The Chaplain's War by Brad R. Torgersen Page A

home that night, I sat on the family living room couch and flipped the recruiter’s card over and over and over in my fingers. Mom and Dad were still at work, and wouldn’t be home until later. I noticed that the card had a chip in it.
    I eyed the Total Entertainment System in the corner of the living room.
    Like most virtual reality units on the market, the TES looked a lot like a huge egg, with two steps leading up to the hatch in the side. I got up and slowly went over to the unit, eyeing the small slot on the TES’s control panel—a slot just big enough to accept the card the recruiter had given me.
    I looked up through the numerous clear windows that made up the arched ceiling above my head, and noticed the moon was just starting to come out. The Fleet often did training exercises there now. Spacesuited infantry and armor units, practicing for the day when they might be hurled into battle against the mantis hordes.
    I slipped the recruiter’s card into the slot on the TES, climbed in, sat down, and shut the hatch.
    It was a little unnerving, being in the TES unsupervised. Mom and Dad had very strict rules about that. I’d been punished more than once. It was easy to get lost in the virtual environment. For hours, or even days. VR had become so realistic that habitual users risked drifting over into disconnect: a clinically diagnosed condition, which left the user believing that not only was the VR experience more real than real, it was also preferable to real.
    I inhaled once, then used my fingers in the air to swipe and drag the VR digital menus until the TES booted up whatever program was on the card in the exterior slot.
    Almost instantly, I was plunged into a total surround starscape, with impressive full orchestra music that piped through the stereo speakers on either side of my head rest.
    “A challenge awaits,” said a deep baritone voice. “The galaxy needs men and women who can meet that challenge.”
    A planet appeared, then grew larger. It was Earth, if I had the shapes of the continents right. Then the view zoomed down into Earth orbit, where several asteroids from the asteroid belt had been artificially inserted. The view zoomed in again, and showed the shipyards on the surfaces of the asteroids. The spines and ribs of numerous large vessels were being busily constructed, while other ships—further along in the construction process—were being detached and floated into formation for their final fittings.
    “The Fleet is humanity’s sword and shield against all dangerous life before us,” the voice boomed. “Millions of men and women from across the solar system, and also the colonies, are doing their part to ensure that humanity is protected. Our lives kept safe and secure.”
    Suddenly the view rapidly dropped past the asteroid shipyards, down a dizzying number of kilometers, through the clouds, and right up to the tarmac of a nameless spaceport. There were people standing in four rows—what appeared to be a rectangular formation. They were of generally young age, both genders, and varying ethnicities. They stared straight ahead of them, chins out and eyes steely. One by one their civilian clothes were computer morphed into uniforms not too different from the one I’d seen the recruiter wearing at school earlier in the day.
    “Pilots, technicians, computer programmers, military police, infantry, armament and weapons specialists, they’re all needed, and the Fleet needs you to do your part for humanity’s future.”
    It felt as if I was sitting directly in the midst of the formation with them. The sun was bright, and I could hear a seagull crying in the distance. From where the view had dropped down from orbit, I guessed that this particular spaceport was supposed to be on the California coast?
    The image of the people standing in formation grew still, while a menu popped up. The menu listed dozens and dozens of different kinds of jobs.
    I hit the first one that looked interesting to me: