Citadel

by John Ringo

  "You'd be surprised," Sean said. "I felt the same way when I first got here. You figure it out. If you get totally lost, and there's not a priority, you can ask Paris where the hell you are."

  "Paris?" Dana asked as they walked through a large, already open hatch that read "Environmental Fittings Department."

  "Troy's AI," Sean said, walking up to the counter. The guy manning it was older, probably in his thirties, with a bit of a paunch. And clearly a civilian. "New arrival."

  "Got it," the man said, looking at his screen. "Engineer Apprentice Dana Parker?"

  "Here," Dana said.

  "Helmet," he said, reaching and pulling down one from a rack. "Boots, gloves and suits down the end."

  Sean gestured to three slots on the bulkhead marked, remarkably, "Boots, Gloves, Suits." She opened them up and pulled out the space-suit parts.

  "And we're done," Sean said. "Thank you."

  "No problem," the man said, finally looking up. "Mind you keep the seals checked and if you want some personal advice, always keep the catheter lubed."

  "Yes, sir," Dana said, coloring slightly.

  "They run air-breach drills about every two days," the civilian said. "If you maintain lubrication on the catheter, you're not scrambling for the gel when you're in a hurry."

  "Yes, sir," Dana said, again. "Thank you, sir."

  "I tell the guys, too, miss," the man said, nodding. "Good day."

  "Boots and gloves go in the helmet," Sean said, stuffing the gloves in. "The helmet goes, neck-ring up, under your left arm. The suit," he continued, tossing it over her right shoulder, "is prescribed to be carried in a jaunty manner over the right shoulder. That shows you're a real junior space eagle."

  "Yes, Engineer," Dana said, trying not to smile. But once she got the leopard suit adjusted so it wasn't sliding, it did feel rather jaunty.

  —|—

  "Suity has a point," Sean said as they exited into the corridor. "But we're in and out of suits so much, you just sort of do it anyway. If you want my advi—" He stopped and blushed.

  "Sean," Dana said, frowning. He was an engineer, she was just an apprentice. But getting it out of the way was a good idea. "I know that Johannsen's means there's not many women in the military these days. With the Horvath hitting us over and over, there's no time for mommy-track. And if you've got Johannsen's, and I did, you practically have to wear a chastity belt to not get belly-full. But I'm gene scrubbed, I didn't have four kids by the time I was out of high school and I'm here to do a job. I've got different parts but that's all it means. I don't get offended when somebody says something racy. I grew up on a farm with four male cousins. If they couldn't get me to choke up at the jokes they tell, you're not going to. Or what they talk about. You'll know you've crossed a line when I start talking about what having Johannsen's PMS is like."

  "Ouch," Sean said. "Message received."

  "So you were about to impart some wisdom about suits to a fricking useless noob," Dana said. "Yes, I even know what a FUN is. And I know I'm a fricking useless noob. So you said... If I want your advice about wearing suits."

  "Yeah," Sean said. "Thing is, we spend about half our watch time in suits. We don't have bays for the Myrmidons, yet. We're on an external spine system."

  "Outside the Troy?" Dana said, her eyes widening.

  "No, no," Sean said. "We're in the main bay. It's a sort of... Well, from the entrance to the bay it looks like a fricking hypodermic needle with warts. It's a tube of steel they welded on the wall. There are fifty shuttles, as of this morning's roster, locked on. So when we have to do an exterior inspection..."

  "Which by standard is once a day," Dana said.

  "Yeah," Sean said. "Well, you have to do it in a suit. So we're in and out of suits pretty much all the time. You're not fully suit qualed, so you're going to have to qual for that before you get really put to work. But when you're qualed, you'll be in and out all the time. So... Always, always, always take a dump before watch. You can dump in a suit, but it sucks. And so does doing the maintenance on the fecal matter repository. And getting out of it sucks, especially if you're in a hurry. So take a dump. If you get an inflammation from the catheter, don't hardcore it. See the corpsman. Check your seals. Check your, check your, check your fricking seals. Check 'em for any FOD every day, every time before you put it on, every time you just happen to be going by. When you put it on, do a buddy check if you can. If not, do the best single check you can. And, can I repeat, check your fricking seals?"

