Postal Marine 1: Bellicose Read Online Free Page B

officers.
    “Don't knock it. I've seen more combat as a Postal Marine than I ever dreamed of as a Navy pilot. I love it. The Navy's really only good for massive fleet action combat and orbital bombardments. Marines get into a lot of single ship actions, a few small fleet operations in the lower security systems. I don't know if you've noticed, but the Imperium is the only human faction around with a Navy of any sort.”
    “My world went from a small city to a small ship, so there's not much I've seen.” Bophendze said.
    “If you ask me, the Navy is overpaid because they under perform. Nobody to fight. If it weren't for their ability to supplement their budget with occupation fees in the outlying systems, the Emperor would likely have cut it to a more manageable force. Besides the meddle in the succession from time to time.” Angel shrugged. “I could have stayed in the family business, but I wanted to feel like I was a part of something greater. You're laughing, but I get that in the Marines.”
    I guess I did laugh at him.
Bophendze stretched.
Is that why I couldn't find the Navy recruiter? I never understood why there was both the Postal Service and a Navy. It just seems too redundant.
    “But I'm not here to talk Imperial governance. Or your find domestic qualities. Chrachen received a dispatch that you have an urgent delivery being routed to the Orbital. The ship's not scheduled to arrive there for a few months. It's just inside my shuttle's range, and I'm making a parts run. I told him I could haul you there and back, though it would be a tight fit on the return trip.”
    Bophendze felt thrilled by the opportunity to break routine. “Just on the edge of your range? How far's that?”
    “Realistically? I can make seventy miles before life support starts to fail. We only have to go fifty-six miles, but the return will take longer due to gravity and the ship's patrol flight plan. We'll be dosing to slow our metabolism. It would be a boring trip otherwise.”
    Taking longer means tougher on the life support.
Bophendze remembered the briefing on the drugs used frequently to assist operations. The sloth drug would effectively put them to sleep, making the shuttle little more a than a marginally-guided projectile.
    “How long is the trip?”
    “The shuttle makes 1 mile per hour, so we're looking at about six days each way. We'll spend an some time at the orbital to shake off the drug effects. A chance to break routine for two weeks.”
    “Which means we'll be back in time for me to pull my next turn in cleaning.”
    “There's a positive perspective.”
----
Bophendze - Temask Orbital
    Bophendze's head pounded as he walked through the orbital.
I wish he'd told me Sloth gave migraines upon awaking.
    Bophendze spent most of his time on his home planet. Only after joining the Postal Marines did he see the inside of an orbital. Now he was in his second one. It was another Postal orbital, though the bulkheads were painted a serene green. More drugs to counteract the other drugs.
I'm not surprised they have drugs to make us more aggressive in combat.
    At least the orbital had a map. By the time the migraine started to subside he arrived at the pouch office. There he received the standard tiny package, a cube with one-meter sides.
    He looked over the outside of the package, noting the burlap layer remained intact. Then he noticed the video stamp indicating that the package included a virtual meeting. Coming from another system, virtual meetings tended to be one-sided.
    The entire Imperial Postal Service owed its existence to the clearly understood laws of nature. Man learned to use folds of realspace to travel through hyperspace to accomplish faster-than-light travel, but in the process had to accept that information itself could not make the jump. That effectively prevented faster-than-light communication and the reliance on ship-based data transfer. That and the assorted trade monopolies linked the systems of the Imperium