I went from a pudgy five foot nine, 190 lb. kid to a rock solid 200 lbs, all in about 7 weeks. I even learned how to run well enough to pass my PT exam. And a week before we graduated, the Navy changed everything again.
It started as a normal day: 50 tricep push-ups, 100 regular push-ups, a three mile run, and then eight count bodybuilders until the barracks walls wept. Breakfast, which was eggs, sausage, and hashbrowns piled high and covered with gravy to give them moisture and hot sauce to give them flavor, then back to our mostly dried out quarters to shave and clean up. When EN1 Raymond came in, we were at attention, on the line, ready for the day's instructions.
He had a print out in his hand. It was the first time I had ever seen him with a piece of paper, and I doubted it was good news. “Everyone fall out except for the following people,” he said, and then started reading: “Basher, Holmes, Jolly, Nosker, Owens, Tucker, and Wright. You seven stay here.”
The rest of the company filed out, murmuring condolences until Raymond barked, “Quietly!” Then we just got commiserating stares.
After everyone had left, Raymond started out the door as well, then paused, turned, and saluted us. “Good luck, gentlemen.” The door closed behind him with an ominous thunk.
We waited, still at attention, and nobody said a word. Five minutes later a rotund man in khaki came in and nodded at us. “I am Senior Chief Pollack, and for the next few hours, I will be your company commander. Gather all your gear boys, we're going on a road trip.”
We did what we were told, and shrugged whenever one of us caught another’s eyes. No one knew what was going on, but when a Senior said pack your bag, you packed your bag. And then we followed him out of the barracks, and down to a waiting SUV that took us to a waiting plane. I didn’t even know Great Lakes had an airfield. When we were in the air, Senior Chief Pollack stood in front of us and said, “I’m sure you’re wondering where you are headed. Well, you seven have been chosen as part of a pilot program to get more sailors in space. With the events of the past few weeks, we are looking at a shortage of several key ratings, and you, gentlemen, have been chosen to help fill those needs. Your orders have been cut for Space Command. I will be with you for this first leg, and then I will turn you over to another. Good luck, gentlemen. Your Navy, and your country, are counting on you.”
If we thought we were being taken somewhere directly, we were sorely disappointed. The plane ride was the only time we were simply passengers, and we mostly slept. We landed in Washington—the state, not the city. There we joined the crew of the USS Pournelle, and were sent to work in the galley. We got underway almost as soon as we stepped on board, and they gave us a crash course in deck seamanship. We painted the hull, swabbed the deck, and learned all the curse words (in more than one language to boot). We were underway for a week before docking at San Diego. There we transferred to the shore command while we waited for our next ship, and learned more about cranking, cleaning, and cussing. It all went by in a haze.
You would think that the seven of us would get to know each other, and we did, sort of. We worked too hard during the day to do much more than crash at night, and the one day we got liberty, we scattered to the four winds. I went north to LA, because I had an old high school friend who lives there. But I was glad to get back. The city of angels is damned depressing.
The only person I bonded with in any way was Holmes. He was going to be a MM—a machinist’s mate. In fact, there weren't two of us with the same rating, and no one seemed to be in some weird, esoteric field we had never heard of. Except me. I still wasn’t clear on what my actual responsibilities would be as a fire controlman, and no one else was, either.
But Holmes and I grew up in Texas. Nowhere near each other, but that’s hardly surprising. We were both from the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex, but I grew up in a Carrollton, and he grew up in Duncanville, and the only thing we could reliably compare was our memories of the Texas State Fair. And we both left just after high school—he went to Chicago, I went to Miami. But we remained Texan at heart, and that helped us forge a friendship. He still sends me links to funny memes from time to time. I appreciate it. It helps keep me normal.
We had been in San Dog for two weeks when our new ship pulled in. The USS Neil deGrasse Tyson didn’t look like a typical navy ship. It looked more like a cruise ship. It was 800 feet long, and 120 feet abeam, which is fat for a surface ship. It didn’t have a water park or a roller coaster like the cruise ships do, but it did have lots of classrooms. And instead of being assigned to the deck division, we were assigned to the student division, along with a bunch of other sailors, and an equal number of civilians.
When we pulled away from the pier, we were called to muster in the largest room, which was set up like an old lecture hall. There were about 150 squids, and although I saw lots of different rating patches, I was the only fire controlman. Again. There was about the same amount of civilians. Most of us were male, most of them were female. I found out that this is pretty normal in space command.
They gave us new tablets, and once we had scanned our tags, they came up with our schedule, instructions on how to navigate the ship, and where we should go next. I looked at my screen and it told me my first class was space command orientation. Holmes got the same thing, in the same room, and we managed to find it without too much problem. There were fifteen of us, and they began our instruction almost immediately when we sat down. The instructor was a civilian, Mr. Gunthrie, but if I thought he would be easier than a military instructor, I was wrong. He busted our balls for eight hours a day for a week, trying to teach us the basics of life in space. I dozed off once that first day, and he took my chair away. I got to stand for the rest of the week. Most of us were by Thursday.
