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Mother Confessor:

Placing my things in the footlocker at the end of my bunk, after traveling the expanse to the far depths of the female barracks. Allotted a brief amount of time to ask any questions before heading off to the PT facility on the deck beneath our feet.

“Should you find yourself with free time, consult your basic training manual. It is the fat little book in your footlocker, it will be your bible while you reside here”, Sergeant Nimix explains to me. I hold on to her words, as I search my deepest recesses of my brain for any question to ask of her.

“And if my bible should fail to address a problem, then what”, I break the silence with my question.

“Then you speak your mind, my little cherry” , she responds, following it up with, “ From now on until I relinquish you to the General, I am your mother, father, brother, sister, priest, and lover. Is that understood, cherry?”

“Yes ma’am”, I swiftly reply.

“Good, cause you don’t eat, sleep, shoot, or shit unless I say so cherry. Got it”, she gruffly barks at me.

“Yes ma’am”, I bellow back.

“Now that we understand each other, move your cherry ass down for PT!”

“Yes, Sergeant”, I return, taking swift strides toward the indicated area.

Graxis:

Standing on the bridge, watching the space out the window begin to shift as we change course. Catching sight of the pale brilliant blue ball called Neptune, in the left lower corner of the large glass. It glows happily in the blackness around it, as it makes its way through orbit around Sol. Further out from it I spot the greenish bluish dot of Uranus, winding in its odd fashion along the invisible track.

It never ceases to amaze me just how beautiful things are in the uncaring, unforgiving vacuum known as space. From the birth of stars, to the fantastic solar clouds of nebulae. It truly makes one wonder how something so dead, can be so full of life. Pondering the mystery in the majestic vastness, gazing upon the galaxies that forge their own way through the black ocean like fish without a care.