I crossed the brow, saluted the OOD, and he scanned my tags. “You're the new FC, huh?” He said.
“That's affirmative.” He didn't seem to recognize me, and I was grateful for that.
“Wait one while I call down to Weapons.” He punched a button on his screen and we listened to it ring.
The line clicked to life. “Weapons, Owens speaking.”
“Got a FC2 Wright up here with orders,” the OOD said. “You know anything about it?”
“Heck yeah! We've been waiting for him,” Owens said. “Give me a sec, I'll send up someone to get him.”
“Roger that.” He wiped the screen and said, “And now you get to wait some more.”
“Just another day in the Navy,” I said.
He nodded sagely, and then we kind of ignored each other. I looked around the quarterdeck, which was both similar to and different than the Rosy Roads'. It felt older, and it took me a minute to figure out why, but I finally realized that it was the paint. Not the color or anything (they've been using the same weird green for over a century), but the quality of the paint job. Someone had painted over bad patch jobs, so that you could see the outline still, and in a few places brush strokes had dried in place. But you could see it most clearly in the corners, where the amount of paint that had built up over the decades had rounded them so much that at first, I thought it was a bad caulk job.
I had just worked this out in my mind when a chief came though the hatch. “Wright?” he all but barked. He looked like a wall with a bushy red moustache.
“Yes chief,” I answered with a salute.
He returned it perfunctorily, and looked me up and down, grunting at whatever he concluded. “I'm Chief Hammerdale. Follow me.” In those few words I heard a southern accent thicker than any I heard since leaving Earth.
I went with him into the bowels of the ship, tugging my sea bag behind me. We passed plenty of people, and many said hi to the chief, and a few who said hi to me as well. It seemed like a good crew. Chief led me into berthing and pointed to a top rack. “You'll bunk here. Leave your stuff, we need to get you checked in.”
We went to the Weapons Center, a space that stretched about ten meters long, but only about 4 meters wide with a hatch in the center of both the short sides. We stood at a long table in the center, and people seemed to stream by constantly as they passed from one hatch to the other. Chief Hammerdale sighed every time he got jostled but didn't say anything else.
We went over the basics, where my work center was (Radar Room 2), where we mustered in the morning (Computer Room 1, at 0700 sharp), and who the division officer was (Ensign Burrows). I met the other two chiefs in the division, about a dozen Fire Controlmen, and half that many gunners. And that day, I remembered very few names. It took a week or so to get comfortable, and once again, I was grateful for whoever had mandated however many centuries past that sailors would have their names on their uniforms in easily legible lettering.
FC1 Dillion ran our work center. He had an awkward of moving, like he wanted to run but his limbs couldn't decide how to do it. We called him Dilly. The other three guys were FC2 Owens, FC3 Kelly (Red for short because of his bright red hair) and FC2 Bailey. He said, “Just call me Volley. Everyone does.”
“Really?” I said. “Why's that?”
He just shrugged, but Owens busted out laughing. I looked back and forth between them, but Red said, “You know how they say that Navy stands for Never Again Volunteer Yourself? Well, our boy here done forgot, and when they came through a while back asking for a few extra hands, he raised his.”
“Ended up in snipe land,” he said with a rueful shake of his head. “One of the recyclers had decided to burst a gasket, and there was shit—literal shit—all over the place. Got to help clean it up.”
“Ouch,” I said.
“Yeah, so I get to live with the reminder of that day for the rest of my time on this boat.”
“And how long is that again?” Owens asked, acting momentarily innocent.
“One year, one month, and six days,” Volley said. “Give or take a few days.”
And as easy as that, I was part of the team. They called me Right On, which was a nice change, and I didn't have to crank in the galley, which was another relief. I met everyone else in the division the next morning at muster, and afterwards Dilly gave me list of maintenance tasks.
I still left the ship after the work day ended to use the Comm center on base to talk to Katy. We talked a bit about my new ship, but I had to be careful not to mention any specifics. Our transmission always cut out if I did, one more way the Navy tried to protect me. But it made it dammed difficult to carry on a conversation sometimes. Still, I felt pretty good when we signed off. She always had that effect on me.
I bumped into Kathleen just outside, almost literally. I stepped through the door, looking right, and she came out of nowhere on my left. We laughed awkwardly about it, and she said, “How's your ship?”
“Seems pretty good,” I said. “It's only been a day, though.”
“Oh, it's a pretty good bunch,” she said. “Who's your supervisor?”
“FC1 Dillon.”
She nodded. “I should have known. Those poor boys have been doing four on twelve off underway for over two months now.”
“That doesn't sound too bad,” I said.
“Think about it: it means you always have two watches a day, no matter what.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “But underway, what else is there to do?”
“All the regular work,” she said with a smile. “They were looking a bit ragged last time they were in port, and then they went out for a month-long patrol. I'm surprised they didn't throw you a party.”
“They were pretty welcoming,” I said.
“I'll bet.” She glanced at her tablet. “Interested in getting a bite? I know a good Vietnamese place if you're game.”
“Do they have spring rolls?” I asked.
“Of course,” she said. “And a really good pho, too.”
