/run program (alarm) if 0400hrs = True. If (alarm) = True then Display message: Duty Calls.

—

Joyce slowly awoke and found herself curled in a ball on the floor. Her whole body ached from the uncomfortable position and spot. She rolled on her back groaning, listening to the alarm blaring in her head. She’d forgotten to turn it off during her night of sorrow. She slapped her faceplate to dismiss the annoyance. 

“Duty calls,” Joyce scoffed, “what a load of crap.”

She continued to lay there staring at the ceiling. Joyce wasn’t sure how long she’d stayed like that. It could have been minutes or perhaps an hour. She didn’t care, there was nothing for her to do. Joyce continued to lay there until a notification appeared giving her something to focus on.

Low battery: 15%

“What's the point,” She grumbled to herself. “Actually, having someone find me here without power would be incredibly shameful.” 

With that Joyce stood up and crawled under the covers of her charging pad. She ignored the charging notification and closed her eyes. The pleasant sensation of electricity flowing into her carried her off to sleep.

—

Sleep Mode Active. Running Dream (Flashback)

Initiate Playback: Core drive/Memories/Earth/Colony Perimeter/File842391

—

Joyce sat inside the armory. A year had passed since she graduated from the would be colonists version of boot camp. The time had flown by. She kept herself busy with her patrols whether that was inside the factory or along the perimeter. A few times she’d even have to fight off raiders. As in actual combat. Not drills, not a fist fight, but actual combat with laser and gun fire. Their side always emerged victorious with minor wounds and rarely a death. The same could not be said for the raiders. In her first defence she’d killed both humans and drones. At the time Joyce didn’t think about it, just firing. Afterward was when she thought more about it. Were the drones she’d killed had a choice? Were they free like her? Did the people she’d killed have friends waiting for them to come home, like how she now did? Joyce never shared these thoughts, not even with Cas, just buried them down. She didn’t want people to think she wasn’t capable of her job.

It made sense why the raiders would attack the factory. It was full of useful tech, weapons, vehicles, and food. Arguably humans found the food part most valuable. They had a whole deck of the ship dedicated to hydroponics. Growing food in the desert was hard enough, not to mention the nuclear apocalypse that happened probably made that harder. So controlling hydroponics was incredibly valuable. Food the colony didn’t consume or store was traded away to various scavenger factions. In exchange they received materials to help with their exodus. Of course not everybody was satisfied with trade. So they were forced to repel a raid every now and again.

Joyce changed into her combat uniform, grabbed her laser rifle, and made her way to the perimeter.

Today she would be at the South Gate’s external defensive line. There were four gates into the factory: North, South, East, and West. Each gate had an external defensive position, wall defensive positions, and an internal defensive position. The internal defenses were used mostly in emergency drills in case the wall was breached. It hadn’t been, at least in Joyce’s time. The external and wall defenses had at least one squad of 10 present at each position at all times. The other time the internal defensive position was used was for shift changes. The fresh troops would meet there. First the squads assigned to the wall would swap then the external squads. The old squads would take positions at the internal defenses until the all clear was given, then they were dismissed.

Joyce arrived at the South Gate and took her position. The rest of her squad had yet to arrive, not because they were late but Joyce was early. It was always better to arrive early. If you weren't early you were late. That's what Joyce had been taught before the end of the world and she didn’t see a reason for that to change now. If anything it was more important given her job. 

The gate itself was nothing impressive. The structure was built quickly out of whatever material could be scavenged. Same went for the wall. They used whatever they could find to reinforce the chain link fence: cars, concrete blocks, sheet metal, wood, sandbags. If you could make a barricade out of it, you could find it in the walls. The watchtowers and walkway between them were better made but still fit the hodge podge description as the walls. In between the watchtowers was the gate itself and the command building. This is where the Security Forces would move through the wall during their rotation and where the on duty Security Chief would be with their squad. As well as any communication devices, extra munitions, in case they started running low during a raid, and emergency medical supplies. 

Joyce heard the footsteps and turned to see the man approaching her. Jake walked up next to her. He wore a hard expression of resolve on his face. They stood in silence for a while. This wasn’t like Jake. He usually started spouting nonsense about them being rivals and how he wouldn’t lose to her. It was incredibly annoying, there was nothing to compete over. So Joyce enjoyed the quiet waiting for the rotation start.

“This could be our last day here,” Jake said.

“No kidding, we leave tomorrow,” Joyce replied.

“If everything goes to plan,” He scoffed. “Who knows what’ll break down when the ship actually tries to fly.”

Irritation flashed on Joyce’s face before she schooled her expression. Although that didn’t stop the anger building in her core. How dare he insult engineering like that, they do so much for us.

“They’ve been triple checking and testing all the systems for over a month now.” Joyce said, “If there were any problems our departure would have been delayed by now. Unless, the mighty not Captain Jake LeMieux is scared he won’t get that pipe dream of a promotion before we leave.”

His face flushed with anger.

“It’s not like you’re getting promoted to captain either Joyce,” He hissed.

“It’ll happen eventually. I’m not the one who said they’d do it before we leave,” Joyce replied calmly.

“Yeah right, like they’d pick you over me anyways. I have the higher kill count,” Jake said with a little too much pride in his voice.