If you’ve never been to space, there’s a ton to remember. First rule, and the most important, is that you can’t take anything for granted. And I mean nothing. Air, water, and food are the most important of the important things to remember, but there’s also electricity, computers, and navigation systems. And of course, a space worthy vehicle to put all them in. So the second rule is attention to detail. In the terrestrial Navy, these rules are normally reversed.
So after our introductory week, we got our steel suits. Every picture of a spacesuit you’ve seen that isn’t fifty years old is some version of one of these. The color indicates a general rank—dark blue for E1 to E6, dark gray for chiefs, silver for junior officers, gold for senior. Then the various patches indicate rank, rating, command, and half a million other data points, all of which is coded on our tags. The civilians got whatever color they wanted, with whatever non-military patches they liked.
I didn’t know that we were going to get them. All I knew was that Saturday morning, instead of going to class, Mr. Gunthrie met us in the passage outside, and after yelling at us to keep it down, led us down to another passage and a door. “One at a time through here!” he said, fixing us with an evil eye. “Go in when they tell you to, do what you're told inside, return to class afterwards. Got it?”
We all said yes sir, which mollified him a little. I think he liked it when we treated him like an officer, although someone told me he was a veteran that had only gotten to E4 when he was in.
Holmes, right behind me, said, “What do you think this is for?”
I shrugged, and we both showed poker faces when Mr. Gunthrie yelled, “I heard talking! I told you to be quiet!”
We were near the end of the line, and no one came back out the door. So when I got up there, Mr. Gunthrie looked me up and down. “If you fall asleep, I’ll have you up before the captain faster than you can think.”
I almost told him that I could think really slow when I wanted to, but the door opened and the petty officer on the other side said, “Next.”
So I went in without much incident, and found myself in what looked like an airport security system. “Step into the scanner,” the petty officer said, and I did. Then I turned, lifted my arms, first like a “T”, then above me, then I be
nt down and touched my toes. Pretty standard stuff, and I wondered what they were looking for. But when I exited out the other side, I found myself in a passage that passed a bunch of windows. Looking inside, I could see a holographic image of myself, and a print head began filling it in like a mold. In just a few minutes, I saw a perfect mannequin of myself staring at me.
On top of this model, robot arms placed pads on the arms, legs and torso. As I watched, new print heads came down and added layers upon layers, some of which I could identify, some I couldn't. If you've ever seen clothes being printed, it was like that times ten. And only a fraction of the layers looked like textiles.
The suit moved down a conveyor, and behind me Holmes said, “When they talk about getting a steel suit, they never mention this part!”
I agreed, and when we got to the end of the line, our suits were handed to us. They were heavy, and they were awkward, and we stumbled back to class like we were helping drunken shipmates back to their racks.
Mr. Gunthrie stood at the front of the class with his customary glower. “Any of you know how one of these works?”
Mackenzie raised his hand. “Aren’t they basically waste recycling units?” he asked.
“Very good, Mackenzie,” the instructor said. We all thought Mackenzie was a suckup. “Wearing one of these will protect you from open space, keeping you appropriately hot or cold, but more importantly, it will process all of your urine and feces, using a microtechnology that separates your bodily discharge into something useful. Even your breath will be scrubbed. Without air bottles, you can still last half an hour just on your own exhalations, and generate enough water for a couple of days if you have atmosphere.”
Mackenzie raised his hand again. “Doesn't it also help us maintain gravity?”
“Yes and no,” Mr. Gunthrie said. “I’ve looked at all your files. None of you have been to space, so I know that all you know is what you’ve seen on videos. And you’ve seen squids walking down the passageways, maybe pushing a big box or something floating above the floor, and you thought, ‘Oh, they have artificial gravity. And anti-gravity for the heavy stuff.’ Right?”
We all looked at each other. That was kind of the way it looked in the videos. But obviously we were missing something, and not even Mackenzie knew what it was.
Mr. Gunthrie shook his head. “I can’t believe none of you know this,” he said. “I should make you all just figure it out on your own, but every time this happens, the Navy says no, I have to tell you. Fine.” He sighed in frustration. “That shiny stuff on the outside of your suit is not exactly steel, but it is an iron derivative that can be magnetized. And the floors of your spacecraft will be magnetized as well, as will your racks. In fact, that’s also how your patches stay on: they’re magnets. Clear?”
It wasn’t clear to me, and I don't think Holmes understood very well either. But only Mackenzie was brave enough to raise his hand. “So there’s no artificial gravity, sir?” he asked.
“Yes, children,” Mr. Gunthrie said. “And Santa Claus isn’t real, either. You’ll get over it, in time. Now, let’s go over the operation of your suits.”
And thus we learned that all is not as it seems in the videos. And I’ve been told everything on the internet isn’t necessarily true, either. But you already knew that, didn't you?
Chapter 3
We were underway for six weeks, and it was basically mini boot camp. We still worked out, but we had our classes every day, and we started standing watch, four hours at a time, to get us used to shipboard life. And we were assured that life on a spaceship was very similar to life on a surface ship. We got lots of assurances from people who could have just told us the truth: life in space is different, and there’s no getting around it. I’ve talked to bubbleheads who were told that submarines were just like surface ships, too.
