Linda closes her eyes briefly, then smiles

I was supposed to be a Second Lieutenant, you know. But it wasn't meant to be, and I shuffled torpedoes and did drills until all of the sudden it was a real war, and the little dots I was shooting at weren't simulations - they were live weapons coming our way.

I cleaned chickens, I did morning exercises and drills and training. I cleaned toilets and washed laundry and stacked boxes of goddess only knows what until my claws wore off. I moved tubes of stuff so dangerous that they say each time I so much as looked at one my life was shortened by two years, I sat through watches in the night, and I jumped to my station ready to go each and every time. I didn't abandon my post even when... even when the worst did happen. Sir: to a very real extent, I'm already dead... but I'm not. So I'll do whatever needs to be done, however it needs doing, if it means other people can have the life they were meant to have - the life I never had and never will because if I go back... You want rough? Die in the hard radiation of an antimatter explosion and feel your cells dissolve as a trillion joules of gamma rays flow through your body - everything's easier after that.

Yes, I'm very interested.