2517 Location: Terraneau Galactic Position: Scutum-Crux Arm I sailed out of the Scutum-Crux Arm on a wrecked battleship and returned on a yacht . . . more or less. I rode a frigate to Gobi, then requisitioned the Salah ad-Din, a Perseus-class fighter carrier. In demographic terms, the ad-Din had the oldest crew of any carrier in the Enlisted Man’s Navy, its youngest sailor being thirty-two years old. Beyond that, having not yet been granted leave, the crew of the Salah ad-Din could not have picked up pests from St. Augustine. If any ship was secure, it was the Salah ad-Din, and she had plenty of space for transporting Marines since the eleven-thousand-man Marine compound on her bottom deck now sat vacant. There were twenty-two hundred Marines stationed on Terraneau. The ad-Din had room to spare. I toured the Marine complex as the ad-Din broadcasted out through a station that was specially programmed for a single broadcast to Terraneau. Walking through the barracks, I imagined them filled with men.
