Fortitude McBride was the archtypical gunnery sergeant. A Marine’s Marine. If you cut him, he’d bleed green.

He’d joined the Space Marines to escape the backwater colonial planet he’d been raised on. His parents were members of a tiny Christian sect that named their sons after virtues. Not even his friends called him Fortitude. Fort, for the few that were his friends. Gunny, for the rest of the universe.

He’d been there and done that for thirty years. Too many generals remembered him from their time as a wet behind the ears second lieutenant. That kept him away from the Commandant’s retinue, but just as well. He’d publicly called the current commandant a snot nosed kid some twenty years ago. Then save his ass and a dozen others in a tight spot.

In dress mess, his medals nearly made him list to one side. The top one, with the blue ribbon and the four white stars weighed heaviest. The oak leaf cluster on it even more so. Too many Marines had died on both of those occasions.

Gunny Fort’s problem now was simple. Retirement. Thirty years and out. That was the rule. He could still out shoot, out run, out fight most any Marine. But the time had come for him to retire.

He’d be damned if he’d ever go back to dirt farming on the planet that birthed him. But the options were slim. It wasn’t the money. He could afford to retire most anywhere. He just didn’t want to.

He sat, rocking back on his chair, at the desk that had been his duty station for the last six months. It was a quiet post, home to a couple of schools for the odd clerical MOS or two. Well away from the frontier and any sort of action. God, he was bored!

The door slammed open and a blast of hot wind rushed in. Sullen thoughts of retirement vanished as he dove under the desk, an ancient blaster gripped in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other.