  "I take it you've been having noobs not checking their seals?" Dana said, chuckling.

  "Define noobs," Sean said, hitting the 32 button on an elevator. "We had a chief get assigned to us. Straight out of 'we're going to make you a master space chief' school."

  "They've got one of those?" Dana asked.

  "They've got one of those," Sean said. "Where do you think we're getting all our chiefs? And you'd think that a chief petty officer with twenty years in the Navy would have learned something called attention to de-tail. By which I am not making a sexual innuendo."

  "I take it he didn't?" Dana said. "I mean, a chief?"

  "Decided to make an inspection walk to ensure that 'maintenance tasks were performing to standard,'" Sean said. "Which means 'people aren't screwing off.' Let me point out that nobody screws off in vacuum, Engineer Apprentice. I am the master of screwing off and even I don't go ghosting in the main bay. But I guess on carriers or something they go hiding out in the escape boats. I dunno, I've never been in what the old timers call the 'real' Navy. But he knew that somebody, somewhere, was going to be ghosting and the obvious place was clearly hiding in vacuum in the main bay to, I dunno, play null g cards or something!"

  "And he didn't check his seals?" Dana said.

  "We know that this was his intention because," Sean said, pausing as they exited the elevator, "and I do not lie, he left a voice log." His voice deepened and assumed a pompous tone. "'Sixteen-thirty, port watch, performing inspection to ensure maintenance tasks performing to standard.'"

  "Uh..." Dana said, blinking. "And the point of leaving a voice log? Aren't we supposed to log actions?"

  "Nobody but utter geeks or noobs leaves a personal log," Sean said. "I mean, do you regularly narrate your way through the day? '2230, arrived Troy. 2243, assigned 142nd Shuttle Wing. 2247, took dump...' I mean, I mean, what is this? Star Trek?"

  "Uh," Dana said, as they got on a grav walk.

  "No, to answer my own question," Sean said. "This is the Troy. Which exists not to go where no man has gone before and as a vehicle for narration by ham actors, but to sit on the door and pound the ever-living crap out of anybody who comes through the gate we don't like. And as a further word of advice, we do not leave personal voice logs. But fortunately, in this case, we didn't have to have a major Article Thirty-Two investigation when Chief Buckley was found a-Dutchman in the main bay. The point of this anecdote is check your seals. Check your navopak..."

  "Navigation and atmosphere support system?" Dana guessed.

  "Right," Sean said. "Which everybody calls the navo. Make sure your capacitors are charged, make sure you got dio..."

  "Di... oh?"

  "Sorry," Sean said, sighing. "I think the Navy is so addicted to slang we're trying to catch up. Di-oxygen molecules. O2."

  "Oh," Dana said, starting to feel totally out of her depth.

  "Two," Sean said, grinning. "Get it? Oh-Two? Mono is not good stuff nor is trio. Dio makes you bright. Not too few atoms, not too many. Juuuust right."

  "Okay," Dana said, grinning. "Monatomic oxygen is pretty nasty stuff. And trio is... ozone."

  "Nio is for fun," Sean sang, taking a little skip. "Sio makes you sad. And Suo is so very very bad."

  "I won't even try to catch up on those," Dana said, adjusting her suit on her shoulder.

  "We occasionally carry some very scary stuff," Sean said. "There's just not enough transport and all the loading bays aren't done yet. So we do a lot of what the oldies call 'lig
hter' work. Picking up cargo on freighters and bringing it into bays. The coxswain and engineer have to sign off on the cargo, which means at least having a clue about the MSDS."

  "Material Safety Data Sheet," Dana said.

  "Roger," Sean said. "Nio: Nitrogen dioxide. Nitrous in other words. You can huff it if you're a druggie type but this stuff is liquid so doing it straight is a baaad idea. We've never actually carried silica dioxide. It's a waste material from grav-well steel production but it rhymes. Suo is sulfur trioxide which we have carried and it's beyond nasty stuff. If you get a fire in it you can open up the ports and watch it burn in vacuum. Which I suppose would be cool... And speaking of screwing off," he continued as they exited another hatch.

