We Are All Enlisted

by Michael A. Hooten

  And when they say fast, I mean, I got from Gaspra to the ship in two days. And she had a four day head start. The shuttle was mostly a life support pod strapped to a great big engine, and only had room for about a dozen guys. But it was just me and two pilots, who took turns sleeping while the other manned the controls. I didn’t even get to know them. I got on board, strapped in, fell asleep because I was exhausted, and then I was being woken and offered a MRE. Did that twice, and we were there.

  I first saw the USS Roosevelt Roads, SC-1434, from the shuttle monitors. From a distance, she looked like a dull silver cigar, with a spiked cap on each end, and fat around the middle. There was a squat conning tower, similar to a submarine, placed amidships, and two big rail gun batteries mounted between there and the bow. The four plasma engines sat closer to the stern than to the tower, arranged like corners of a box, and just forward of them on the bottom of the ship, I could see a short, fat cylinder capped by a dome, with what looked like two guns on each side, pointed forward. “What’s that thing?” I asked.

  “Rosy’s dick,” the shuttle pilot said. “That’s what they call it anyway. It’s a little gun turret that sits on the outer hull. Only thing like it in the fleet.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” I asked.

  “Only for the guy that has to man it,” he said.

  As we got closer, I could see the various markings indicating torpedo and missile ports, and the personnel and equipment hatches. The monitor indicated which one we were going towards, but the green circle turned to red, and a woman’s voice said, “Airlock obstructed. Do not dock until cleared.”

  The pilot cursed casually, and at first I couldn’t see anything. “Shuttle 8549 to SC-1434, come in please,” he said.

  “This is SC-1434, shuttle. We have you on monitor, and are ready for you to dock.”

  “Kind of hard to do with that rock in the way,” the pilot said.

  I saw it then, a meteoroid about six feet wide sticking to the side of the ship. It was dull gray and brown and blended in against the hull, which is why I hadn’t seen it at first. I looked from the main monitor to one of the nav screens, and saw red dots all over the ship. Once I knew what to look for, I could see them on the main screen too, ranging in diameter from one foot to eight.

  “Oh, shit,” said the voice on other end. “We forgot to defrag when we stopped. I hope the captain didn’t notice.”

  “How long have you been holding here?”

  “About two days,” the voice said.

  “I think you would have heard something by now,” the pilot said.

  “Aye,” the voice said, but you could still hear how nervous he was. “Wait one.”

  “We’re not going anywhere,” the pilot said. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head.

  “How long will it take?” I asked.

  “It depends on how high up the chain he has to go,” the pilot said. “Most watch commanders can authorize a defrag, but every ship has their own protocol. And you know someone is weighing how much of his ass is going to get chewed for someone else’s mistake.”

  The meteoroids suddenly began moving away from the ship like someone had kicked them. The red circle turned back to green, and the shuttle pilot sat forward, maneuvering adroitly around the bigger chunks as we approached the ship. “Preparing to dock,” he said.

  “Copy that,” the ship’s operator said.

  “Anyone lose a limb for that mistake?”

  “Negative,” he replied. “But it was a close call.”

  “On final approach,” the pilot said.

  I could hear the woosh of the positioning jets, and side of the ship now filled the main screen. The docking tube snaked out and sealed itself over the airlock, and the computer said, “Seal created. Please wait for pressurization to be complete.”

  “Alright, kid,” the pilot said. “Put on your helmet, and get your gear.”

  Once I was in order, we moved aft, through the airlock, and down the brow to the Rosy Roads. The pilot had me go first, and I realized as we were coming out the end that I would be coming out upside down. I managed to get myself turned around without too much trouble though, and came out in a big airlock, where the officer of the deck stood behind a podium, no helmet on, and a bored look on his face.

  As soon as my boots hit the deck, I turned aft and saluted, like I’d been taught, and said, “Permission to come aboard.”

  The OOD said, “The ensign is flown up front when we’re underway, genius.” He looked past me to the shuttle pilot. “What kind of pollywog did you send me?”

