.“