SPACE MARINE - A WIDOW AT TWENTY-THREE. DESTITUTE. WHERE TO GO? WHAT TO DO? MAY FACES THESE DECISIONS. A BRIDE OF ONLY SIX WEEKS AND WIDOWED. - Entertainment - http://maxpages.com/blackcatprod/SPACE

MAY GENNINGS GRIMES. ORPHANED AT AGE FIVE. WIDOWED AT AGE TWENTY-THREE

THE FUNERAL LEFT HER BROKE AND BROKEN HEARTED.

COME JOIN UP THE POSTER SAID. SEE NEW WORLDS. BE ALL YOU CAN BE.

MAY WENT IN A DAZE OF PAIN AND LOSS. SHE JOINED. SHE BECAME A

CRACK FIGHTER PILOT. SQUADRON COMMNADER. WHO WORRIES ABOUT TALKING

WITH HER DECEASED HUSBAND. HER ADVENTURES ARE MANY AS SHE TRAINS

NEW PILOTS, EXPLORES NEW WORLDS, MEETS ALIENS AND THEN FIGHTS TO

COVER UP THE FACT.

A WOMAN ALONE. HUNDREDS OF MEN AROUND. A FATHERLY COMMNADING OFFICER

WILL SHE RE MARRY, STAY A WIDOW, OR GROW OLD IN UNIFORM.

WHAT HAPPENS. READ IT AND FIND OUT.

ORDER DIRECT FROM http://www.lulu.com/duncanpublishing. We use payPal.

EXCERPTS FROM SPACE MARINE

May Grimes, Gennings, stood at the grave site. She was a pretty young woman. She stood
about five feet seven inches tall. Had a figure that made men drool and was dressed in the
style of the year 2361, a black jump suit with a black skull cap. The Priest read the burial
ceremony. She felt she should cry but she had cried for the last three days.
The Doctors had called it a straight forward procedure. No problem they had assured
her. The next thing she knew she was being told her husband of six weeks had died on the
operating table. An allergic reaction to the antigen they said.

May had grown up an orphan. Her parents were killed in an air car crash when she was
five. That was another thing that wasn’t supposed to fail. The autopilot had screwed up and
crashed them into a mountainside. She had been sent to the State facility on the lower East
side of New York. Her life there had been dull. She learned all she could from the Nun’s
and in later years, helped them with the programming of lessons, meals and schedules. The
computer system was ancient but she learned from it. Everything was outdated and made
the tasks all the harder.
By the time she reached her senior year of schooling she was an outstanding computer
programmer and had mastered a number of other tasks. She had a license to operate the
school’s Air Bus.

May looked up. She had walked some distance. The sixteen lanes of traffic were whizzing
by on five levels. She watched for a while. A sign across the street caught her eye.
“Join Now!” A young man was saying. He was dressed all in black, like her. The
badge on his uniform said UNITED FEDERATION of PLANETS SPACE MARINES.

“Darn! What do I do now?” She wiped tears from her eyes and looked back up at the bill
board across the busy street. Between the flyers that sped by at a hundred fifty miles per
hours she listened to the young man. There was nothing else to do.

“Oh Robert! If only you could see me now,” She moaned to herself. Oh God she missed
him. His eyes on her when she moved. His nervous little laugh before sex.

Flight prep. Excellent.” “Cockpit check. Excellent” “Flight planning. Excellent” “Follows orders well. Maintains control of craft at all times.” “Traffic does not frustrate Cadet Grimes. She seems to thrive on difficulties.” The report ended with one line.
“Recommended for flight training.”

“This is an EXT311,” the instructor said, walking around the little craft. he was a Major.
Most instructors at this base were Majors. Majors seemed to be the predominant rank for
instructors. She wondered why.
“She’s small, maneuverable, in or out of atmosphere, and as fast as greased lightening.
She packs one hell of a punch. She carries two nukes. Fifty kilotons each. She had six pulse
lasers capable of tearing hell out of a full scale battle wagon and a range of just under seven
light years. Not that any of you will be expected to stray that far but if you should find
yourself left behind she can catch up with Mother in FTL and board with no trouble.
“Grimes, I notice you have been looking her over. What do you think?”
“Sir. My husband’s sportster wasn’t any larger. She could do Mk8 in sub orbital.”
“Are you married Grimes?” He asked.
“Widow Sir,”

Grimes, any time you are ready,” the Major said.
“Sir?” May asked.
“Well, take her up and put her through her paces.” He stepped back, giving her room
to taxi.
May lit off the engines and advanced the throttle. The little ship leaped forward. It had a
lot more punch than she had anticipated. It was off the runway in nothing flat and climbing
for the troposphere she was set back in the seat with a force of six gravitates. She hastily
found the Gravity Compensators and activated them. She put the little ship through a series
of high speed maneuvers the way she had Robert’s little sportster.

“The Captain will see you now,”
Aw Hell. Grimes. You kind of have us over a barrel. We’re forming up a new squadron.
The only squadron to date. The One Hundred First Fighter Detachment. That bunch we
took on the shakedown did more damage to the fighters getting them onboard than a full
scale battle would have. They were all green. No experience what so ever. Just a bunch of
civilian buss drivers someone stuck a uniform on and told them they were fighter pilots.
Damned if I know why they sent them. Biggest bunch of screw ups I ever saw.” He ran a
nervous hand through his thinning gray hair. He had a decision to make and wasn’t sure if he
could live with the results. After his experience with the outgoing mess that the UFPN called
pilots he wasn’t sure what to expect from this new First Lieutenant.
“Since you are ranking officer from the Marine detachment I’m afraid I’m going to have
to dump it in your lap. Now don’t go off the deep end. There won’t be that much to it.
You’ll have the new EXT320’s. They tell me they are a lot hotter than the old 311’s. (If she
don’t kill her fool self trying to learn to fly the damned things.) There are twenty pilots,
mostly from Mars. A mixed bunch of Navy and Marines. Unlike Earth trained pilots, I see
you already had pilot experience when you joined, (Maybe that would help. Her record sure
looked good. If some damned fool hadn’t gundecked it too.) Mars pilots aren’t promoted
on completion of flight training.” He was thumbing through her records on his desk screen.
“(Damn. The kid even had college. Not bad scores either. Pilot skills way up. Been
licesened since she was fifteen. Maybe, just maybe.)”

“If you should happen to run across something that looks like it may be an intelligent life
form STAY CLEAR. I mean CLEAR. Do not land. Do not communicate. Do not do
anything but report and haul ass for your next target. Understood!” There was a long pause.
“I-I Captain,” rang over her com unit. It sounded like all twenty one keyed up at the
same time.

“I’ve just been promoted again!” Damned if I can get the new wore off of one before they
give me another.” She held the insignias out to Morton. “The District Commandant no less.”

“Patch complete Ma’am,” operations reported.
“Morton! You son of a bitch! You went and put the 400 engines in my flyer, Didn’t
you?”
“Well Ma’am, just wanted to see if they would fit. Didn’t know you were going to use
it right away.” She could hear snickering in the background and knew the whole crew was
listening.
“You damned fool! I almost killed myself!

May was making a final mapping pass on a piece of real-estate that showed more promise
than Mars but a lot less than Earth when a craft of unknown origin appeared. It seemed to
be looking her over. She armed her weapons systems and stood by to see what the stranger
would do. It did nothing. After a careful examination, it left at a very high rate of
acceleration.

“Cleo Jasper was killed today,” May wrote in her journal.

“One last duty chicks,” May announced. “We will make a fly over of the Jasper home in
Frankfurt. The missing comrade formation should be best. Ten arrows of three with Cleo’s
position left vacant.” The ships peeled off the Constellations belly and formed up above the
atmosphere and went screaming down. The traffic in the streets of Frankfurt was interrupted
as the squadron made a low level pass over the city. The suburbs containing Cleo’s parents
home was the focal point of their pass. After the squadron made two passes, May dismissed
them and landed her EXT400 in the parking area near the house.
“Mr. and Mrs. Jasper,” May asked the couple who stood in the yard watching the
fighters climb out of atmosphere, heading back to the Constellation.
“Yes,” The man said.
“I’m May Grimes. I had to write you that letter. Hardest thing I ever did.”

So it goes for May Grimes Gennings. Follow her career as a Marine as she
flies evere newer models of the EXT series. She talks to her Deceased husband
often, discussing decisions with him. She thinks she's crazy until she
learns other people do the same thing.
Follow her and see what else they find as they explore the cosmos.
Available Now at my web site Print $10.48, Downlaod $3.75. JUST CLICK THE BUTTON

Contact me at blackcat@artelco.com

ABOUT MAY GRIMES'S LIFE

May's parents were both killed in a tragic flyer accident when she was only five. She was an only child and the authorities couldn't find any relatives. Not that they looked very hard.
A Catholic orphanage on the very over crowded lower east side of New York in the year 2343, accepted the poor child. She was lost, heart broken, and couldn't understand what had happened to her mom and dad. By the time she was seven she had turned all her young energies toward education. She intended to take all the State offered. Reading, Writing, Math, History, and every other subject that was offered. Even languages. By age twelve May had acquired more education than most did by age eighteen. She had become an accomplished computer programmer. The ancient and delapidated equipment the school had was a good fifty years out of date but was kept in perfect working order by one of the elder Nuns who had once studied computer systems. The equipment had become a managery of old and newer parts grafted together into some semblance of a working model.
When the Nuns discoved how useful she could be, they taught her to pilot the orphanage's old air bus. At age fifteen she was an accomplished pilot and capable of taking the rest of the children on field trips and short jaunts to the country (what little country wasn't covered with housing projects for the wealthy.)
When May's College grant finally came through, she was seventeen. The Nuns were broken hearted. They were losing their best helper. There were tearful goodbyes and she was off to a new adventure.
May met Robert while she was in graduate school. She finished the year course in four months. In the interium Robert discovered she was a pilot and introduced her to his little Mercedes Falcon Sports flyer. She became an even better pilot. The little craft was a great flyer. The Moon and Mars were easily within its reach and they spent many a holiday visiting both. Aerobatics came natural to May. With a little coaching from Robert she was soon flying the little craft on the very edge of its performance envelope.
Throughout her schooling she had access to the little Falcon and of course Robert. He adored her and wanted her more than life itself. It took her four years of college and a stent as a computer programmer to finally accepth his proposal. He was thirty seven and she only twenty three.
Love was wonderful. May couldn't get enough. She had never been intimate before. Sex was completely new to her. Strange for the time, but she was wed a virgin.
Problems started almost at once. Robert would have heart palpitations after a strenous sexual encounter. Neither of them had any prior experience so didn't recognize the symptoms as dangerous. One evening Robert passed out. May called for an ambulance and he was rushed to the hospital. Doctors told her he had a small heart defect. One of the valves didn't close completely. They promised her that it could be fixed. The next thing she knew she was a widow. So far as she knew the little Falcon belonged to Roberts company. He had no burial insurance. She was left with the entire expense. This left her broke, broken hearted, and destitute. All these things made her a perfect candidate for the Marines. When the automated poster invited her in she went like a lamb to the slaughter.
If I told you more I would give away the plot. The soul purpose of this short interlude was to introduce you to May Gennings Grimes. I hope I have succeeded.

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