Citadel: Troy Rising II

by John Ringo

  "Flight fun time" translated as physical training. There was a basketball court and a gym. Dana spent most of her work-out time in the gym since there wasn't a good gymnastics set up.

  She'd been a cheerleader in high school but mostly she'd been into the gymnastics. If she hadn't "blossomed" a bit young she might have made the pros. It was one of the reasons she was ahead of the curve for training in microgravity. With enough time on parallel bars, micro wasn't a really big issue. She still wasn't good in micro, but she could manage simple tasks.

  "Break it down, aye," Dana said, gathering up the tools and carefully stowing them away. The stow point for the boat's tools was to the starboard side of the flight compartment, just to the side and aft of the engineer's station. Over the compartment was a post-production welded on set of clamps with a crowbar installed. The second day she'd been working on the boat, AJ had come in with the crowbar, the clamps and a laser welding set and grimly welded the crowbar into place. He hadn't said anything about why but it wasn't until the crowbar was in place that Twenty-Nine was listed as flight-certified.

  She'd wondered about the crowbar—it wasn't part of the standard tool-set and it seemed to hold some particular significance—but she hadn't asked. There were no stupid questions, but she had learned that there were answers you only got at a certain point in your training. She suspected the Significance of the Crowbar was one of them. She'd figured out some of the meanings. "Going crow" on a boat, or a person, meant beating the hell out of a part, or a person. But there seemed to be more. One time when one Bruce's boat had had a mid-space malfunction he had mentioned it "looked like crowbar time." And EM Hartwell had been pretty grim. There was some significance to the Crowbar.

  She'd find out when it was time.

  "We have a special event for you today, boys and girls."

  Chief Petty Officer John Wagner looked like a recruiting poster. Tall, blonde and mustachioed he simply reaked of being God's gift to women. His good point was that he wasn't an ass about it and had never so much as hinted to Deb. On the other hand, he seemed to positively enjoy passing on the worst possible news to the Flight. So the fact that he'd fallen out for "flight fun time" meant that they were probably not going to like the result.

  "With the activation of C-West, there are four new grav ball courts open," the Chief said, grinning broadly.

  There was a collective groan from the assembled flight.

  "So it's helmet and pads time," the Chief finished, grinning ear to ear. "Fall out for MWR draw."

  "What's wrong with grav ball?" Dana asked. She was actually pretty excited. She'd heard about the sport but the only people who seemed to play it were the Marines. And she'd been pointedly warned about playing them.

  "Where to start?" Bruce said, receiving a set of knee and elbow pads and a helmet from the MWR civilian manning the desk. "You know the rules?"

  "Sort of like hockey," Dana said, accepting her own pads. "Five person teams. One goalie, two forwards, two defense. Two goals. Once you catch the ball you can't push off from the walls, you have to pass. Okay, hockey and ultimate Frisbee. You can bounce the ball off of any wall. Move it down the court to get it in the enemy goal."

  "Ever really thought about it?" Bruce asked. "The walls have padding. Some. You've got to be able to bounce the ball so it's not real thick. Then there's the viewing wall made out of optical sapphire which is, let me tell you, very, very hard stuff. Note the pads and helmet. The first Marine unit to play it had about ten percent injuries that required doctor's input. Of course, they have since created jungle-ball which you don't want to play."

  "What's jungleball," Dana asked as they reached the null grav court.

  "Null grav actually has about a hundred thousand rules," Bruce said. "Most of them related to no hitting, biting, scratching or kicking the other guy in the balls. The Marines wear a cup. It's like Aussie Rules football. The first rule of jungleball is ‘No weapons.' There's seven more."

  "Oh," Dana said.

  They'd reached the court and Dana started to get a feel for why Bruce wasn't exactly looking forward to null-grav ball.

  The viewing wall fronted on the corridor and was a three story tall wall of optical sapphire. The door was even sapphire with a small, recessed, latch. The other five walls were lightly padded. One end of the court was broadly marked in blue, the other red. The overall court looked like an extended version of a handball court.