The host greeted her warmly and said, “Your usual table, madam?”
“I'm thinking the booth today, Mr. Cho,” she said.
His eyes slid briefly to me, and he said, “Excellent, madam. Follow me?”
He led us to a a booth that around a corner, making it quiet, and out of sight from all but a few customers. After we ordered, Kathleen came right to the point. “I know who you are, but it's not general knowledge.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
She shook her head. “Your face has been on so many screens in the last year, but you're lucky in the sense that you're not overly distinctive. And somebody colored your hair. Was that your idea or the navy's?”
“I'm not sure...” The look she gave me made me smile. I had intended to deny everything, but I knew it would only make things worse. “I'm not sure I should say. How'd you figure it out?”
“It wasn't too hard,” she said. Our food arrived, and she waited until waiter disappeared. “There's a half dozen new faces around, all pretending to be regular folk, but all tracking you. I know the type, and figured you must be someone important, because I didn't peg them immediately. They sent good people to watch over you.”
I fiddled with the lid on my food pouch. “I'm just trying to be normal.”
“Dear,” she said, patting my hand. “You left that behind a while ago.”
“I know,” I sighed. “Are you going to tell anyone?”
“Oh heavens no,” she said, looking genuinely surprised. “I look after my sailors, I don't cause then problems. Well, sometimes they think I do, but that's only to keep them out of bigger trouble.”
“You're the Mom,” I said.
“Yes, I guess I really am.” She looked at me closely. “Now eat, it'll help improve your attitude.”
“Yes, Mom.”
“And Peter?” She waited until I she had my eyes on hers. “I'm here if you just need to talk, or whatever.”
I hesitated, but I figured i
f anyone would know, it's be her. “Do you know if there's a survivors group that meets on base?”
She nodded. “I'll get you in touch. Discreetly, of course.”
“Thank you.”
***
Kathleen may have been understanding, but my CO was not. I met with him the next morning after muster, and he fixed me with a steely glare as soon as I stepped in his cabin.
“Admiral Duffy called me personally to brief me about you,” he said without any preamble. “I want you know that I have no use for show-boaters in my crew.”
I took a moment to compose myself. A nameplate on his desk said Captain Harold Butler, and he had a picture of his family next to it, all smiling and formal. “I don’t want to be anything more than a normal sailor.”
He barked a laugh. “Right. You've just spent months being lauded by the whole fucking solar system, and now you just want to be normal.”
I spread my hands. “It wasn't my choice. Any of it.”
He shook his head. “If you make a spectacle on this boat, I'll have you written up in a heartbeat, and do everything I can to kick you off. Go check in with the XO.”
I left his cabin and spent a few minutes composing myself. My tablet said that Cmdr Tatum, the XO, was currently on the bridge, which was just down the passageway. I must have still been flushed, because he took one look at me and said, “Everything okay, petty officer?”
“Just fine, sir.” I pulled up my orders on my tablet and showed him. “The captain wants you to finish checking me in.”
“Does he have a problem with you?” The XO asked.
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
He looked at me closely. “And yet, your body language can, and does. Interesting.” He pulled out his own tablet, and his fingers danced across the screen for a few moments. He read a few screens, nodded, and said, “You should be good to go.”
“Thank you, Commander.”
The XO inclined his head. “Of course. And petty officer Wright...”
“Yes sir?”
“Captain Butler is a good man.”
“I never said otherwise, sir.”
“True enough,” Cmdr Tatum said. “See you around the ship then. Dismissed.”
And I didn't say anything to anyone. I really didn't want to be the Hero of Juno anymore. But Kathleen put me in touch with the survivor's group on base, and those guys knew. They got it, though, and generally I was able to stay somewhat normal. As normal as squids get, that is.
Chapter 8
Life in my new work center took a little getting used to. Not that I minded the maintenance and the watches, it's just that I had fallen in with a tight knit group, I felt constantly left out of all the little in jokes and traditions. But I didn't mind too much, because that’s normal when you're the new guy.
We spent almost a month in port, but then we got underway, heading from the moon to the moon-earth L points, which was our regular patrol. Not too bad, about a month underway, and quiet, just like I hoped it would be. I spent most of my time getting to know the ship, an older Guam class cruiser. It had no windows of any kind anywhere, but I had my own radar room that I was assigned to, Radar 3, and it only had our gear in it, a rarity on any navy vessel. So, if I needed some alone time, I retreated there.
I liked my shipmates just fine, I guess, but people still freaked me out somehow. I stayed quiet and retreated to my radar room often. I even slept there a lot. FC1 Dillon mentioned it once, but then dropped it. Every squid has their quirks, and mine wasn't the worst.
I just worked, and I emailed Katy, Hernandez, and my grandpa a lot. I tried to email Meyers and tell him how things were going, but his responses were so terse that I thought he hated my blathering. I stopped sending him anything for a week or so, and then got an email from him that simply said, “I haven't heard from you in a while.” So I put him back on the list.
Maintenance happened. All the time. It kept me busy and helped me avoid the temptations of Emperor Mong. For those of you who don't know who Mong is, he's the voice in your head that says, “Wouldn't it be amusing/fun/exciting to do this?” And this is always against common sense, if not against regulations, morality, and the law. Just because I managed to avoid his clutches doesn't mean that I didn't feel his effects.
