Last Calle

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The shaking hands of pre-drop jitters got to Catalina every time she sat in her pod. Didn’t matter if it was to clean it, dust the interior, spot-weld a plate from a recovered pod, or to drop out of a ship’s bay at terminal velocity. Her hands would shake, her mouth go dry, and her heart would hammer into her ribcage so hard she thought she might die.

Ops gave the ODSTs cleaning duty on pods for one reason; not to clean them, but to normalise being in them. The pods were kept in a sterile environment, exposed to the vacuum of space for hours at a time to get rid of any nasties.

Recovered pods from groundside ops were put through the ringer elsewhere, but they still got the ‘Jumpers to assist in the spot-welding, or the repair process. Kept them familiar, was the official reason.

In reality, the exposure of ODSTs to their pods did the exact opposite. Catalina’s body was ready for the world to give out underneath her, and the feeling of weightlessness to take over. It expected the burning head of an atmosphere to warm the insides to a toasty forty degrees, while the outside to a much less reasonable sixteen hundred, maybe even more.

Her subconscious prepared herself for these things, but with the air duster in hand and the pressurised canister on her thigh, it didn’t come. It wouldn’t come, she told herself.

When she’d completed the dusting process, the pod looked just as spotless and clean as it was when she opened the door. With nothing else to do, she stepped out of the aloft chunk of Titanium, and back onto the thrumming deck of the UNSC Lilyhammer. The vibrations thrummed up her legs, and put her at ease, her hands stopped their shaking, and her heart slowed its pounds.

“Alright, ladies,” she turned to the rest of the drop bay. “How’re we doing?”

“Same as ever, Gunny.” someone replied. “Doing pointless tasks, for the Corps.”

Catalina turned to the wise-cracker, smiling at them with a crooked grin. “You damn right. Without this you’d be relaxing around a poker table,” she said, stepping down the line of pods. One by one, the rest of Gunnery Sergeant Calle’s unit appeared out of their pods, air dusters in hand and tanks on their thighs.

“You’d be sipping beer from a warm can, eating your cold rations,” she shook her head, paused, and turned around to face down the straight-backed line. “That sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”

“Yes ma’am!” came the chorsued reply.

Sergeant Calle held a finger up, and jabbed it at the line. “And that,” she said. “Is exactly why that shit is verboten!” She reached into a pouch on her belt, tugging out a carton of cigarettes. “The Corps should be fun enough for you slouches,” she said, slipping a cigarette between her teeth and grinning. “And the Corps has lots of activities to keep you occupied. Fun is mandatory. Aren’t we all havin’ fun?!” she yelled.

“Yes ma’am!”

Smiling a satisfied smile, Catalina reached up with a strike-anywhere match and raked it across her ODST chestplate, watching it spark to life. In the oxygen-rich atmosphere of the ship, it burned a bit brighter and hotter than normal, and she placed the lit flame to the end of her cigarette, taking a puff of the fresh nicotine-laced death stick with a sigh of pleasure.

She took the cigarette out of her mouth and licked her lips, looking at the faces of the rest of her squad. “Anyone still got their ass hanging out of their pod?” she asked. Waiting for a reply, she got none. She checked up and down the line, seeing everyone accounted for, and nodded. “Good. Now go on, get outta here before they vent the deck.”

The soldiers hiked up whatever they had left behind, and becan scurrying from the drop bay. Catalina watched them go, striding along down the black-steel floor with measured, relaxed steps, but a ramrod stiff gait.

She paused by the doorway to the drop bay, watching her soldiers file out, depositing their dusters in a crate as they went. When the last one left, Catalina unhitched the can from her belt and slid it into the foam-hole it came from, shutting the crate with a hiss and a click. In the depressurised environment of the drop bay, the dusters would explode if not kept in a sealed crate, and so she ran a finger along the seal, trying to wiggle it through. With a pat of the lid, she nodded, and stood back up, turning around and hitting a button next to the door.

“Dropbay One is clean as a whistle,” she said. “May I offer my sincerest petty insults to whomsoever decided to dirty it in the first place.”

“Glad to hear it, Sergeant,” a synthetic voice replied, then sighed in a way that sounded like a fizzle of electricity coming from a sparking wire. “May I ask you refrain from smoking in my ship?”

Gunnery Sergeant Calle chewed the filter of her cigarette and shook her head. “You may, but I shall ignore that request.”

“It’s technically a contraband.” the synthetic voice replied.

Catalina laughed, leaning up against the wall and giving a longing look to the intercom. “You know you’d forgive me, Saint.”