“They're not looking for competitive killers, they're looking for leaders,” Joyce spat back. “You’re a hothead who lacks judgement and you pick fights with your allies just because you're bored!”

“Your attitude picked this fight!”

“No, you did,” She asserted. “When you started insulting all of engineering.”

“Right, I forgot your girl works down there,” He sneered. “She’s too good for you anyways, by the way.”

“Excuse me?” Joyce asked. 

She was genuinely confused. Her girl? If anything it would be the other way around. At least in the old world. Here, people can’t own people.

“Come on,” He said. “You really think nobody’s noticed? The only times you two are separated are when you're working or sleeping. Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if you dragged your charging pad in there in place of your own room.”

What was this guy going on about? Why would I move my chargepad outside of my designated sleeping quarters?

“Wait. Are you jealous that Cassandra doesn’t want to hang out with you?” Joyce asked smugley.

Jake's face flushed.

“As if I would…” He started.

“Officer Jake! Officer Joyce! Stop your childish bickering!” A voice called out, “Officer Jake, return to the rest of your squad!”

They both turned to face the commanding voice. He had short black hair and tan skin. His facial expression was calm but Joyce knew her captain well enough to see through that. He was furious. 

“Yes Sir,” Jake grumbled.

“Sorry Sir,” Joyce replied, standing at attention.

—

Aside with Joyce’s spat with Jake the shift change went on without a hitch. She now stood behind a sandbag barrier. She was near the gate's command structure. A concrete wall blocked the entrance from potential incoming fire, on each side of that wall were a defensive barricade for the security forces to observe the parking lot stretching out in front of them. The defensive structures continued on the opposite of the gate with a mixture of walls for troops to reposition themselves without taking enemy fire and firing positions. Behind them was the wall team. They had better vantage points and could see further than the ground team. They would relay any spotted suspicious activity or scavengers approaching the factory to the ground team. 

Joyce scanned the empty parking lot before her and the buildings across the street. Any cars had either been scrapped or implemented in the construction of the wall, so there wasn’t a single car out there. The paint lines marking parking spaces had long faded away. The black asphalt field in front of her was cracked and barren. Anyone approaching would have to cross it leaving them exposed to oncoming fire. 

Joyce had been told the buildings across the street had once been apartments and a variety of businesses. Although they had long since been abandoned and picked through. Nothing of value remained. They were now just bones of a dead world. 

Her thoughts drifted to the fight from earlier. Was Jake correct in that she only was upset because Cas was a part of engineering? She specialized in drone and robot repairs but was also able to perform basic maintenance around the ship. So still a part of engineering, she just didn’t work on the engines, reactors, navigation, and the other things that went into space flight. Still, they did deserve everyone's respect. Without them, nobody would be leaving this planet. 

“Officer Joyce, I need a word,” said a voice from behind her.

Joyce turned to face the captain who broke up her fight earlier in the day. His name was Captain Keyes. 

“Of course Sir,” Joyce said. “Is this about earlier?”

“Yes,” Captain Keyes said.

He stood next to her and they both looked across the parking lot for danger.

“I just want to say Sir, I didn’t start the confrontation,” She said defensively. 

“I saw the whole thing,” He said in a flat tone. “I know Officer Jake gets under your skin. Er, plate? Silicone? You know what I mean. Getting into fights with him is dangerous for the whole squad when you're on duty. What if an enemy takes advantage of your distraction? Your fights tend to draw the stares of everyone around you two.”

“It’s not my fault if others aren’t paying attention.”

“It is when you're the one distracting them. This behavior is the biggest reason why you haven’t been offered that promotion you’ve wanted.”

At that Joyce clenched her jaw and drew her lips to a line. An anger symbol, a cross implying building veins, appeared on the side of her forehead. She took a moment to respond, she couldn’t get into a shouting match with her CO.

“And what would you have me do? Ignore him when he speaks to me,” She said her tone clipped.

“Be the bigger person,” He said. “If that's all you can manage, then yes. In this case I don’t think what he said was out of line. At least in expressing his concerns about take off.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lots of folks are worried the ship might explode on take off. It’s happened plenty of times throughout history. Not that that will stop them from leaving with the group. We all know it's worth the risk but, expressing anxiety about it shouldn’t be meant with an outburst.”

Joyce thought about it for a while. Her anger mark faded and she let out a sigh. She lowered her head and was looking at her feet. The captain was right. She was out of line. 

“I didn’t think of it like that,” Joyce said, defeated. “I accept the consequences of my actions.”

“I’ll be bringing it up in my daily report to the Security Chief. They’ll decide what to do about it,” Captain Keyes said. “Just try and work on it. I think if you master your temper you’d make an excellent captain. We don’t need hotheads in charge of people's lives.”

He smiled and winked at her. His implication that Joyce was a hothead didn’t escape her. Nor did the fact that she’d accused Jake of being the same thing. Perhaps she should get some advice from her friends. Grease was always mellow, maybe he can help.

“I understand Sir,” Joyce said.

“Good,” Captain Keyes replied. “I have the rest of my rounds to make. Stay alert.”

Yes Sir!”

It wasn’t long after the captain left until the distant sounds of gun and laser fire reached Joyce’s audio processors.