  “I just deliver, I don’t ask too much,” the pilot said. “Stand clear, Wog. I’ve got to get the hatch closed so I can get back.”

  I stepped forward, and both boots came off the floor. I floated in the zero g’s, waving my arms to almost no effect, and hit the wall before I managed to get a boot back down.

  The OOD smirked. “Captain keeps the floors low flux,” he said. “You’ll get used to it fast enough. Permission to come aboard granted.”

  I saw his name tag and rating badge. OS2 Blake. He pulled a lever on the wall, and a red light started flashing. A woman’s voice calmly said, “Prepare for airlock closing. Maintain positive pressure until the all clear is given. Make sure hatch door is clear of all obstacles.”

  She repeated it maybe fifteen times, while the OOD stood at the controls, and the pilot turned and pulled himself back into the shuttle. I saw his hatch go down, and then a klaxon blared, and the woman said, “Closing hatch. All personnel stand clear.”

  When it quieted down again, the OOD scanned my tags and said, “Well, take off your helmet and grab your seabag. We need to go see the captain. He likes to meet the new crew as they come aboard, especially when we have to stop dead in space to pick them up.”

  I knew protesting that it wasn’t my fault wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I concentrated on keeping one boot on the deck at all times. I tried to watch how the OOD was doing it, and pretty soon I was copying the kind of slip-skip he used, but it felt weird. We passed through a few bulkheads, pulled ourselves up two levels, and down a short passage to another ladder well. At the top, there was a space that could barely be called a passage, and a door with the ship’s crest and a red light. A nameplate said Captain Randy Paulson. The OOD knocked once and waited. The light turned green, I heard a click, and the OOD said, “Well, go on in, Wog. Leave your bag with me.”

  I opened the door and stepped over the knee knocker. The captain sat behind a big oak desk, tapping away at his keyboard. I saluted and said, “FC3 Peter Wright, reporting for duty, sir.”

  “At ease,” he said, still staring at his screen. He had sandy blonde hair, receding, and a thick mustache. He frowned, typed for a minute more, then nodded and turned to me. “So you’re my new fire controlman,” he said. “And Earthborn, to boot.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “You’re the first. We have a few Martians on board, but most of us are Lunars or Spaceborn,” he said. His gaze was very direct, and made me feel like a bug he was contemplating squishing. “I’m not sure I agree with command sending out so many guys who are space newbies, but I don’t have a choice in the matter. Hell knows it’s only going to get worse, and hell knows I need you bad enough to come to a dead stop for two days to wait for you. Report to Ensign Abercrombie in weapons, and he’ll get you squared away. We’re headed to a hot zone, so make sure you learn where you’re GQ station is, and make sure you have all your gear in order. Welcome aboard, sailor.”

  “Thank you , sir.”

  He turned back to his screen. “Dismissed.”

  I went back out the door, and it clicked close behind me. Blake was still there, sitting on my bag, and he said, “You still got your ass intact?”

  “I guess,” I said. “I’m supposed to find Ensign Abercrombie.”

  “Let me check.” He pulled out a tablet and swiped it a couple of times. “Here we go. He’s in CIC.”

  “
What’s that? And where?”

  “You’ve never been on a ship before?” Blake said.

  “This is my first one,” I said.

  “CIC is the Combat Information Center,” Blake said. “I’ve got to go back there anyways, so follow close. And make sure you tell the ensign that you need some help with shipboard orientation.”

  Ensign Abercrombie was a short Asian guy, who looked me up on his tablet. “Oh, right,” he said after a moment. “FC3 Peter Wright, part of the Earth to Space push, filling Hopkins’ old billet. Got it.” He read some more while I looked around. The only overhead lighting looked to be a few lumens shy of total darkness, but the monitors at the various stations provided a glow to all the operators faces. “Most newbies get six weeks in the mess, but your file says one. And it’s signed by the captain himself. I guess he wants you trained up before we get to Juno.”

  “Yessir.”

  “Turnbull!” the ensign yelled.

  “Sir?” said a guy looking up from a nearby screen.

