Valor's Cost

by Kal Spriggs

  “Probably not the best idea,” I nodded. Last time I’d had phall, I’d mistakenly ordered the spiciest dish they served. It had not been a good experience, especially since it had ended with me getting pummeled by some fellow cadets who hadn’t liked me.

  That I’d then vomited that burning mix of stomach acid, spicy fish, and curry into the face of the person punching me had earned me my nickname of Biohazard. Kyle had been the one to give it to me, too.

  We went across the corridor to a place that served grilled meat in slices of long, thick bread. I was hungry enough that I ordered three of the oddly-shaped sandwiches. I wolfed them down, barely pausing to drink, while Kyle ate his. He’d only eaten the first of his sandwiches as I finished my third. I stared at the other one he had, “Um, are you going to eat that?”

  Kyle grinned at me, “Well, I was...”

  I snatched it and wolfed it down, too. He sighed and got up and bought another one. I hated when I skipped meals. But there’d been a lot of rushing to get packed and my mind had been elsewhere.

  Kyle returned to his seat and guarded his sandwich with one hand while he sipped at his drink. “So, what do you think?”

  I looked around, not feeling comfortable talking about everything in public, “What do you mean?”

  He raised his eyebrows, “About our assignment? I looked it up, by the way, they haven’t assigned cadets to any of the perimeter stations in over a decade.”

  “Hmmm,” I sipped at my drink as I considered that. I realized that he was either discussing our ‘cover’ story, or else he genuinely wondered what we’d be doing out there. For that matter, I kind of wondered as well. “I dunno. We’re assigned to the squadron, maybe they’ll have us work in flight operations or maybe support.” Most cadets who’d come back from their assignments had mentioned working in those areas. It made sense, they’d want their inexperienced personnel nearby where they could be watched and mentored.

  “Maybe,” he shrugged, “I can’t imagine they have a ton of work for us in Flight Operations, with just the one squadron. Same for most of the support slots.” He finished up his sandwich and I stood up, eager to go. I finally felt like I was doing something, contributing towards the goal of finding the people responsible for the deaths of my parents.

  Kyle threw away his trash and we stepped back into the concourse. “So,” he noted as we walked, “Seems you’re still doing well enough in the rankings.”

  “Yeah,” I dodged around a group of Militia spacers in their tan space suits. They were clearly in a rush and I was just a cadet, so I didn’t mind too much that they nearly bowled me over. “I was fourth in our class when they released finals. It seems they threw out the failures that Commander Siebert passed out.” Kyle had finished twelfth, which was pretty impressive in and of itself. The differences between the top thirty was only two percentage points.

  “Thank goodness, since I did what you did,” he shook his head. “There are days I wonder if you drag me into trouble or if I just encourage you.”

  “Sorry?” I asked.

  “Not complaining, just noting that we may enable some, oh, let’s call it impulsiveness?” He smiled a bit, but his smile faded as a patrol of Militia strode past, in full body armor. “I get the feeling that the long peace isn’t going to last much longer.”

  “I get that,” I answered. We were in uniform in a public place, so we couldn’t hold hands. I settled for punching him in the shoulder. It didn’t feel like enough. “At least that involves decisions way above our level.”

  “Considering what I’ve seen of the people making those decisions...” he shook his head. “That’s not as reassuring as you might think.” I couldn’t argue with that, especially not with what I had learned and suspected about Charterer Beckman.

  He sighed as we came up to the waiting area for our transport. From the display, we had almost three hours before we could board. “Well, we have some time at least,” he muttered. He dumped his bag on the deck. I did the same, appreciative of the lower “apparent” weight. It was still an effort to carry my duffel around, but at least it didn’t make my feet and back hurt as much to carry it.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Kyle sat down.

  “Oh?” I wasn’t sure where this was going, but his serious expression and tone had made me nervous. I got the feeling he’d been dancing around, trying to find a way to say something. I instantly went through a dozen horrible scenarios in my head. Everything from the possibility that he was dumping me to the chance that he’d found someone else.