And nothing could have prepared me for the reality of Port Dover. Again, the videos just don’t give you the sense of its immensity. We saw it on the horizon a full day before we docked.
Technically, I suppose the Dover is a ship. It sits out in the middle of the ocean, on or about the equator, and can move if it has to, meaning if it has a couple of days warning. But it can handle just about everything that hits it. It has to. Its whole job is to tether the Earth side of the space elevator.
Oh, and the elevator cable? You ever wonder why you only see it close up? That’s because it’s only a few feet wide. The elevator itself, from a distance, looks like it’s flying. And when I say distance, I’m talking anywhere more than a mile or so. So most of what you see is taken from the elevator itself, looking up or down the cable, and it looks enormous from that angle. And there are two of them, something I never knew.
But back to Port Dover, or Do Over, as most of the crew call it. Despite the Navy nickname, the Dover has an impressive record. A population of a quarter million, the largest floating structure ever built, and nearly ten million tons of people and material lifted into orbit without a serious mishap. And I was going to get to be on one of those elevators.
They gave us three days liberty first, and we got to wander all over the station. Holmes and I stuck together, and our tablets gave us plenty of suggestions, but we ignored them mostly and just explored. It’s laid out like a city, with residential and industrial sections. We spent most of our time in the commercial sections, which has a lot of shops and little hangouts. It even has a shopping mall. It’s all Gap, Apple, and stuff like that, but still, what do you expect from a mall? There were lots of smaller shops, too, and you can get some decent food, if you know where to look. Usually that means making friends with the civilians, and getting invited to their cabins for a meal. They have pretty good food printers, most of them. It’s one of the things they say is necessary for making their tour bearable.
But we actually liked this little diner we found, called the Lucky Greek. They had pretty good gyros, made the old way in the vertical rotisserie, with plenty of fresh veggies on the side. Even better, they had a little outdoor terrace, where we could sit and feel the salt breeze and watch the ships and aircraft come and go. Yeah, it’s got its own airport, and Holmes said it’s busier than O’Hare at Thanksgiving. I’ll take his word for it.
We were sitting out there on our second day when we saw our first elevator come down. It looked like a flying saucer from an old black and white science fiction movie, but it only goes up and down. Well, there’s some lateral movement, but you can’t tell that when you’re sitting nearly directly underneath. We couldn’t see the elevator bays from our position, which are the two highest points on the station, but we could watch the elevator coming down the cable, slowing dramatically as it neared planet surface. We couldn't hear any noise from it, and most everyone around us ignored it.
“Man,” Holmes said. “What do you think it’s like to be inside that thing when it’s going up?”
“Dunno,” I replied. “I’ve never met anyone who's been on it.”
“Me either,” Holmes said. “And I know we’ll go up, but does anyone ever come back down?”
“The crew must,” I said.
He looked up at the cables, which seemingly rose from the bays to disappear into thin air long before they reached the clouds. “We must be insane.”
I snorted. “We joined the Navy, didn’t we?”
“Yep,” he said. “Dead giveaway.”
Two days later we boarded, and we learned the difference between the two elevators. One was private, and offered luxury cabins for those who could afford them. We knew because there were plenty of ads offering upgrades if you signed up for this or that service. We even found a vid kiosk that allowed you to scroll through the different options, and see the different amenities. It looked nice.
We didn’t go on that elevator, of course. We went on the military one, which felt just like a ship. We went in through a hatch on the top, while big cargo crates were attached to the bottom. Inside were the same gray-green passageways that we had grown used on both the Pournelle a
nd the Tyson, and our tablets got updated with the new layout. We were still with our class from the Tyson, except for Mackenzie. We thought he would be at the head of the line, looking for some officer to suck up to, but instead, he had gone AWOL somewhere on the Dover. Nobody missed him much.
We got a berthing area that was almost a carbon copy of where we slept on the Tyson. Our steel suits were already in their special lockers near the door, but we checked them anyway. Our seabags were stacked on the little table. No one knew if we needed to unpack or not, but we all quickly chose racks and put our bag on top to mark it.
Our tablets all started beeping, as did the screen in the corner, telling us we needed get our suits on and where to go afterwards. It was another classroom, but it didn’t look like the ones on the Tyson. The seats were large and padded, and when we sat, we learned that they reclined almost all the way back. In a similar chair at the front of the class, a small Asian man in a bright green steel suit beamed at us. His name patch said “Mr. Elliot”.
“Come in, come in,” he said. “First we’ll have muster, then we’ll get acquainted and oriented, yes?” His accent and idioms made him sound like he was always a bit apologetic, though when he found out Mackenzie was missing, he frowned and said, “That boy is going to discover the true meaning of punishment when they find him.”
After that he was all smiles. “As you can see, your seats all have nice cushioning and seatbelts. Now, you need to sit and get strapped in, because the elevator is going to start its climb in about ten minutes, and it’s a bad time to be standing. Oh, and please try to vomit into the bags provided, yes? It’s so nasty to have to clean up your own puke when you’re getting used to the elevator motion.”
We Are All Enlisted Page 2
