Transfer Orders

Posted on Tue Oct 28th, 2025 @ 8:46pm by Gunnery Sergeant Nathaniel Hale

799 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: Long Night
Location: Glasgow, Earth
Timeline: Mission Day 1 at 0000

Glasgow, Scotland
Earth, Late December 2155

The kettle whistled before the comm did.

Marina reached it first, pouring two mugs in the way she always had — strong, dark, no sugar. The morning light was slow to arrive, filtered through the soft gray drizzle that clung to the city like breath on glass.

Hale sat at the kitchen table, orders spread out in front of him like a quiet accusation. They weren’t new — they’d come through three days earlier — but he’d read them so many times that the words might as well have been carved into the wood beneath them.

“Couldn’t even wait for the year to start proper,” he muttered. “Had to make sure it ruined the morning.”

Marina didn’t answer right away. She set the mugs down and leaned against the counter, watching him. “When do you leave?”

“Today,” he said after a beat. “First shuttle out of Prestwick. Arrival aboard Challenger by midday.”

Her expression barely changed, but her fingers tightened around the mug. “You were supposed to be done with field service.”

“Aye,” he said softly. “Supposed to be.”

He hadn’t told her, not really, how the call had come through. A terse transmission from Command. A polite apology for the “short notice.” An assignment order signed by a colonel he’d never met. It didn’t matter. Orders were orders.

He looked past her toward the window. The rooftops gleamed wet in the half-light, and somewhere down the street, the sound of children’s laughter carried faintly — leftover fireworks, maybe. New Year’s morning. The first dawn of 2156.

Marina followed his gaze. “It’s not forever,” she said quietly.

“No,” he replied. “Just long enough.”

They both knew better.

Owen and James stumbled into the kitchen, still in pajamas, arguing over whose turn it was with the holo-ball. Clara toddled in behind them clutching her stuffed targ — the one with the missing button eye — and climbed straight into his lap.

“Are you going again?” she asked, muffled against his uniform.

He swallowed the lump that rose in his throat. “Aye, lass. Just for a bit.”

She looked up at him, solemn as only a four-year-old could be. “You’ll be back?”

“That’s the plan.”

She nodded like she believed him, then hugged his neck tight before running off to join her brothers. Marina met his eyes over their heads. No words. Just understanding.

When it came time to leave, the house was too quiet. The suitcase by the door. The faint smell of breakfast still hanging in the air. The little things he’d miss most: the creak of the stairs, the sound of the kettle, the way Marina’s hair caught the morning light.

He kissed her once, briefly, and she held on a second longer than usual.

“Go on,” she said softly. “Before I change my mind.”

January 1st 2156
Glasgow Regional Spaceport
Prestwick, Ayrshire; Earth

The spaceport at dawn was all noise and glare — shuttle thrusters hissing against the drizzle, ground crew shouting over comms. Hale stood near the loading ramp, duffel slung over his shoulder, collar turned up against the cold.

A young Second Lieutenant with too much energy and not enough experience stopped beside him.

“Heading up to Challenger, Sergeant? Lucky assignment — all scientists and explorers. Should be a quiet run!”

Hale looked at him for a long moment. The kid’s smile faltered under the weight of it.

“Lieutenant,” he said evenly, “if you ever call any posting ‘quiet’ before you’ve lived it, do yourself a favor — keep the thought to yourself.”

The officer muttered something about check-ins and hurried off. Hale shook his head, half amused, half weary.

Inside the shuttle, he stowed his duffel in the overhead rack. Something soft thumped inside. He frowned, unzipped the bag — and there it was. Clara’s targ. One ear bent. One button eye gone.

For a moment, everything else faded: the hum of the engines, the chatter of the other passengers, the ache in his chest. Just the weight of that toy in his hand and the echo of her laugh in his head.

He smiled — small, sad, real — then zipped the bag shut and leaned back.

As the shuttle lifted from the pad, Glasgow’s lights receded into a silver blur. The Firth glimmered below, ships like tiny sparks on the water. The city that had built him, the family that had steadied him, all shrinking into memory.

He looked out the viewport, voice barely above a whisper.

“Happy New Year.”

The stars above were sharp and distant — the same ones that had called him away half his life ago.

And somewhere beyond them, a ship named Challenger waited — clean, bright, and utterly indifferent to who missed what below.

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