  “This is your new guy,” Abercrombie said. “He needs the rundown. He’s new to ships, fairly new to space still, and he’s gotta crank for a week. After that he’s all yours, but I expect you to take matters in hand before then. His GQ station will be the turret.”

  “Seriously?” Turnbull said with eyes widening.

  “Captain’s orders. Evidently he’s got the best psych eval for it.”

  “Or the Captain doesn’t want to deal with him,” Turnbull said.

  “Just do it,” the Ensign said with a sigh. “I don’t need your second guessing today.”

  “No problem, sir. My watch will be over in two and a half hours.”

  Ensign Abercrombie cocked an eyebrow. “Then I guess he gets to learn his regular watch station, doesn’t he?”

  Turnbull’s face fell for just a split second. “Sure does.”

  So he sat me down, set my seabag beside the console, and proceeded to give me the benefit of his considerable knowledge. I got it all in the first 45 minutes, but he rambled on the entire time. Finally his relief, FC2 Schazzenan showed up. He shook my hand and after Turnbull’s pronunciation of his name made him wince, said, “Call me Farooq. Everyone else does.”

  Then Turnbull was calling me to follow him. Farooq gave me a sympathetic smile and I left CIC pulling my bag behind me.

  I got a bunk in berthing (“Only weapon division is down here. So it doesn’t smell so bad.”), an introduction in the workcenter (“Everyone, this is Wright. Wright, everyone.”), and then it was off the mess decks.

  MS1 Portman took charge of me, and just nodded at Turnbull’s introduction. He was a burly redheaded guy, and he waited for Turnbull to leave before saying anything. “It’s your job, along with the other cranks, to keep the mess decks clean. You’re new, so you get the dinner service and the mid shift. Any questions?”

  “When’s dinner?”

  He grinned. “1800 to 1900 hours. But you get to be here at 1700 hours, and you’ll be here until 2000 hours. Then you’ll be back at 2300 until 0200. Clear?”

  “Yessir,” I said.

  “Don’t call me sir, I work for a living.”

  “What do I do when I’m not here?”

  “Fuck if I know,” Portman said. “Now get lost. But be back here on time, or I’ll nail you to the wall.”

  “Aye aye,” I said and got out of his space.

  I checked my tablet for the time. I had about two hours to kill, so I got directions back to my new workcenter. Turnbull wasn’t there, but a FC3 Smith was. I didn’t remember seeing him when I was there earlier, but he looked up and waved when I came through the hatch. “Hey, newbie! Good to see you!”

  “Hey,” I said. “I’m Peter.”

  “Naw, you’re not Peter,” he said. “Just like I’m not Jacob. They call me Smitty. And you… I’m guessing they’ll call you Wrong Way.”

  “Really? Just like that?”

  “Just like that, dude.” He gestured to the workbench beside him. “Cop a squat.”

  And that’s how I got my first shipboard nickname. Smitty taught me a bunch of stuff in those two hours, including how to find the ship’s store. He made sure I had my coveralls properly marked, and had me change out of my steel suit. When he asked me if I knew where I would be for GQ, I told him that the div O had mentioned the turret. His eyes got wide and he whistled. “They’re putting you in the dangling dick first thing?”

  “The turret is Rosy’s dick?” I said.

  “Hell yeah,” he said. “And you’re the designated nut.”

  Chapter 6

  I didn’t have watch the first week I was on board thanks to cranking in the galley. There were always two of us responsible for chow times, and I got paired with two different seamen. The guy helping me with evening chow was Seaman Lopez, a Martian, and pretty cool to boot. The first night, he pointed out all the work center supervisors, and told me what division they were in. And as we cleaned up after chow was over, he said, “You’ve got the mid rats, right? Good luck with that, mate.”

  “Is there anything I need to be careful of?”

  “Just your partner, Cooper. He’s a bit of a pill, and it’ll be hard to avoid him.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  Lopez laughed. “You out rank him. Don’t let him forget it, and you’ll be alright.”