The AI hummed in consternation, and Catalina could just imagine her avatar giving her the flat stare she always did, with her lips upturned and pursed in that way she did whenever she was scolding someone, foot tapping on the invisible ground she stood on.

“It’s the drop-bay, anyway,” the ODST continued. “You’re just gonna vent it into space. No-one else onboard has to deal with the chemicals I put in my body.” She took another puff to punctuate that statement, drawing as much as possible into her lungs and letting her eyes flutter shut.

Half the cigarette burned away.

The AI sighed. “That’s not the point,” she said. “How’re you gonna explain stinking like a smokehouse, to anyone who might ask?”

Catalina pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and stubbed it onto her armour, letting the end fall to the deck. “That’s the beautiful part, Saint.” She offered a wink to the intercom. “Everyone knows not to.”

She hit the door release and stepped through, sealing it up behind her. “You can vent away, I’m clear.”

“I wish you weren’t,” Saint replied.

“Ooh,” Catalina offered a pleasantly-surprised look to the AI’s intercom. “Catty today, aren’t we?” she teased, before walking away.

No other sound came from the room but the creaking of the drop-bay doors, followed by the hissing whoosh of atmosphere escaping the bay. The cigarette butt and the ash was swept out through one of the drop-pod holes, and into the void beyond.

After a few seconds of total vacuum, Saint fed air back in, and shut the pod bay doors.

“Hey, big guy, what’s for breakfast?” Catalina put her tray down on the sliding bars and leaned over, smiling at the white-clad mess hall worker.

“Beans, bacon, and rice,” the man replied, slapping a ladle-full of the greasy concoction down on her tray.

She watched it, nodding. “Nice,” she said, entirely without enthusiasm, watching it pool through the tray’s sections. “Ration-food. And for dinner tonight?”

“Beans, and bacon,” he said with a grin. Slamming another ladle down on her tray with a mirthless grin. “Try it with Rice,”

“Cheers,” Catalina said, her smile turning genuine. “Keep it real,”

She grabbed her tray and lifted it, moving along the line to grab a fork and a knife. Rethinking her choices, she put the knife and fork back down, settling for a spoon instead. Further down the line, she picked up a metal mug and poured some hot water in it. With a surreptitious glance around, she reached into a pouch and picked out a silken bag, dunking it into the mug.

She held the tray aloft with one hand while the other held the steaming mug of tea. The viscous concoction of beans, bacon and rice settled down right as she made her way up to the ODST’s table, shifting two of them to one side to settle down between them.

“Alright ladies,” she said with a grin, setting her tray down and bumping up against the two beside her. “Move over would ya?”

“Jesus, Zach,” someone down the line said, her voice shrill and piercing. “Can you take up more space?”

“Probably,” Zach replied with a gruff chuckle. “Could you be more ugly? Probably not,”

“When did that become a running thing?” the woman asked.

“I’m surprised it hasn’t always been,” Catalina said, scooping up a spoonful of her rations and shovelling it into her mouth without ceremony.

“Hey, Gunny, what you eating today?”

“Ration food,” she said around a mouthful. “You should try it. It’s piss!” she laughed, and the rest did too, scooping up their own spoonfuls of the stuff.

“You comin’ to dinner tonight?” someone asked.

She looked up at them with a grimace and furrowed her brow. “And ruin my figure?” she asked. “Nah. One a day is enough for me.”

“Maybe she doesn’t fancy the rations, eh?” Zach said.

“Yeah, I’m sure officers get it so much better,” the woman from before scoffed, echoed by a few others in the group.

“You know it,” Catalina replied. “It’s all Sweet Williams, champagne, real bacon and eggs served on silver trays.” She laughed and took another bite. “Real meat, too. Not this synthetic crap.” She pointed down at the slop in her tray with her spoon.

“Life’s good for those bourgeois motherfuckers, huh?” Zach sniped.

Catalina made a noise before she swallowed her mouthful, pointing at him with her spoon. “Not all the time,” she said. “They do have to deal with wise-cracking underlings.”

“Oh, poor me,” Zach put a hand to his head and arched his back over the bench. “Poor me. Man, pour me a drink!”

“The day they start serving good food on military ships is the day I grow a second head,” someone else remarked.

“And that’s why you won’t see me eat more than I need to,” Catalina nodded, holding up her mug and taking a swig. “I’ll stick to this for now, thanks,” she rattled the mug, “I like my coffee like I like my men,”

The rest of the squad exchanged curious, confused glances around the table, while the Gunnery Sergeant sipped her beverage.

“Uh,” Jacob began. “You don’t drink coffee, ma’am.”

“No,” Catalina agreed, shooting him a wink. “I don’t like coffee,” she said. “I drink tea.”