INTERVIEWER: What did she ask you for?

Ezra Mason: Doesn’t really matter now, does it? Whole ’verse gone to hell and all. Point is, for someone like Kady, the asking part is hard enough. She doesn’t do the vulnerable thing real good. She doesn’t like needing anyone. So when I said no and couldn’t give a reason, it kinda … broke the back of it, you know?

INTERVIEWER: Why wouldn’t you give her a reason when you said no?

Ezra Mason: If I didn’t tell her, you honestly think I’m gonna tell you?

INTERVIEWER: Which brings me back to your mother.

Ezra Mason: Oh, and how you figure that, Mr. Post-grad?

INTERVIEWER: Typically, trust issues in teenagers stem from childhood abuse by authority figures. Teachers and parents, mostly. The fact you’ve undergone psych-eval before lends weight to the theory.

INTERVIEWER: Now, you obviously loved your father, hence your inability to process his death and your open hostility toward anyone who makes reference to it. The next logical line of enquiry is your mother.

INTERVIEWER: So. Tell me about your mother.

Ezra Mason: You’re taping this, right?

INTERVIEWER: Audio only. Camera is faulty.

Ezra Mason: Okay, well for the benefit of the sight-impaired, I am now raising my … Oh, dear … yes, it’s my middle finger at Mr. Post-Grad here.

INTERVIEWER: Mr. Mason …

Ezra Mason: Now I’m wiggling it.

INTERVIEWER: Terminating interview at 13:58, 03/19/75.

Ezra Mason: Look at it wiggle—

—audio ends—

Mason, Ezra—
Psych Profile/Conscript Suitability Assessment
Incept 03/21/75

—Page 2—

shows signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: aggression, avoidance, night terrors and survivor guilt.

TEAMWORK: Mr. Mason is a team player, capable of stepping up to leadership roles if required. High school sports: making life easier for military recruiters since 1914.

ATTITUDE: The death of Mr. Mason’s only living relative (father) during the Kerenza assault has left him with a deep sense of resentment and anger. However, his aggression is progressing, and is almost entirely focused on the BeiTech Corporation. And BeiTech are the people who’ll be shooting at him.

CONCLUSION:

☒ Conscript—Priority 1

▢ Conscript—Priority 2

▢ Conscript—Priority 3

▢ Do Not Conscript

Comments: Mr. Mason’s PTSD and anxiety levels would normally make him a washout for combat duty. However, with Alexander’s current shortfall of suitable Cyclone pilots and considering Mason’s test results (Spatial Awareness: top 94 percentile; Pattern Prediction: top 99.7 percentile), it’s our recommendation to conscript.

The kid’s hostility toward BeiTech can be harnessed in a conflict situation. Throwing him into task-oriented activities in a social environment (combat training) may even prove therapeutic. And if not, a few months from now, he’s not our problem.

Get him in a cockpit ASAP.

Kades

i am not sending this to you I am just writing it down and then i will delete it because of reasons. My friend jimmy says it is best to get these things off your chest and since u are not here to say this to i’m pretending because you know think of my chest. it has things on it

so i am somewhat … liquefied but never fear i do notspend my days drinking alone in my bunk, the hooch is to hard to get lol. IT IS A CELEBRATION as i am now officially cleared for flight status, me flying a cyclone holy fuckingshit wtf has the universe come to.

anyway since i will never send this, I feel it fair to say i thought it wasrough not to mail me back I get mahybe you don’t want to talk me and thats fine but a simple “i do not wish to speak to you goodday sir” would have been nice and this is shabby treatment madam, verily

since i will not send this, i also feel it is my duty to inform you that almost six months on I think I still love you and that makes me sad becaue love shouldn’t feel this way. is like getting kicked in the stomach every time i think of you and it makes me want to roll my face across this keyboardbiu;///ubEWdcfhugiov’byhi;.//////-=‘-0i9juh8ygtfdcsaazs34defg7uefg7u8hi9o0p8hi9o0p-[[09ju8dcsaazs34d9o0p-[[09.

INCEPT: 07/20/75

LOCATION: (Kerenza VII barycenter) 778.76, 325.71, 1243.56k

PILOT IDENT: Ezra Mason (UTN-966-330ad)

RANK: Second Lieutenant

CALLSIGN: N/A

Fire does weird shit in space.

You don’t really think about it until you see something burn out there. You light a match in zero grav, the flame will be perfectly round. Like the way Terra looks in the old ‘casts. And just like Terra, the flame won’t flicker orange or yellow or even white out there in the black. It’ll burn blue as a VR sky. Blue as a pretty girl’s eyes.

They didn’t tell us that in basic. It kinda dunked my head.

I’ve never written one of these before. An After Action Report. You can probably tell. Sorry if I chuff it up. Between zero-grav flight sim and Cyclone tech systems and memorizing the Alexander’s 316 different firing solutions, they probably figured teaching us paperwork wasn’t the best use of our time. I’m so green at the controls they haven’t even given me a callsign yet. The General told me to just type up everything and let the censors sort it out, so that’s what I’ll do.

Follow fucking orders.

That’s what I do.

On 7/19/75 at 21:00 hours I was situated in the cockpit of my Cyclone fighter. Our fleet—consisting of battlecarrier Alexander, science vessel Hypatia and heavy freighter Copernicus—was in orbit around the first moon of Kerenza VII, engaged in resupply operations. The fleet’s H2O levels had reached critical, and Kerenza VII(a) was mostly frozen water, so our crews were busy hauling thousand-ton ice boulders up from orbit while the Lincoln got closer and closer.