The flight of KSD-A2800 Partisans that had accompanied the cargo ship hed been sent on had been somewhat reassuring. He always loved seeing them in action, like birds in flight, only as deadly as they were graceful. Every time one rolled off the line he felt like hed set something free. Yes, he enjoyed seeing them under any circumstances.
Not that these circumstances were necessarily ideal.
Konstantin Grigoriyich Petrovin looked back towards the cockpit of the vessel as a shudder went through the hull beneath his feet. The copilot looked back at him and nodded. Docked.
Releasing the shoulder harness which kept him in place in the event of catastrophic loss of atmosphere, or worse, Kostya willed himself to his feet, finding the effort a bit more difficult than usual. Those feet would be walking him straight to the recruitment office, and from there, fate only knew.
Making sure to keep his steps as measured as possible, the young man swallowed a lump in his throat and proceeded to walk down the cramped corridor of the Typhoon-class Cruiser, taking note of the clear-cut directions to the room he was seeking, and always graciously giving way to any soldiers who were in a greater hurry than he was.
I suppose I should be in a hurry. I asked for this, didnt I?
Second thoughts. He suppressed a wince.
Not now.
Kostya set his face as if it were stone.
The Coalition cant afford cowards, can it?
But it was admittedly hard to know whether or not it could afford him. From the moment hed stepped into the room he suddenly felt out of place in a strange sort of way. Granted, none of the individuals presently waiting for their personal applications were... standardized, but they were hardly his league.
Hed made his standard work clothes as neat and smart as he possibly could; the stains he could not remove he preferred to think of as replacements for decorations on some mock military uniform. After all, he figured, they showed the signs of hard work and diligence towards the cause.
Poetic, but he also realized it made him look dirty all the same.
To say nothing of his stature. Nineteen years of age, with short scruffy hair, just barely six feet in height and with nondescript green eyes. Some had said that his determination shone through those eyes, but it was not hard for him to realize that some did not constitute all, and especially not whatever commissar he was going to face.
He gave a curt nod to the secretary, who in turn looked at him curiously for a moment before giving a slightly rueful nod in return; he was no visiting technician.
And so Kostya took a seat at the far end of the room, as displaced from the rest of the applicants as possible. He needed to collect his thoughts, and being distracted by what could very well be a handful of future corpses was not a way to ensure his own success.
