Starcross

Chapter Fourteen

Old Frederick High School

Frederick, Colorado

 

            “January!”

            With the order everyone who had birthdays in January stood up and walked to the small nurse’s office being used as an exam room. Nearly half a dozen men rose, many from the very school they now waited in, including Nick Burnside. He stood, stretching as he did so, and got in the line that was forming around the circular yellow tables that filled the cafeteria.

            “Ah, and I was almost starting to think the Army was trying to kill me with boredom,” He mumbled, wary of the stern looking Master Sergeant overhearing. Frankly, the way the man shouted everyone into order and calm, Nick felt if the man was given a big enough megaphone he could shout the Druidth into surrender.

            “Nah,” James grunted back, still seated and flipping through a month old magazine. “They’re just testing your patience levels. And your ability to stay awake when faced with crushing boredom.”

            “Like if I was on guard duty all night with nothing to do?”

            “Yup.”

            “Nice, that’s nice. So glad I’m doing this.”

            James was about to say something else when the Master Sergeant, who stood at the head of the line shouted for silence, so he went back to flipping through his magazine. Who read paper magazines anymore, anyway? Really? He tried to bring his holopad but the internet in the area was down so it was basically a clear piece of plastic. He looked up from an article just in time to see Nick pull his draft notice, which came in the mail about a week after his birth month was listed from his back pocket, and hand it to a uniformed man who was moving down the line and collecting them.

            James didn’t have one; he wasn’t drafted because his birthday was in November. And even if he was born in January they wouldn’t have taken him because he was an only child who was also an orphan. Something about wiping out family bloodlines the government didn’t agree with. However, he was still here for a reason and it wasn’t moral support.

            When the clerk who collected the draft notices came around to his table James handed him the completed form which read ‘James Burnside’ under the name section. The man looked it over, gave a nod, and then moved on to a girl who sat alone in the corner.

            It wasn’t that he was eager to enlist, or even fight— which terrified him, but when Nick got his draft notice in the mail his mom cried and James promised himself he wasn’t going to let the aliens who killed his parents and his girlfriend get his best friend as well. Call it nobility, or call if foolishness, but James was promised to stick by Nick through thick and thin; just the way Nick and Candace stuck by him.

            By the time he closed his magazine nearly half an hour had passed and the line had only moved forward by four. He was about to re-open the pages when one of the clerks approached him.