Madison looked over at the clock on the wall: 0257. It was whatever passed for night on a ship like this, he wasn’t thinking straight though, he never slept well during spaceflight and the past week had been no exception. He stubbed out the remains of the cigarette and pulled a bottle of scotch from his pack, filling the tumbler a quarter of the way up. Sleep by any means necessary. How had he ended up here as a pen pusher for the Parliament, he’d grown up on Ariel, a supporter of unification, fought in the war, becoming a Lieutenant no less. That was where it all began to go wrong; he’d survived the war but not the reconstruction.
-- The Other Side: Chapter 1 - The Lucky Star by everythingsshiny2k6