by Marko Kloos
I make my way to the main concourse of the station and look for the transfer desk, where a team of young corporals and sergeants are checking assignments and directing personnel.
“Good morning, sir,” one of the desk sergeants says when I step up to his station. “Do you have your movement orders?”
I pull up my transfer order and let the sergeant scan it.
“Washington,” he says. “The big dog. She’s on the Alpha ring, docking gate Alpha 5. You want to follow the red marker all the way. Or you can let your PDP do a handshake with a PTU, and it’ll get you there automatically.”
“PTU?” I ask.
He nods at a nearby equipment corral, where at least a dozen two-wheeled gyro boards are lined up in a neat row.
“Personal transport units,” he says.
“You didn’t have those the last time I came through here.”
“We got the PTUs last year, sir,” he says.
Has it been over a year since I’ve been on a capital ship? I think and do the mental math. My internal calendar confirms the fact—I’ve been on two consecutive school assignments on Earth, so it has been fourteen months since I set foot onto a spaceship of any size. As I look at the little wheeled boards, a young enlisted Fleet member walks up to the rack, waves his PDP over the control panel of one of the units, and waits until it backs itself out of the rack and into the concourse. Then he steps onto the gyro board, and it takes off with a soft electric hum, carrying its passenger down the concourse at a brisk walking speed.
“Are we all too lazy to walk now?” I say as I watch with slight bewilderment.
“It’s a big station, sir. It takes twenty or thirty minutes just to cross to the other side and into the Bravo ring from here. And the PTUs are more efficient. No traffic jams, no getting lost.”
“Well, I guess that is an advantage,” I say, remembering the frequent slow foot traffic on Gateway when three or four big warships were docked at the same time. It’s a pleasant surprise to see that someone put thought into making the operations here more efficient and easier on the troops, but it’s still a little jarring to see this nonessential technology. Five years ago, the Corps didn’t have the money for convenience devices like these.
“I’ll walk,” I say. “Alpha is close by, right?”
“Yes, sir. Five minutes down the red line.”
“Thank you, Sergeant.”
He nods, and I shoulder my bag and walk off. I want to believe that he thinks I am too tough to let myself get ferried to my gate by a cute little automatic skateboard, and maybe he doesn’t suspect I don’t want to make an ass of myself by face-planting in the middle of the corridor in front of a bunch of junior enlisted troops.
Space is always at a premium on a warship, but the Avengers are roomier than any other ship class in the Fleet. The SOCOM detachment has its own deck section on the periphery of Grunt Country, where the ship’s Spaceborne Infantry detachment is quartered. Each Avenger has an entire regiment of SI allocated to it, eight companies in total. Over nine hundred troops and thirty-two combat exoskeletons make up the surface combat power of the battlecarrier, supported by two strike-fighter and two drop-ship squadrons. Most of those troops are enlisted, who are stacked eight to a berth, and noncommissioned officers, who are paired up in theirs. But even with the stacking by squad, it takes a lot of deck space to house almost a thousand grunts and their battle gear, and Grunt Country takes up a big cluster of deck sections near the ship’s hangar.
The SOCOM section is the farthest from the hangar. I make my way through the center of the ship in one of the three wide fore-and-aft passageways, which is busy with troops and Fleet personnel going about their pre-deployment business. There’s no obligation to salute aboard an NACDC warship, but I get respectful nods and greetings from troops as I head to my assigned berth. The Fleet sailors I pass are all in the shipboard uniform they introduced a few years back, the one the troops nicknamed “blueberries” almost right away because of its teal-and-blue hue. I am in my Class A uniform, which is custom for reporting to a new duty station, and I can’t wait to report to the CO and then change into the far more comfortable shipboard dress myself.
As a staff officer, I no longer have to rely on luck to score a private single berth. Staff officers get those as a matter of routine, and on Avengers, even the junior-grade officers have their own because the ship is optimized for crew comfort on long deployments. My berth has been coded to my DNA profile already, and I unlock it and step inside. The cabin looks and smells like it has never been occupied. I stow my gear and report in with the ship’s MilNet system via the terminal on my new desk. Everything on this ship is new, including the terminal, which logs me on in the blink of an eye.
