Terms of Enlistment 01.2: Measures of Absolution Read Online Free Page A

she’s about to complain of bruised knuckles after having beaten someone to death.  They may have had a rough time on the ground, but the squad dished out much more hurt than they took.
    "'You people'," she repeats.  "You don't care much for the military, do you?"
    "Sure I do," he replies.  "The real military.  The Marines, up there."  He gestures to the ceiling.  "The ones that keep the Chinks and the Russians from kicking us off our colonies.  You people," he says again, and nods at Jackson’s uniform, "you're not military.  You're just cops with bigger guns, nicer uniforms, and less oversight."
    "Your daughter was Navy,” she points out, and she’s briefly satisfied by the hint of pain in his face.
    "Yes, she was," he says.  "I could have gotten her in with the Commonwealth, a nice shot at a public career.  And she has to go off and play sailor. I tried to get Annie to resign, but those contracts you sign, they're one-way tickets. She served out her first enlistment, and she took the money and got the hell out, like anyone with half a brain would."
    He puts down his bottle and picks up his daughter's dog tag again.  Jackson watches as he slowly turns it between his fingers, rubbing his thumb over the raised letters of his daughter's name and service number.  She knows what would be going through her head in his place, and she wants to avoid having to answer the question he's bound to ask sooner or later, so she seizes the initiative again.
    "Do you know where I can find her?"
    He looks at her and chuckles.  It sounds like a stifled cough, entirely without humor.
    "Like I'd tell you ," he says.  "For all I know, you're a lieutenant with Intel, and they just put you in a corporal’s uniform to go and sniff around.  What do you want from my daughter, anyway?"
    "I don't really know," she admits.  "Well, for starters, I'm pretty sure she was shooting at me, and I'd like to find out what the hell was going on that night."
    "She was, huh?"
    "Half the city was.  Lots of them had military weapons.  They shot down one of our drop ships."
    "Are you sure you should be telling me that stuff?" Mr. McKenney says.  "I'm not sure I want to know about that.  If they don't want to see it on the Networks, you probably shouldn't be talking to me about it, don't you think?"
    "I don't think I give much of a shit, sir.  No offense," she adds when he looks at her in surprise.  "I want to know what the hell was going on that night.”
    "Now that's interesting," Mr. McKenney says.  "A TA soldier who wants to know why they send her out to shoot people."
    She’s getting tired of his hostility, and for a moment she considers coming clean, just to see the amused smugness on his face disappear.  Then she gets a hold of her emotions and pushes the chair away from the table to get up.
    "I'm sorry I bothered you," she says.  "I guess I ought to be going.  Thanks for the beer."
    "Oh, sit down and relax," he replies and gets up from his own chair.  "You're going to have a thicker skin than that if you want to make it to retirement.  The government is full of cranky old jerks like me."
    He walks off again, in an unhurried gait.  Jackson studies the silk-screened label of her beer bottle while Mr. McKenney rummages around in a drawer in the next room.  Then he walks back into the dining room, an old-fashioned paper notebook in his hand.
    "I don't have an address for her, just a node number.  You can try to get in touch with her yourself.  My guess is that she won't be interested in talking to you, but who knows?"
    He leafs around in his little notebook for a few moments, and then puts the open book in front of her, his finger pointing to a handwritten Net node address.  The rest of the page is filled with notes, written in blue ink, in a neat cursive hand.
    "That's the number she gave me last time I talked to her.  I'm pretty sure it's someone else's node.  Annie's just been sort of drifting from place to place since she