In any case, wasn’t much Susan could do about it.
Kincaid was going to have to sink or swim on her own.
10: An Overwhelmed Katie
Behind Katie and Andrew there was a gate in a chain-link fence around a small building with some big pipes coming out of it. The waterworks apparently.
In front of them, there was a fake mob.
As far as Katie was concerned its members, they looked like mostly off duty enlisted personnel and local youth, were getting all too enthusiastically into their roles. They were producing a perfect cacophony of angry shouts and exhortations to violence. Their angry gestures and expressions were also altogether too convincing. So far, the closest of them was staying at least a few meters away.
A few of them waved large signs with nonsensical slogans in garish colors. A few were simply waving large sticks.
Katie considered trying to shout over the noise and telling them to disperse.
Katie didn’t think that would work, that it’d just look weak. This was getting out of hand.
Katie turned to Andrew Cunningham, who was standing just behind her and off to one side. Andrew was acting as her “radioman”. He had their platoon communications device on his back. A thick, heavy rectangular chunk of metal that Katie liked to think of as an all purpose securely talk to anywhere phone with a battery that lasted for almost forever. It was overkill for their current circumstances, but in general maintaining reliable communications was important enough and tricky enough to warrant separating the communications and command functions.
“I think maybe we need reinforcements,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” Andrew replied.
Katie returned to looking at the crowd and trying to appear confident and unruffled.
It seemed to be growing larger and more aggressive.
Ten minutes later and she was becoming worried. The leading individuals were edging closer and closer. Outright threats were being made. Katie turned to Andrew again. “How long before the reinforcements get here?” she asked.
“What reinforcements? You didn’t ask for reinforcements,” Andrew replied.
“What?” she said, shocked and flabbergasted. No time to argue. “Well, call for them now. Tell them to hurry,” she said. It was like getting kicked in the stomach. It was all she could do to avoid bending over in pain.
Katie was scared now. She felt like she’d fallen off the top of a high building and was just waiting to hit the ground.
As it happened, the crowd took them before the reinforcements arrived.
The violence was fake. They were surrounded, but gentle taps and pats and the waving of hands took the place of genuine blows. They weren’t forced to the ground, trampled, and torn apart.
Katie might have preferred that.
Didn’t look like Katie had much future either way.
Only this way looked like the pain was going to last longer.
* * *
So technically Katie was still in charge of the platoon.
In fact, they were resting up prior to Susan’s taking charge for tonight. Katie’s last turn at the wheel had come and gone. It had all gone sidewards so fast that even now after being debriefed by their instructor, she was still trying to figure out what had happened.
Simplest explanation was a simple miscommunication. Only she didn’t think she’d been that unclear. The situation had been obvious. Katie felt betrayed.
At the same time, she wasn’t sure. It was like a nightmare on a dark plain. Monsters kept looming in the shadows, but were impossible to nail down and counter. Lord, Katie get a grip.
Okay, Andrew had been at best unhelpful. Didn’t mean accusing him of deliberate sabotage was going to help. To the contrary, given their respective reputations, it’d only hurt her. Wasn’t fair. Didn’t matter.
What was the situation? It was that at this point she was on the wrong side of marginal. She wasn’t going to get another chance at being in charge and proving she could handle it either.
There was one more week left before graduation week. Graduation week was the seventh week of the course. For most of the cadets it’d be a wrap up week, of cleaning up and preparing for the graduation parade, and finally the graduation parade itself. For the unlucky few who’d not done so well, it’d be the week the review board convened and decided their fates.
The sixth week was a course wide exercise of some sort. Nobody had any details regards that. They did something different every year. Whatever happened, there was some chance of creating a better impression if she managed to perform well at whatever challenge they were given. Maybe she could avoid the review board entirely if she did well. If not, maybe she could do well enough to influence them in her favor.
A forlorn hope, but the only one Katie had.
All she could do was as her grandmother had advised.
Persevere.
* * *
Andrew was suffering a weird mixture of feelings.
He felt a definite glee at having finally put a stake through the heart of the monstrosity that was the presence of Katie Kincaid. Weird trouble attracting Belter girl who was a combination of competition and dead weight he’d been asked to carry. Andrew didn’t feel good about feeling that.
In fact, Andrew was appalled at himself.
Andrew’s behavior offended common decency and was unfair to Kincaid. Andrew didn’t like to think of himself as the bad guy, and he certainly wasn’t the good guy here.
Andrew could try to weasel word it. It was true her comment on the need for reinforcements hadn’t been worded clearly as an order. It was also true she hadn’t bothered to confirm he’d understood and carried out her order as she should have.
It didn’t wash with Andrew himself. It wouldn’t wash with any other cadet or Space Force officer who decided to scrutinize what had happened. Fortunately, the only ones who’d been there and knew for sure what had happened were him and Kincaid.