  The goals were recessed nets about two meters wide surrounded by six recessed hand-holds. Dana recalled that the only person who was allowed to retain traction, hold on to the grips, was the goalie.

  The court was apparently still under gravity since First division's engineering personnel were just filing in. The engineering crew, a couple of administrative seamen including Sarin and CM1 Glass. He was tossing a soccer ball up and down in his hand and looking positively happy.

  "Since I'm not neutral in this group, I'm going to be refereeing not playing. Bigus and Carter, you're team captains. Divvie them up."

  Dana ended up on Carter's team but got cut from the first string along with Sarin. All the SAs and EAs got cut and pulled out of the court to watch.

  "This is going to be insane," Sarin said. "Carter was bitching up a storm."

  "It looks like it should be fun," Dana said.

  The two team captains faced towards their own goals with Glass in the center, holding the ball.

  "And . . . ​grav off," Glass said, releasing the ball. "Game on."

  Bigus, the EM3 of shuttle Thirty-Two, managed to hit the ball first sending it towards the blue team that was starting to float up, slowly. Carter had taken a swing and floated off in a random direction.

  The ball missed the blue team entirely, caromed off two walls and headed down court towards Red. Which pushed off from the floor and all missed intercepting the ball. Which, fortunately, was slowing due to air-resistance. Bruce managed to get a hand on it and passed it to Bigus. Which sent Bruce spinning off into the sapphire wall, cracking his head hard enough to ring the aluminum alloy.

  In no time at all it was a maelstrom. Despite the jerseys, Dana couldn't keep up with what was happening and she was pretty sure neither could anyone on the teams. People were more or less randomly ramming into walls. She saw Bigus drive for the goal at one point—he'd managed to snag the ball in mid-air while headed in more or less the direction of the goal—and nearly make it. Problem being it was his own goal. He corrected at the last minute and tried a pass to Bruce but that was intercepted by a Red team SN Dana didn't know who made the goal.

  "Dead ball," Glass called. The ball had stopped in mid-court and so were all the team members. He'd managed to take up a position near the top of the court and more or less hang there by making very light motions. He pushed off lightly and plucked the ball out of the middle of the court.

  "Moose for Danno," Bigus called. He was sort of upside-down and drifting slowly in the direction of the blue goal but so far away from the walls he might never make it.

  "How am I going to get out?" Bruce called. He was hanging more or less motionless on the red side but, again, nowhere near the walls.

  "Easy," Glass said, hitting him with the ball and sending him careening towards the red wall. "Now get your butt out."

  Dana stepped into the court and slowly bounced her way over to the defender's position. The one thing she knew about micrograv was that it was hard to move fast. Not impossible, Glass seemed to have the knack. But it was hard.

  She managed to stabilize up in the corner by the blue goal and waited for play to resume.

  "And . . . ​game on," Glass said, sending the ball spinning into the middle of the court.

  Bigus had the angle of the bounce figured right and probably would have intercepted. If Glass hadn't put some English on it. The ball passed his flailing hand and got to the Red team.

  It was headed for a Red team player in position to shoot for the goal when Dana pushed off the wall and made possibly the slowest intercept
in the short history of nullball. The pass had been long and the ball was slowing so she nearly missed but managed to snag it. The impact of the ball on her hand and pulling it in caused her to rotate. But she let herself follow around and then pushed the ball off with both feet towards the red goal.

  "Bust a move, Danno," Bigus called, grinning. "But you might want to . . ."

  Dana slammed into the sapphire wall head first. Since she was grinning, it ground her teeth together painfully.

  "Ow!" she said, rebounding towards the "floor" and rubbing her head. "That hurt."

  "You okay?" Glass said.

  "One hundred percent, CM," Dana said, not wanting to add that it was one hundred percent headache and neck-ache.

  "I can understand your lack of joy at playing nullball," Dana said, rubbing her neck. "But it's pretty fun if you keep your situational awareness."

  "Which is the point," Glass said, coming up behind Dana and Moose. The flight NCOIC had the lightest step Dana had ever seen. "It's good training for micrograv. It's even good flight training. Speaking of which, EA, you're four hours behind on coxswain quals. I want to see you in the simulator course one night a week for the next week."