  “About what we should be trying for,” he looked over and met my eyes. His green eyes caught the light, his red hair stark against his white skin. “You know, after graduation?”

  “I thought we discussed going to one of the Militia's reserve fighter squadrons,” I answered.

  “We did... but that was before war seemed likely,” he noted. “And while I’m not a fan of Commander Siebert’s ‘tactics,’ she sure did get the thought of casualties running through my head.”

  I shivered as I considered that. Warp fighters always took disproportionate casualties to other units in every training scenario and exercise we’d ever done. They were tiny, and fragile compared to the ships they fought against. I thought about the risks involved and whether I could stomach the thought of losing Kyle. “What are you suggesting?” I asked.

  “A couple of my old Cadet Drill Instructors, they’re, uh... well, married,” Kyle’s voice squeaked a bit and he flushed as he said it, “anyway, they went to a reserve unit, but it’s a destroyer unit and they’re on orders full-time as part of the ready crew.”

  Mackenzie had said he was in a destroyer crew. I thought about it, “Isn’t the career progression a lot slower if you start out aboard ship?”

  Kyle nodded, “It is. But the corvette and destroyer units, they’re a bit... I dunno, safer.” He swallowed, “And if something happens to the ship, odds are that it’ll happen to everyone aboard.”

  I looked down at my lap as I realized what he meant by that. If one of us died in a fighter squadron, we’d have to cope with losing the other, and there was a much higher risk to us both. If something took out the ship we both served on, though, then it was likely that neither of us would survive.

  “I’ll think about it,” I answered. “I’m not against the idea, I just...” I looked up and met his eyes, reaching out to squeeze his hand quickly. “I don’t want to jump into any decisions right now.” I needed some time to think about the mention of ‘marriage,’ too.

  Technically, both of us being assigned to the same unit while we were in a relationship violated the regulations. Since we were both the same rank and neither of us was in charge of the other, it wasn’t technically fraternization. Besides, I doubted anyone in the unit would care, seeing as how we were just cadets. But it was still against regulation... unless we were married.

  After graduation, if we wanted to be in the same unit and still be together, then we’d have to get married to avoid facing repercussions. They’d also assign us to different squadrons or departments, most likely. That is, if we can swing the same regional assignment at all...

  “Oh, yeah, take some time,” Kyle said quickly. “Definitely take some time to think about it. I just, you know, wanted you to consider it.”

  I didn’t answer. Checking my implant, I saw we had another two and a half hours to wait. What I wanted to do was sit close to him and have him put his arm around me. Instead, I settled for sitting across from him. Thinking. Wondering. Worrying.

  It was a very long wait.

  ***

  Chapter 16: I Get To Hang Out

  The transport that we took was a military supply ship, one of a dozen or so that serviced the Militia in and around Century. Even with a tactical warp drive, the trip to Summit Station would normally take eight hours or more in the relatively small ship. Instead, it undocked, used thrusters to clear the station’s minimum safe distance, brought up its warp drive, and went into strategic w
arp. The trip took less than eight seconds, and most of that was the drive spooling up and then back down. The small cargo ship’s passenger section was just a small area with fold-down jump seats and no sooner had the ship docked than the handful of other passengers were grabbing their bags and heading for the hatch, pushing their equipment along in zero-g.

  Kyle and I followed them. Coming through the airlock, a sour-faced officer checked people off the list. He grunted as he saw us, “Two cadets, great. We’ll have you trained up just in time for you to leave again. Stow your bags over there and then help unload the supplies.” The impatience in his voice didn’t exactly make me feel welcome.

  “Sir?” I asked, a bit confused.

  “We’re understaffed, Commander’s policy is all inbound crew help with unloading, officers included, so we can get this transport away from the station and bring up our warp field. Now get moving!” he barked.