All the same, Andrew had crossed a line. The Space Force placed a premium on the integrity of its officers. The honest thing for Andrew to have done would have been to suggest calling for reinforcements, even if it hadn’t occurred to the girl herself. Failing to do so on a technicality was malicious sabotage. Andrew’s career would be finished if it was ever suspected.
The appalling fact was that he’d put his career and reputation in mortgage to Kincaid’s willingness to call him on what he’d done.
It made him that much more angry at her for forcing him to act as he had.
Andrew would be glad next year when Kincaid was finally gone.
Until then, he’d keep his head down.
Andrew had tempted fate enough.
* * *
Colleen was as mad as hell. Mad as hell at Katie for screwing up her last best chance.
It was oddly invigorating to be so mad. Colleen rarely allowed herself to indulge in such strong emotion.
Normally she was diffident, and tried to be reasonable, and look at all sides of any situation. Normally she’d be feeling dead tired right now. Yet another night march and most of tomorrow to get through before they could hope to rest like normal human beings in a real bed. Normally right now she’d be concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other and not falling over, or drifting off.
Not tonight. Tonight she was filled with the energy of the righteously outraged. Colleen knew she was burning energy she’d miss tomorrow. She didn’t care.
Both her and Katie had done all the command tasks they were going to get and their fates were both all but sealed.
There wasn’t much Colleen could do now that would keep her from graduating. Katie on the other hand was all but certain to fail unless she somehow pulled a rabbit out of the hat.
And that infuriated Colleen.
Colleen had tried to maintain a degree of emotional distance, but Katie had become a friend.
More than that. Colleen had become convinced that despite all her flaws, Katie deserved to be a Space Force o
fficer and that the Space Force would be better for it.
Only Katie had gone and messed up at the end.
Colleen didn’t know what had gone on at the waterworks where Katie and Andrew were overwhelmed by faux rioters. She didn’t know why Katie hadn’t called for the waiting reinforcements in time. In her heart of hearts, however, she was convinced that if Andrew had supported Katie the way he should have that it would have gone down differently.
Knowing Andrew, what had happened didn’t surprise her. Andrew pretended to be all cool and charming, but at heart he was a smug snot who couldn’t stand anyone else getting ahead. Particularly if that someone was different from him. In Andrew’s mind, him and his family were the apex of evolution and anything that challenged that view was unacceptable.
Colleen knew that. Nobody said so in so many words, but she thought almost all of the cadets sensed it.
Katie should have known too. She should have picked someone else to be at her right hand during the exercise. Even if she had felt she needed to make a team member her radioman, Colleen would have been a better choice than Andrew.
Katie should have seen that.
Katie hadn’t and now it was going to cost her big. Her and her friends.
Katie should have known who her friends were. She should have known to trust them.
Colleen knew it didn’t generally help to be mad. She knew it was likely too late. Still, she was going to give Katie a piece of her mind when she got a chance. She wished it she’d done it sooner.
Probably too late now.
Katie’s chances of graduating were looking slim. Not non-existent.
But slim.
* * *
Susan was disappointed. Disappointed to the point of anger.
Susan was used to disappointment. People never failed to amaze her with their failure to reach minimal standards of competence.
Susan was less used to being angry. The world was what it was. Getting angry didn’t help. Usually it made matters worse.
Only, though she couldn’t prove it, she was convinced Andrew Cunningham had crossed a line.
Katie Kincaid wasn’t his cup of tea. Susan figured Andrew was the sort of effete snob that liked a cup of tea. Besides, he was English. That was fine. It wasn’t an excuse for violating the cadet code. Cadets were supposed to have integrity. They were supposed to help each to the best of their ability.
Susan didn’t think that was what had happened in the crowd control scenario.
She thought Katie had made the mistake of trusting Andrew. Susan thought Andrew had betrayed that trust.
Susan knew Katie. Katie had good instincts, even if she was often uncertain on how to execute on them. Katie had known she couldn’t afford to fail at her last task. Katie would have erred on the side of caution. She would have decided to call for her reinforcements as soon as the fake crowd threatening the water works had shown signs of being aggressive. Katie would have taken the chance of being seen to be overreacting over the likelihood of failing the test completely.
It wasn’t like anyone with any clue hadn’t thought the whole platoon wasn’t intended to participate in a crowd control exercise. Say what you will about Katie she wasn’t stupid. She’d known.
Only somehow that decision, that Susan was convinced Katie must have made, hadn’t made it back to the platoon.
Susan intended to ask Katie outright about that, but she already had a good idea why not.
It made her angry.
Angry enough that she was missing badly needed sleep. Their night march and setting up a bivvie in the dark had taken to midnight. They’d be standing to before dawn. Wasn’t like she was going to get much rest at best.
Susan needed to let go of the anger.
Susan didn’t know what she could have done, but she wished it had been more.
Right now it looked like the biathlon team was going to be short their best member next year. Make Susan look that much better, but it wasn’t any real consolation.
Susan would talk to Katie. Buck her up if she could. Help as best as possible.
Unfortunate that it’d likely not be enough.
The world was full of misfortune though.