  "One night a week, aye, CM," Dana said, trying not to sigh. There went sleep.

  "Personnel cycling airlock will perform a visual check of all seals prior to sealing inner door . . ." EM1 Hartwell said in a rapid patter.

  "Personnel cycling airlock will perform a visual check of all seals prior to sealing inner door, aye," Dana said, adding a manual check for burs or scratches by running her hand over the seal. The latter wasn't part of the airlock operations procedure but it was if Chief Barnett ever had her way.

  Dana had been qualed on basic suit function and function in a microgravity atmosphere environment. The latter translated as she was starting to kick some serious butt at nullball.

  So now it was time for her full suit quals.

  "Procedure Two-Nine-Six-Four-Eight-November, Secure Safety Line complete," Hartwell said. "Personnel will contact airlock and integrity control to release outer door."

  "Personnel will contact airlock and integrity control to release outer door, aye," Dana said, clearing her throat. "Paris, EA Parker One-One-Three-Eight."

  "EA Parker One-One-Three-Eight, Paris."

  She got her usual thrill hearing the AI. Paris didn't have much time to chat with an EA rate which was too bad. He had a really sexy voice.

  "Request release, Airlock Outer Door Six-One-Seven," Dana said. She was still a bit iffy on comming without speaking. She'd passed quals but she preferred to talk. Especially with Paris she tended to add "unintended transmissions" when she internal commed.

  "Release Airlock Outer Door Six-One-Seven, aye," Paris replied. "Verify Procedure Six-Six-One-Four-Eight-Alpha, Open Airlock Doors complete."

  "Procedure Six-Six-One-Four-Eight-Alpha, Open Airlock Doors complete, aye," Dana said.

  "Verify Procedure Four-Seven-Thee-Six-Charlie-Alpha, Suit Integrity check complete."

  "Procedure Four-Seven-Thee-Six-Charlie-Alpha, Suit Integrity check complete, aye," Dana said, trying not to sigh. There was a reason for all the readbacks but they got to be a pain in the butt.

  "List personnel using airlock for manifest integrity . . ."

  "Verify Procedure . . ."

  "All procedures for EVA verified and checked," Paris said. "Open Airlock Outer Door Six-One-Seven, Procedure Niner-Niner-Four-Four-Eight complete. Pumping down."

  "Pumping down, aye," Dana said.

  The red light overhead started to rotate and Dana could feel the slight change in texture as vacuum started to surround her suit. She took a deep breath and hoped that all the checks, which she had completed and verified, were good.

  "It's all good," Hartwell said. "Ready to step?"

  "Ready to step," Dana said, starting to move forward.

  "Whoa there, Space Eagle," Hartwell said. "What do you do next?"

  "Procedure Eight-Seven-Four-One-Six-Delta," Dana said, reaching out the airlock door and clipping off her outer safety line. It wasn't like she was going to do a Dutchman. She was wearing a navopak that could get her nearly to Mars on internal power. "Complete."

  "Procedure Eight-Seven-Four-One-Six-Delta complete, aye," Hartwell said. "Begin procedure . . ."

  It made things safer but it sure too the fun out of life.

  Finally they were out in EVA and the airlock closed. The airlock was near the base of the tube to which all the shuttles were attached and shuttle Twelve from Flight A was more or less entirely blocking the view of the main bay.

  "Okay," Hartwell said. "We need to get past all this crap to get to Twenty-Nine. Give me a one-eightieth vertical thrust on navo."

  "One-eightieth vertical thrust, aye," Dana said, giving the system just about its lowest possible boost "upwards."

  This lifted them "above" the shuttle and the main bay was finally revealed.

  "Holy hell," Dana muttered.

  "You okay?" Thermal asked.

  "It's . . ."

  "Stabilize and drink it in for a minute. I'll give you that. Most people need to get a good look before they can get their heads around getting to work."

  The main bay of the Troy was six kilometers across. She knew that intellectually. But seeing it was something different. It was just hard to get the scale of the thing. Down and to port there were two ships that looked like the sort of toys she'd played with when she was a kid. One was a freighter or an Apollo miner. Those were three hundred meters long. As long as a supercarrier. More than three football fields in length.

