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e last thing he saw before the first natural sleep
in months was the spiderlike lights of a city starting to roll past the
window.
Another time, another place. Another dark room. He was inspecting the brand
new Corporals stripe officially awarded a few hours before they were let
loose on Arcturius for a few days furlough. It was no extra weight, but it
was gold to him. Not that he really needed it with his fellow soldiers, he'd
earned their respect by always being in the right spot when needed. He'd
saved two of their lives in tight spots through no fault of their own, so
he'd been proud enough not to tell anyone. But the camera relay captured it
all as always, and he'd had to suffer the indignity of seeing his name in the
next official dispatch.
He undressed and neatly hung up the uniform before putting on the casual off
duty attire. Tomorrow he'd see the sights of the town with the other
troopers, and rage it up with the women who gravitated towards military
uniforms.
Arcturius was an unofficial military R&R planet, full of all the goodies
off-duty soldiers headed for the moment their fat paychecks and rare slack
time arrived. The resulting wild scenes often went down in folklore, to be
told and retold (an
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