Before I leave the cabin again, I check my appearance in the stainless steel mirror next to the door. My Class A smock is in good shape, freshly cleaned and pressed. My professional résumé is pinned above the left breast pocket in the form of awards, four rows of ribbons with the shiny combat-drop badge in gold neatly centered on top. Back when I was in Basic, twelve years and what seems like a lifetime ago, only the old-timers had more than one or two rows of ribbons. As I take a closer look at my face to make sure my shave from this morning doesn’t need a refresher, I notice the wrinkles in the corners of my eyes and the sporadic gray hairs that started to appear recently, and it occurs to me that if I don’t have old-timer status already, I am definitely well on my way.
“Major Grayson. Do come in.”
The master and commander of NACS Washington, Colonel Drake, acknowledges my greeting and nods toward the spot in front of his desk. I’m in the commanding officer’s ready cabin, which is located right off the busy combat information center. Behind me, the door closes automatically and shuts out all the noise from the CIC.
Colonel Drake gets out of his chair and extends his hand across the desk. He is trim and fit, and taller than me by at least five centimeters. His hair is reddish blond and as unruly as the standard short Fleet haircut will allow.
“I’ve been told they had found someone to take over the STT from Major Mackenzie. Truth be told, I wasn’t optimistic we’d have the slot staffed in time for deployment.”
“I was two tours into a training billet on Iceland,” I say. “Guess they figured I’ve sat on my ass long enough.”
“But have you?” Colonel Drake says with a smile. “Iceland’s a cushy posting, from what I hear.”
“I came up from the enlisted ranks. When they pinned the stars on me, they lied to me and said I’d be a junior-grade officer for the rest of my days. I’m a podhead at heart. Not an administrator.”
From the way the wrinkles in the corners of his pale-blue eyes deepen briefly, I can tell that I gave the right answer, or at least an acceptable one. Colonel Drake nods and sits back down in his chair. I put my hands behind my back and stand at parade rest. Some commanders run their ship without formal bullshit, some run it so tightly that the crew walks on their toes at all times. Until I have this one figured out, I figure it’s best to err on the side of excessive formality. The special tactics team is integrated with the SI regiment, but it’s still under Fleet command, so the colonel is not only the commander of the battlecarrier but also my direct superior.
“Well, welcome to Washington. You’ve served on an Avenger before in the same job, so I’m sure you know your way around. This one has a few improvements, but that’s mostly just systems stuff. Layout’s exactly the same.”
The colonel has a pleasantly melodic accent I can’t quite place. His diction is very precise, and he uses no filler words to interrupt the rhythm of his sentences.
“Too bad you had to change horses for the STT team right before heading out,” I say. “I know it messes with team cohesion. But I’ll do what I can to hit the ground running.”
“I’m glad to hear it. You should have an easy job. Your predecessor cherry-picked the section leaders and most of the enlisted personnel. They’ve been training for this deployme
nt for the last six months.”
“Can you share where we’re going yet?” I ask, and the colonel shakes his head.
“I would if I knew. Command hasn’t seen fit to tell us anything other than our departure date and time. But we will know more in thirty-six hours. You have some time to get settled in.”
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Drake taps a field on his comms screen.
“XO, could you come to the ready cabin, please?”
“Aye, sir,” a female voice replies.
A few moments later, the door signal sounds, and I turn toward it as it opens with a faint pneumatic hiss.
The woman who walks into the ready room is tall and lean. She has dark-brown hair that’s pulled back into a ponytail, and the back and sides are trimmed very short. Something about the curve of her jawline and the dark-brown color of her eyes reminds me of someone else, but I can’t quite figure it out just yet. She looks at me and gives me an appraising once-over.
“Lieutenant Colonel Campbell, this is Major Grayson. He’s the new STT boss. Major Grayson, this is my XO, Sophie Campbell.”