  I shoved my duffel in the direction he’d indicated. There were a bunch of straps against the wall and I secured my bag and then pushed off and drifted over to where crewmen were unloading from the transport’s cargo bay hatch.

  In zero-g, it was both easier and harder to move boxes. On the one hand, it was hard to get things moving, you had to brace yourself and even then, it involved a lot of leverage. On the other, things kept moving after you got them going.

  As a box came flying my way, I realized that was probably as much of a hazard as anything else.

  I ducked out of the way. Kyle wasn’t quite as fast as me and he gave an “oof” as the bulky box caught him in the chest and sent him spinning.

  “Stop horsing around and get those boxes moved!” Someone barked. Another box came sailing my way. An enlisted waved at me and pointed in another direction. I put my feet through a pair of rings on the floor and caught the box, wincing as the mass almost yanked me from my perch. I redirected it, shoving hard as I could, and the box wobbled off in the direction the man had pointed. Another enlisted was there and she caught the box and shoved it up through the hatch.

  “Heads up!” Someone called and I turned my head just in time to see another box... right before it bounced off my face.

  “Pay attention!” The officer behind us bellowed. “I don’t want any injuries to report!”

  I’d like to see him get thrown in here to push around boxes in zero-g... I thought to myself. I didn’t say it, though. I caught the next box, getting the hang of it a bit, and shoved it with a bit more force than was absolutely necessary. The enlisted at the other end gave me an angry look as she caught it.

  Things were going splendidly so far.

  We moved boxes of supplies for what felt like an eternity. My back and shoulders throbbed and I missed a couple more boxes, one of which caught me painfully in the shoulder and the other had caught me in the face... again.

  Kyle was in the other line, pushing boxes too. The loading area had become hot, hot enough that I wondered if their environmental system was having issues. I’d begun to sweat through my uniform. My hair had come out of its braid and flowed around my head, spinning off droplets of sweat in a halo around my head.

  “Last one!” A voice shouted. A moment later, I realized no one was throwing boxes my way anymore.

  “Inventory?” the officer called out.

  “All the rations we requested,” an NCO emerged from the cargo ship. “But we didn’t get the new parts for the condenser that we ordered. The request says that depot is out of stock and they’re going to have to order them.”

  “We needed those parts,” the officer grumbled. “Commander’s not going to be happy about that. What about AM?”

  “One canister,” the NCO said. “First thing we unloaded.” The transport crew had already closed the cargo bay hatch, I saw. Clearly they wanted to get out of here.

  “Good, make sure that gets to engineering,” the officer sighed. “Alright, you take charge of our people back from leave, I’ve got the two baby ducks.”

  I flushed as I realized that he meant Kyle and I.

  “Sir,” the NCO waved something approximating a salute and he pushed off, bellowing orders to the enlisted who’d been aboard the transport. It didn’t seem all that professional to me, but what did I know, I was just a cadet.

  Kyle and I floated over to where the officer stood. He glared at us balefully, “You’re both assigned to Nine-Thirty-Seventh?” Behind him, the airlock hatch slid closed.

  “Yes, sir,” I answered. I took the moment to look him over, trying to get a feel for him. I’d read over my grandmother’s files during our wait, using my Quicksilver implant to go through all the data quickly. He was Lieutenant Thomas, Summit Station’s Maintenance Officer. He worked in the engineering department, but his focus was maintaining the stations various secondary systems. He’d graduated in the middle of his class from the Academy, done alright in his first assignment, but he’d irritated someone at some point and been assigned here. He was a tall, stoop-shouldered officer, with shaggy brown hair that was almost definitely out of regulation.

  “That’s too bad, we’re short-handed here and I would have liked to put you to use,” he sighed. “Alright, quick set of rules. No drinks or drugs aboard station,” he ticked off one finger. “No fraternization with people outside of your rank. That includes gaming, non-work related conversation, and any other recreational activities.”