Like the time that a one of our storekeepers was busted bringing vodka on board. Of course, it wasn't as simple as just smuggling a bottle or two on board. Oh, no, that happens often enough, and is pretty easily dealt with. No, we're talking cases of water bottles that had been spiked, and the guy was selling them at a tidy profit, I'm sure.
I became aware of it accidently. I had struck up a conversation in the chow line with one of the other storekeepers, SK3 Harris. He was likeable in a kind of melancholy way—he reminded me of a cynical Eeyore—so I ate with him that day, and then we bumped into each other a few times, and became friends in that off hand, I see you often enough and you're okay way that guys have. He's the one that tipped me off.
We were on our regular patrol run, and I was having chow with him one night, when out of the blue he says, “You might want to avoid the supply area tomorrow.”
“I never go there anyways,” I said. “Unless I need a spare or something.”
“Try not to need anything,” he said.
“Why? What's going on?”
He kind of leaned back, looking like he was relaxing but actually scanning the room. “Let's just say, we're going to be super busy.”
“Okay,” I said. I knew him well enough at that point that I knew he was just giving me a heads up, and wouldn't say anything else, and he knew me well enough to know that I would just accept him at his word and not press him further. It's one of the reasons we got along so well.
But the next morning I was on watch when a message popped up on my screen, informing me of a fault in the high-power cabinet in Radar 1. It came right before turn over, and it didn't have any critical errors associated with it, so I waited for Owens to relieve me. I showed him the message, told him I'd take care of it, and he said he'd let Dillon know.
I headed forward, and bumped into Volley, who wanted to know why I wasn't headed to muster. I told him about the fault, and he grunted. “Yeah, that cabinet has issues sometimes. Look at the switching regulators. They burn out like light bulbs, and that cabinet goes through more of them than any other.”
“Shouldn't we take a look at that?”
“Naw,” he said. “It's nothing outside of specs, it's just annoying. Always seems to happen at a bad time.”
“Nothing bad about missing Chief Hammerdale lecture us at muster,” I said.
“True enough.” He brightened for a moment, then sighed. “But if I try to help you before checking in, then he'll give me a one on one.”
I shuddered. “That would be ten times worse.”
“Exactly. So I'll be back to help as soon as I can.”
I got to the radar room, ran the diagnostics, and got a result that told me that the number four regulator on deck two was blown. There are four decks in the cabinet, and I was just about to pull the second from the top out when I heard Red say from behind me, “That's deck one, not two.”
“Then which one is two?” I said.
He reached over my shoulder and counted them: “Zero, one, two.”
I cursed my ignorance. “Thanks. I would have had to do this twice.”
“Happens to us all,” he said.
He gave me a hand, and we pulled the deck out. “Okay, which one is four then?” I asked.
He grinned, and started at the front left corner, going counter clockwise. “One, two, three, four.”
“The decks start with zero, but the tubes start with one?” I said.
He shrugged. “Naval engineering. There's also six signal processors, numbered one to three. Twice.”
“Holy crap.”
“You think that's bad?” he handed me a box wrench. “Now get it out.”
Four bolts, and the first three came out no probl
em. The fourth, however... “How the hell do you get the wrench in there?” I demanded after trying from every angle I could think.
He chuckled and took the tool and got it onto the bolt. The shaft had about an inch of play between the electronics deck and the cabinet wall. “An eighth of a turn at a time, bucko,” he said.
It took ten minutes to get that damn bolt off, and by that time Volley had joined us. I pulled the regulator out, which looks like a ceramic cylinder with a metal base. I held it up in triumph. “Good job,” Volley said. “Now you get to go get another one.”
Red had pulled it up on his tablet. “I just put in the request, so it should be waiting for you.”
I had forgotten about Harris' warning, and just followed the directions to the supply desk. And got stopped by a master-at-arms outside the hatch.
“What's going on?” I asked.
He just shook his head. “Can't say. Just have to keep everyone out.”
“But I need a part for the radar. It's at partial capacity until I do.”
“I don't know what to tell you,” he said. “Take it up with your Div O.”
I called Ensign Burrows, explained the situation, and he told me he would call me back. I just stood there, not sure what else to do, and a few minute later the XO showed up. The master-at-arms came to attention, and he said, “At ease, Griff. I'm going to escort Petty Officer Wright in.”
“Aye aye, sir,” he said, and stood aside.
We pulled open the hatch and stepped inside. No one stood at the service desk, but it looked like about three dozen people moved around on the other side. It probably was only ten or so, but man, it looked like an anthill going nuts. Two people were yelling at each other, and in the far corner, I could see a petty officer being held face first against the bulkhead, with his hands zip tied behind him. I didn’t see Harris anywhere, and I wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.
Cmdr Tatum looked at it all and shook his head. Then he waded into the thick of it, causing everyone to momentarily pause, and he said into the sudden quiet, “Ltcmdr Clark, I need a part. The aft radar is down without it.”
Till the Conflict Is Over Page 7