  The air was filled with the buzz of people and the smell of food. Dana's mouth started to water and she looked around in surprise. It looked pretty much like...

  "The food court," Sean said, waving expansively. "Courtesy of Apollo Mining and LFD Mall Division."

  The food court looked huge at first, rising six stories above the bottom level where they were standing. But then Dana noticed that only the ground floor was in business. There was an angle around a corner she couldn't see into that seemed to stretch into more space.

  "There's a mall?" she asked.

  "And her eyes lit with the passionless passion of shopping," Sean said, grinning. "Not as such, no. Not yet. It's planned for Phase Two. There are currently three thousand something military and about an equal number of civvies living on the Troy. That's not enough to support a real mall. When section one is at full capacity... it'll support a mall. They're talking about getting a Wal-Mart first but I'll believe it when I see it. For now, there's just the food court and a couple of independent stores that sell civvy clothes and stuff and a little-bitty Publix. But I, hereby, by the authority invested in me by BM2 Johnson, under orders to 'go get the noob a suit and show her around and stuff,' declare it to be lunch time at the food court. I'm going to get a gyro. Meet me over by the purple caterpillar."

  The "purple caterpillar" turned out to be an orientation poster on the Ogutorjatedocifazhidujon... The name was two lines long. After a bit it just seemed to be a stream of random letters. They were, according to the poster, "a peaceful race dedicated to hospitality in all its forms."

  According to one of the briefings they'd gotten in A School, the Ogut civilians did tend to fill positions like hospitality, gardening, personal care, and such in other polities. If for no other reason than to get the hell out of the Ogut Empire. The Ogut government was anything but hospitable. It was a hereditary empire run mostly by its aristocracy and during the Multilateral Talks that had ceded the E Eridani system to the Horvath, the Ogut had bitten off a good bit of the Ormatur worlds as "protectorates." And the instructor had made clear that meant pretty much the same as the "protection" the Horvath had once afforded Earth. "That's a right nice planet you've got there, shame if a rock fell on it."

  Dana had admitted she was hungry and had gotten a double meat teriyaki special at the Sushi House. Which made her wonder where the gym was. She was pretty sure it wasn't going to be on Sean's version of "showing her around."

  Then there was the question raised by the Ogut poster.

  "So..." she said as Sean sat down. "Say there's a pressure drop. I've got my suit. What are you going to do?"

  "See the red exit signs?" Sean said. "They go to emergency survival centers. They're the heads, mostly. Sealed against pressure breach and there are boxes that open in the event of a loss that have emergency survival packs. We just call 'em body-bags 'cause if you're down to those you're probably a carbonite sculpture waiting to happen. However, at the moment we're about four hundred meters in from the main bay and about a kilometer and a bit from the exterior. Somehow I'm not worried about pressure loss. Now when we're at the quarters, I'm pretty careful."

  "Troy isn't even officially commissioned yet, is it?" Dana asked.

  "Nope," Sean said. "They've only got one laser tube cut and one missile tube. They're still in test phase. Commissioning ceremony is in about three months and everybody is already freaking out. Expect a lot of brass. Military and civilian."

  "I guess that's going to be kind of an issue," Dana said. "And I'd expect you're probably going to figure out a way to... ghost it?"

  "Already working on it..." Sean said, then a flash of annoyance crossed his face. "Roger, Bosun's Mate. Still getting her suit, BM. Roger. Will do. Aye, aye. Frack."

  "Problem?" Dana asked.

  "Bosun Mate Johnson has just queried the time I am expending 'showing you around and stuff,'" Sean said, picking up his tray. "Especially since, apparently, nobody has seen either of us in a while. I hope you can gobble."

  "I'm done," Dana said. "Am I in trouble?"

  "You were just following orders," Sean said, dumping the contents of his tray in the trash. "And if nobody mentions going to the food court that would be a good thing."

  CHAPTER TWO

  "Forty-seven, door four!" the speaker announced. "Forty-seven, door four!"

  James F. "Butch" Allen gulped and got out of the hard plastic chair. He suddenly wished he'd dressed better.