  I followed Lopez’s lead, and we got done pretty quick. “You don’t complain as much as most of the new guys,” he said.

  I just shrugged. “It’s easier to work than bitch about working.”

  “You’re a bit mental, did you know that?” Lopez said. “So when you get here tonight, just do the same thing you did just now. But I’m telling you: Cooper will drag ass and make you do everything.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “The work’s not hard.”

  Lopez shook his head. “Just crazy.”

  When I got there that night, the mess decks were quiet. I looked for Portman, but found MS3 Silver instead. “I’m in charge here,” he said after seeing that I was an E-4 also. “Don’t forget it.”

  “No problem,” I said. “I heard I’m supposed to be working with Cooper.”

  “Sure, he’ll show up eventually,”

  Eventually turned out to be 2340, five minutes before mid rats started. He was tall and thin, and had a deck seaman patch on his coveralls. That made him E2 to my E4, but he made up for it in attitude. “Heard you’re a damn Earthie,” he said by way of greeting.

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “Did Silver tell you he was in charge? Cause it’s not true. He has the galley, but I own the mess decks.”

  “So I can leave?” I asked as innocently as possible.

  “You’re a dick,” he said. “And you’ll do what I tell you, when I tell you.”

  A big hand landed on his shoulder. I followed it up to a big white grin in a face dark as mahogany. “You telling people what to do again, Coop?” he said. “You know that doesn’t usually work out for you.”

  “This ain’t your business, Big Mike,” Cooper said, shrugging off the hand.

  Big Mike spun the seaman around and leaned over him. “You’re right,” he said softly. “I’m just an E6, and run the engineering work center. And this guy here is an E4, and in weapons unless I miss my guess. And you? You’re a nothing in deck, who keeps getting this shift because no one wants to deal with your crap. So it’s not my business. But I can make it my business, if you piss me off enough.”

  “Get out of my face, you fuckin’ Mormon—”

  I think he was going to say more, but Big Mike grabbed him and pulled him off the deck. Not hard in zero g’s, but then he threw him straight up to the overhead, where he bounced off a light hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Big Mike pulled him back down, got his feet under him, and pounded him on the back.

  “There you go,” the big black guy said. “You should be more careful, or you could get hurt.”

  Cooper muttered something under his breath.
/>   “What was that?” Big Mike said.

  “I said, I’ll be more careful from now on.”

  “I bet you will.” Big Mike turned to me and stuck out his hand. “EN1 Otewa. But everyone just calls me Big Mike.”

  “FC3 Peter Wright,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “You in Turnbull’s workcenter?”

  “Yep.”

  “He’s a decent guy.” Big Mike grabbed his tray from the table he had set it on. “See you around, Rightside.”

  Cooper didn’t bother me the rest of the night, but that didn’t last. I was still trying to find my way around, and on the third night, I was late. He was there before me, oddly enough, with a glint in his eye. “You’re late,” he said.

  I just shrugged. I had already talked to Silver. “Cookie cleared me.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Two days after that, Cooper waited until everyone had finished, and then as we were cleaning up, he said, “I heard you only have to crank for a week.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” I said.

  He grabbed me and pinned me up on the bulkhead, our faces only inches apart. “You may think you’re something special, but I’ve been on this boat for two years. Two years, dammit, and I get sent down here every three months like I’m just some kind of goddamned slave, and you come on board and get a week. A fucking week!”

  I tried to keep my cool. He could obviously use the zero g’s better than I could, since he had me at just the right height and angle that made it hard to get any leverage. “It’s not my fault,” I said. “It’s the captain’s orders.”

  “You sucking the old man’s dick or something?”

  “I just got on board! I don’t even know how to get to my GQ station!” I said.

  “It’s out the airlock,” he said. “Just push off hard enough, and I’ll bet you can float all the way back to Earth.”

  I got my feet braced enough against a girder to push him off of me. “Piss off!”

  He just laughed. “How bout I piss all over you instead?”

  And he did, or at least he tried to. Seriously, he unzipped his coveralls, whipped out his wanker, and sprayed it in my direction like a fire hose.