Susan needed to let go of her anger.
She needed to rest.
11: A Depressed Katie
One of the many new things Katie had learned about in the almost a year she’d been on Earth was the idea of being “melon-balled”. Apparently it could be used as a metaphor for an obscene act. Where there was sufficient will anything could be used as a metaphor for something obscene. Katie tried to keep track of such things so she could avoid inadvertently embarrassing herself. It was a thankless and uphill battle.
The literal meaning of the phrase was that of hollowing out a gourd of some sort to make a type of dessert. With an effort, Katie could imagine recognizing one's desserts might be mildly useful. The meaning of the phrase that had caught Katie’s imagination was the one of completely and efficiently hollowing something out.
It was a neater, less gory, but arguably more complete cousin to the idea of evisceration.
It was exactly how Katie was feeling.
Gutted. Eviscerated. Melon-balled.
In a very distant way, she was painfully despondent.
Only she was hollow. There wasn’t enough of her left under the surface to feel much of anything.
The full gravity of her situation hadn’t struck her until they’d laid down to sleep.
Sure the ground was hard and lumpy and there always seemed to be a rock determined to stick into something tender, but most nights in the field her body would be so tired it wouldn’t make any difference. She’d sleep like a rock until woken to stand to before dawn.
Not tonight.
Tonight, thinking of what had happened and what it meant, meant her mind was transfixed with an obliterating horror that wouldn’t let it drift off. Would she ever get over it? Would she ever sleep happily again? Logic said yes, that time heals all. It felt like logic was lying.
Katie had gone all in on the idea of joining the Space Force. That meant graduating from the Academy, which meant passing BOTC. The cards fate had dealt hadn’t gone her way. She’d lost everything.
The fact that one of the other players at the table might have been cheating was a trivial detail compared to that enormity.
Well, life isn’t a game of poker and neither was this course. Katie still had a seat at the table, even if there wasn’t any obvious way to win. Katie didn’t plan to gracefully concede. Katie would play her cards out to the game’s bitter end.
When it was over, once she was out in the cold, alone with empty pockets, then she’d worry about what to do next.
Katie would do her best next week.
She’d face the board.
She’d spit in fate’s face if she had to.
* * *
Andrew wasn’t a happy camper. Not that BOTC field exercises bore anything more than a superficial resemblance to camping. They both involved being outdoors and sleeping without being in a proper bed or having a proper roof over one’s head, and that was about it.
Not an observation pertinent to anything besides Andrew’s currently poor mood.
It was the next day after the debacle of an exercise that by all rights ought to end Katie Kincaid’s Space Force career. They were standing to. Keeping watch from tactically sound positions. Supposedly in the event of a dawn attack.
No such attack had ever materialized. Andrew figured it was yet one more excuse to deprive them of sleep. It was a game he was tiring of, but that wasn’t the reason for his bad mood.
No, Katie Kincaid was the reason for that.
He’d crossed a line because of her. He’d gone out on a limb out of exasperation with her. It might yet cost him his career.
She hadn’t accused him of failing her.
Neither had she spoken to him in anything more than monosyllables since.
Kincaid felt more than ever like a ticking ti
me bomb.
Worse, the other cadets seemed sympathetic. Some of them had remarked that maybe she wasn’t so far behind that she couldn’t make it up in the course wide team level exercise scheduled for next week.
Andrew thought they were being unrealistically optimistic out of misplaced kindness.
In any event, it was a team level exercise and Kincaid’s team consisted of her, Andrew, and Colleen.
McGinnis was a weak reed. Andrew should have no trouble making sure Kincaid didn’t make up the points next week.
Might cost himself some places in the course rankings in the process.
It’d be worth it to finally be rid of her.
* * *
The cadets hadn’t gotten to see much of the country surrounding the base on which the BOTC course was being held. That country was a large chunk of the more northern and western part of North America’s mid-west. There had been attempts to grow grain in this part of the world in the past, but now it was mostly grazing country. Where it wasn’t, it was some combination of military or nature reservation.
The area was in any case very sparsely populated.
Suited Susan just fine.
But it did mean that the closest local town was very small and had only three restaurants. Two fast-food joints, one specializing in burgers and one in fried chicken, plus a diner that specialized in breakfast and home cooked style meals, but which was also the only local source for pizza.
At this particular moment in time, Sunday afternoon at the end of the fifth week in the course, Susan and three other cadets, Katie, Colleen, and Eva, were enjoying the only time they got to leave the base during the week. Enjoying it in the town’s burger joint.
Apparently a local chain. Not one Susan was familiar with, though their burgers were fine. They weren’t small and normally a combo including fries and a large drink would have been enough to feed even a growing teen-aged girl. Normally teen-aged girls didn’t spend all week slogging across the countryside and subsisting on Combat Rations.
Each one of the cadets had ordered at least two combos. Susan had three burgers in front of her and a mountain of fries and was methodically chomping her way through the first of them.
Katie Kincaid Space Cadet Page 17