  Butch had graduated from high school in June at which point his dad had, politely but firmly, reminded him that he was now a legal adult. Kids didn't stick around in the Allen household. Home was always where, if you had to go there, they had to take you in. But with Mama Allen having Johannsen's and Papa Allen having no great liking for condoms, there was always another bed being taken up. Eighteen and out was The Rule.

  The same month that Butch and his dad had The Talk, he'd gotten his draft notice. But Butch was pretty sure he wasn't suited for military life. That meant college, which was still deferred for the moment, or finding a "qualified civilian occupation" that meant he was exempt from conscription. He wasn't the college type, either.

  The Allens had a long and illustrious history of working with their hands. His dad had worked at the GE plant in Springfield since he graduated from high school and was a fixture of the maintenance department. Butch had taken the vocational track at school. He wasn't bad at math and he liked tinkering and was even in the physics club. But he wasn't real big on the "language arts" stuff and his SATs had shown that. College was pretty much out.

  So he'd hitched a ride down to the Labor Office to look at the list of jobs he was qualified for that were "qualified civilian occupations." The list was depressingly short. He wasn't qualified for any of them. Most of them were defense tech related jobs that he couldn't even start to figure out. He could apply to be trained as a clean-room technician, for example. But when he checked, there were zero spots available.

  That left space. Just about any space slot was exempt. There were two problems, though. The first was that Apollo, which was the big name in space industries, mostly wanted older, more experienced people. Most of the slots called for things like "three or more years commercial diving experience." And even if you got accepted, it was a five year contract. Working in space took advanced training and high-tech implants.

  But Apollo was the only company that accepted "untrained, entry-level" space technicians. Again, Butch had looked at the list of positions and his brain had sort of shut down. He didn't know what an "Optical Welding Technician" was except it had something to do with welding. He could weld. He'd learned from his dad way before taking it in shop.

  So he took a deep breath and walked in door four of the Springfield Apollo Mining Employment Office.

  The room was small. The ceiling was low and it wasn't much wider than the narrow desk of the pregnant lady manning it. How she got in and out was a question.

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Allen," the lady said, smiling. She was pretty old, probably thirty or so, but not bad looking. And the pregnancy had clearly done some development on her knockers.

  "Hey," Butch said, smiling and sitting down.

  "I've reviewed your record," the lady said, smiling thinly. "You're not very experienced."


  "I just got out of high school, ma'am," Butch pointed out. "And there's stuff isn't on there. My dad's been teaching me to do stuff since I was a kid. I can rebuild a car, even one with computer ignition. And I can weld. Better than the B I got in shop makes it look like. I'm good with stuff with my hands, ma'am. I'm good at turning a wrench."

  "Things are a little different in space, Mr. Allen," she said, tapping on her computer. "It's a very dangerous, very hostile environment. And you can't do things quite like you can on Earth. Turning a wrench is a very complicated job in space. Why do you want to work at Apollo?"

  "It seems like a good job, ma'am," Butch said. "Lots of opportunities."

  "And it's draft exempt," the lady said, looking up.

  "I don't think I'm really set out to be in the Navy, ma'am," Butch said. "I do what I'm told but I'm not all up on that 'Yes, sir, three bags full' thing. I work good. I'm just not all up on..." He paused and shrugged. "I don't think I'd do good in the Navy, ma'am."

  "Describe..." the lady said, clearly reading off her screen. "Describe the procedure for assembling a four barrel injection system."

  "On a car?" Butch asked. "Diesel?"

  "Car," the lady said, looking puzzled. "I think."

  Butch ran through the usual way that you'd assemble a four barrel injection system as she tapped on her keyboard.

  "You are using an electric arc welder to join a plate of stainless steel to a plate of conventional steel..."

  There were about nine questions related to various mechanical processes. They were mostly the sort of thing Butch could answer in his sleep. If his gay teacher hadn't been a bastard he'd have made an easy A in shop.

  "When would you be available to start?" the lady asked at the end.

  "Am I hired?" Butch asked, surprised.

  "Hiring decisions are made at a later time," she said. "You will be informed by a phone call or e-mail if you are hired. But I need to know when you are available."