Terms of Enlistment 01.1: Lucky Thirteen Read Online Free

baggy flight suit.
    I didn’t turn it down, even though I didn’t want it. You don’t turn down awards just because you think you don’t deserve them. If the drop ship jocks started doing that, the only people wearing ribbons would be the desk jockeys, the officers who let their buddies put them in for medals after milk run missions that may have involved shots fired within half a parsec. Promotions ride on points, and those ribbons count for a lot of those points. I took the medal, saluted, and smiled like a good Second Lieutenant who wants to make Captain someday.
    But back in my berth, I took that DFC out of its silk-lined case and put it into the chest pocket of my Class A uniform, the one I wear maybe once a year. Then I got out Lucky Thirteen’s number plate fragment and tucked it into the medal case instead. It seemed a more appropriate tenant for that nice little silk-lined case.
    They gave me a new ship, of course. I got a brand new Whiskey Wasp after all. It’s a fine ship, the newest and most advanced version of the Wasp drop ship, twice as powerful and four times as capable as my old crate.
    Still, I’d trade it off in a second if I could get back Lucky Thirteen just for a little while.
     
    —END—