  It looked about the size of her pinkie. Smaller.

  Next to it was a Constitution class cruiser, the biggest true "ship" produced by humanity. It wasn't much bigger. There were some tiny dots moving around on its surface and she realized they were other suits doing EVA. They were almost microscopic. The bay was just immense.

  But there was more that was throwing her. Jutting up from the walls were three massive spikes. They reached up through the interior to very nearly meet in the middle. Then she realized they were about three kilometers long.

  What got her wasn't just the size. She was sort of intellectually prepared for that. But she wasn't prepared for the fact the interior was so shiny it was almost like a mirror. There was a God damned big, she had no clue how big but it had to be immense, light bulb "down" from their position. The light filled the hold and reflected off the surfaces so there were no shadows at all. None. Even the Constitution and the spikes didn't cast a shadow. That was a bit eerie. But with no atmosphere and the reflection of the mirror-like walls, there was no-where for shadows to hide.

  "It's beautiful," Dana said, softly. "I wasn't expecting it to be beautiful."

  "There is that," Thermal said. "Think you can pay attention to exterior checks on the shuttle?"

  "I am prepared and ready to perform, EM," Dana said.

  "Then let us, slowly and carefully, make our way over to Twenty-Nine and actually get some work done."

  "How you doing, Parker?" CM1 Glass asked.

  "I am five by, CM," Parker said, examining her engineering screen.

  She was most of the way through quals. The truth was, there wasn't time to teach all the procedures and processes involved in doing the job of a shuttle engineer in A School. All that A School could do was produce people who sort of had a basic understanding of the systems. How to work with them in the environment of a permanent position was "makee-learnee" after you got to your post. Until you learned enough to not be a danger to yourself and others, you were a FUN: Fracking Useless Noob.

  That meant that when the shuttles went out, whether for training or a "real-world evolution," the FUN EAs and CAs were left behind with the non-shuttle personnel, called Troglos because they never got out of the Troy, to work on their quals, polish the brass, clean heads or whatever else the BMs could come up with to motivate them to finish quals.

  But part of quals was, occasionally, heading out into the ba
y, or sometimes the Black, to show that they'd mastered how to work with the shuttles in the real world.

  When she'd arrived on the Troy she had initially despaired of ever learning all the SOPs and processes necessary to do her job. Take the engineering display. It had readouts of all the monitored systems, four hundred and twenty-eight, on the shuttle. Power levels, relay conditions, avionics, hatches. It all added up. And much of it interacted so you had to have some clue what the cascade issues of a failure might mean.

  But after a bare three months, here she was doing her final deploy qual.

  "All the little bits ticking over?" Mutant asked.

  "Tick, tock, CM," Dana said.

  She had been out in the main bay doing EVA work on the birds so many times the view had gotten common if not boring. It was hard to imagine the main bay ever getting boring if for no other reason than it kept changing.

  She had finally looked up the full plan for Troy and been absolutely shocked. The construction plans were barely in "Part One, Phase One" of the full plan. The full plan was intended to take at least a hundred years. And it was only referred to as a rough plan because nobody knew how technology was going to change.

  Troy was broken up into six notional zones, North, South, East, West, One and Two. South was the zone that had the main door, a kilometer wide, kilometer and a half thick plug that was currently the only way in and out of the battlestation. North was the general area where the big ships hung out. There wasn't much going on over there and it was out of the way. Currently there were four Constitutions and a new Independence class frigate holding station in the Arctic. Gravitic tractor docking systems were being constructed down there by a swarm of bots and EVA personnel. In the meantime the cruisers and frigates had to maintain station against the slight gravity produced by the Troy.

  Zone Two was where most of the construction materials were piling up. There were entire "environment packs," prefabricated quarters, bays and repair shops, piling up down there. The next big construction phase, involving pulling out a chunk of the wall and installing the packs, was about to take place. But all the packs had to be in place, first. Pulling the wall out only was going to happen once.