Lieutenant Colonel Campbell offers her hand, and we shake. Her grip is firm and purposeful.
“Welcome to the ship, Major,” she says. “Glad you could join us on short notice.”
She doesn’t smile when she offers her welcome, and something about the tone of her statement makes it sound just a little bit sarcastic. I choose to ignore the minor barb and smile noncommittally in return.
“XO, please log the major’s arrival and show him around the CIC before he heads down to Grunt Country to meet the team,” Colonel Drake says. “Good to have you aboard, Major. Carry on.”
I follow the XO back out into the CIC. She leads me over to the command pit and stops in front of the holotable, which shows the space around the ship and the Fleet base. A handful of contacts are in various approach and departure patterns, diligently tracked by the ship’s integrated defense system.
“The skipper says you’ve been on an Avenger before,” she says.
“I was on Ottawa on her first deployment.”
“The colony evacuation at New Svalbard,” she says, and I nod.
“That was bad news,” she says. “Ship did well, though.”
“We splashed three seed ships,” I say. “But they had already landed in force, so there was nothing more we could do other than to get the civvies off.”
“I read the after-action reports. What a waste.”
“It was either nuke the place or surrender it to them.”
“I’m not saying it was the wrong decision,” she says. “But it was a waste.”
Now that I know her name, I have figured out why she looks vaguely familiar.
“Are you related to Colonel Campbell?” I ask. “The skipper of the Indianapolis?”
“He was my father,” she says.
“I served with him on Indy,” I say. “He was the best commander I’ve ever seen.”
“So I hear,” she says. “Everyone who served with him says the same thing. You’re familiar with the special tactics station here in the CIC, right?”
She points to one of the stations that surround the command pit. I walk over and take a closer look. Everything is set up the way it was on Ottawa, when I took turns at the STT station with my senior NCO and the platoon leaders.
“Yes, I am,” I say. “Haven’t been in that chair in a little while. But it’s all familiar ground.”
“You have full access to the CIC, so do what you have to do to get yourself up to speed. Any questions or concerns?”
I didn’t exactly expect a parade at my arrival, but the XO’s frosty and brusque manner seems a little out of place even for an executive officer, the traditional heavy hat on a warship. I don’t know what I’ve done to piss off the ship’s second-in-command right out of the starting gate, but I don’t want to show my irritation until I have figured out whether her low-level ire is justified, or whether she’s just a natural asshole.
“No questions or concerns at this time, ma’am,” I say.
“Then don’t let me keep you, Major. I will see you at the command staff meeting at 0800 in the morning.”
“Aye, ma’am.”
I take the hint and turn to leave the CIC. Whatever chip is lodged on the XO’s shoulder, this isn’t the time or place to address it. But the whole interaction has served to make me feel a little uneasy as I head down the passageway and off toward the SOCOM berths. For the first time since I agreed to the transfer, I feel myself wishing for an undo button to put me back onto Iceland, with four days on the clock until my weekend liberty with Halley.
CHAPTER 7
SETTLING IN
On a smaller warship, the cabin of a unit’s commanding officer also has to serve as their workspace. The Avengers are so large that each unit all the way down to company level gets a proper office just like they do on a shore installation.
When I walk into the office of STT 500, there’s just one person behind the counter, someone with a high-and-tight military regulation haircut that is peppered with gray. He is typing on the input field of a terminal, and his back is turned toward the door. When he hears me entering, he turns, and I see first sergeant insignia on his shoulders.
“Good morning, sir,” he says.
“Good morning, First Sergeant,” I reply. As we size each other up, I can tell he’s scanning my uniform credentials, which are more revealing than his because I am in my ribbon-adorned Class A uniform, and he is wearing Fleet fatigues. But from what I can see on that camouflage smock, it’s more than enough to get the picture. He is wearing the golden trident of a SEAL, the Fleet’s space-air-land commandos and the cream of the SOCOM branch, and a golden pod drop badge underneath.
“I’m the new CO,” I say. “Major Grayson. Here to take over for Major Mackenzie.”
