The Eternity Brigade

PART 1: EARTH
Hawker was one of the early ones. The auditorium hadn't been crowded when he sat down, but as ten o'clock approached the seats began filling up. Since nothing was happening up front, Hawker found himself constantly turning in his seat and craning his neck to look over the later arrivals. He was hoping there might be someone he recognized, someone to sit next to him and maybe talk with later about whatever this mysterious assignment was.

But the army was just too big, and he couldn't possibly know everyone, or even a significant fraction of the people. Whatever obscure qualifications the army had used to pick the men for this briefing, Hawker fit them and his other friends didn't. It was a bit of a letdown, and it made him nervous. He still didn't know what this was about, and their making him sign that secrecy oath before he could attend only made it seem that much more ominous. At a minute before ten there must have been close to a hundred men in the auditorium, although the room could have seated twice that number. The seats on either side of Hawker were still vacant. Then, at the last second, a sandy-haired young man made his way down the row and asked whether the seat on Hawker's right was taken. Hawker admitted it wasn't, and the fellow sat down.

They both rose to attention a few moments later as a captain entered the room and stood on the speaker's platform in the front. The captain asked them all to be seated again, and spent the next minute fidgeting through a sheaf of notes on the lectern before him. He was a thin man with a prissy Hitlerian mustache -- a desk jobber, Hawker surmised, who'd probably never been near a gun in his life. By contrast, most of the audience looked to be front-liners -- none of whom were much impressed by officers who shuffled paper. Hawker could almost read the collective thoughts of the audience: What kind of shit do we have to sit through today?

The man next to Hawker leaned over and whispered, "Well, at least it won't be another VD lecture -- there's nothing secret about those."

Hawker nodded, and smiled in spite of his nervousness. He was wondering how he should reply when the captain began to speak.

"Is there anyone here who hasn't signed one of these?" The captain held up a form that looked like the secrecy oath Hawker had signed earlier. When there were no hands raised after a few seconds, the captain put the paper back on the bottom of his stack. "Good. Just remember what you signed. What I'm about to tell you is all classified 'Secret' at the moment. Whether you end up volunteering or not, you'll still be bound by that oath. Any man who doesn't think he can handle it had best leave now."

"When he says it that way," whispered the man on Hawker's right, "nobody dares leave."