  “Since we’re cadets, sir,” Kyle noted, “does that apply to commissioned officers?”

  “It does,” Lieutenant Thomas nodded, “and I’ll assume you have some kind of force-on-force simulator assignments, right?” He didn’t wait for our nods. “You’ll have to go against one another or see if Commander Arton will let you use your Academy scenarios in one of his training flights.”

  Kyle and I knew each other well enough that playing against one another in those assigned scenarios would be a lot bloodier than playing someone else. It also meant that if we really challenged one another, we’d have to do each scenario two or three times each to get acceptable passing runs.

  “Now, then, while I would like to say that gravity will be returning shortly, we were stripping the water recycling condenser down for repairs and now we’ve got to reassemble it without the parts we requested, so it may be a few hours.”

  “Sir,” I asked, “Isn’t there a machinist aboard the station who can manufacture the parts?”

  He grimaced, “Cadet... Armstrong,” he frowned as he read my name, though whether that was because of my family or not, I wasn’t sure. “As I said before, we’re short-handed. We haven’t got a machinist. Nor do we have an assistant machinist. So unless the two of you have machinist certifications?”

  Kyle and I looked at each-other. “Not certifications, no sir,” Kyle said, “But we did get five months of training on operating lathes, milling machines, three-d printers, and other machining equipment.”

  Lieutenant Thomas blinked at him. He squinted between the two of us. “You’re not pulling my leg, are you?”

  “No, sir,” we chorused.

  “I’m supposed to give you the quick tour of the station, but if I were to show you the machine shop, do you think you could do up a few parts based off plans in the system?” He asked doubtfully.

  “We can try, sir,” I said. “If all else fails, we’ll let you know if we can’t do it.”

  “If you could even manufacture a replacement feeder nozzle, you’d probably get the thing operating,” he mused. “Fine. Follow me. Oh, and leave your gear there, it should be fine.”

  “Uh, sir, should we get changed?” I asked, gesturing at our khaki uniforms. I could do the work in it, but oil and metal shards would probably ruin the uniform, even with the tough smart material it was made of.

  “Yeah, probably a good idea,” he waved a hand. “We’ll swing past your quarters and you can change there. This way.”

  ***

  The machine shop was not in a good state when we arrived. About half the tools were missing off the walls, clearly “bor
rowed” and never returned. The lathe chuck was actually rusty, and the zero-g oil dispensers were filled with some kind of dirty sludge that looked and smelled like something had died and decayed inside.

  It took us about thirty minutes just to get things moving, get the zero-g capture screen up and to set up the suction so that most of the oil and metal shards would be sucked into storage. I didn’t want to think about the danger of small metal particles flying around in zero-g.

  The machine shop had a static field, too, and I got that turned on while Kyle picked out a section of stock. Machining the nozzle itself was pretty easy. The hardest part was getting it within tolerance without going over, but with two of us working it, it only took a couple of hours. I messaged Lieutenant Thomas while Kyle shut everything down. “Sir, we have that nozzle for you.”

  “Great!” he sounded relieved. “The Commander’s been pretty upset. He told me I should have let that transport leave without our parts, never mind that they didn’t have them to begin with...” He trailed off as he realized he was talking to a cadet. “Never mind. I’ll be down there in five minutes.”

  Kyle and I used that time to clean up what we could of the machine shop. I used the static field to do a full sweep of the room, picking up a lot of dust as well as splinters of metal. It was easier in zero-g, the light force exerted by the static field was enough to get all of it compressed into a mass that we fed into the suction filter.

  We passed off the part and Lieutenant Thomas nodded, “Excellent, I’ll walk you to the squadron room on my way back to the condenser. We might have you do the other parts, too, but we need to get the system up as soon as we can.”

  He led us through the corridors and then waved at a hatch marked “Squadron 937.” “They’ll take care of you, I need to get this down to the condenser room.” He was gone before we could ask any questions.