“Yes, sir. First Sergeant Gallegos. I’m the company SNCO. Welcome to STT 500.”
He gestures toward the door behind him.
“My office is behind the company office, and yours is behind mine, sir. Just like on a shore base. But a lot smaller.”
“At least we have offices,” I say. “This is a palace compared to a cruiser or an assault carrier.”
“First time on an Avenger, sir?”
“Negative. I was the CO for the STT on Ottawa’s shakedown cruise.”
“Then this will be familiar ground to you,” he says. “All the Mark I Avengers have the same layout.”
He looks at my combat controller badge and the coral-red beret under my left shoulder board.
“Captain Burns is your CCT section lead. He’ll be glad to finally have a combat controller at the helm.”
“What was Major Mackenzie’s MOS?” I ask.
“Uh, he’s a SEAL, sir.”
The regulations specify that the commander of a special tactics team has to be a SOCOM-qualified officer from one of the three Fleet occupations that make up the SOCOM branch: combat controller, Spaceborne Rescue, or SEAL. Naturally, each occupation thinks of itself as the best of the lot, and almost everyone prefers to have a boss who comes from the same specialty. Captain Burns, the leader of the combat controller section, will undoubtedly be happy to have a fellow red hat as a superior, but I know that my company sergeant is probably less than happy to trade in his SEAL commanding officer for a combat controller. The interservice rivalries are fractal, and the lower down the organizational chain they go, the more intense they seem to get.
“I usually trust my section leaders to run their own business. I may get a little more hands-on with the CCT section because that’s my trade. But I’m not a micromanager.”
“Aye, sir.”
“What kind of shape are we in, First Sergeant?” I ask.
“It’s a solid team, sir. A lot of the junior NCOs aren’t seasoned yet. Some of the squad leaders are a little green. We have a few fresh lieutenants who just got their tridents this year. But all the senior sergeants are combat vets
. So are all the section leaders.”
“I want to meet them. See if you can schedule a sit-down and find a room at some point today.”
“You want an all-officer meeting, or just the section leaders, sir?” First Sergeant Gallegos asks.
I think about my answer briefly.
“Just the section leaders for now. I’ll meet the rest in due course. No point yanking everyone away from their tasks.”
“Aye, sir. I’ll slot in a meeting and send you the data. When would you like to do the change of command ceremony? We’ll have to do that on the flight deck because Grunt Country doesn’t have a space that can hold the whole company. And I’ll have to let the commander know ahead of time.”
I grimace and shake my head.
“You know what, First Sergeant? I don’t really care for pomp and ritual. And the troops have better things to do than stand around on the flight deck and watch me play with a flag. Make an entry in the company log that I assumed command of the CCT at”—I check my chrono—“1300 hours Zulu today. And send out a message to that effect on the all-company list. That should take care of the formalities.”
“Aye, sir.” First Sergeant Gallegos’s little smile tells me that he approves of my abbreviated protocol.
“I’ll be back in a little while to get set up in the new office. But first I want to get out of the travel uniform and into cammies.”
“Copy that, sir. Place’ll be here when you get back.”
I nod and walk out of the office to head to my cabin. When I became an officer, it took me a long while to get used to being addressed as “sir.” It still feels strange to hear that deferential term coming out of the mouth of a senior SEAL sergeant who is a good five years older than me, and who has been in the Corps for at least as long as I have. I do some math and realize that if I had stayed in the noncommissioned officer career track, I would be a master sergeant or first sergeant myself now, especially considering the accelerated promotion schedule the Corps adopted out of necessity over the last five years. It’s easy enough to refill the ranks of young enlisted and junior noncoms. A newly minted corporal has at most two years of training behind him. But the senior noncoms, the ones who are the backbone of the military, take a very long time to train and develop, and they are difficult to replace. For probably the fiftieth time since I accepted Masoud’s offer of an officer slot, I feel a tinge of regret over my decision to let them promote me out of the noncommissioned ranks. But I have no way of un-ringing that particular bell other than to resign my commission and leave the service altogether.
