“Such excitement, eh, gentlemen.” His cheerful smile seemed out of place.
I managed a look at the chronometer and saw 01:16. “Do we always do this in the middle of the night?”
Cookie shook his head. “No, young Ishmael, we do it at all times of day.”
Pip snorted a laugh. “Last time was in the middle of lunch service. Trust me, this is easier to deal with.”
I yawned and considered a cup of coffee. “What do we do, and for how long do we do it?”
Pip shrugged. “It depends on the fire and damage teams. They have to make their way aft, assess the situation, and pretend to get the fire under control. While they do that we just have to sit around and wait.”
“If we don’t have to do anything, then why did we have to get up?”
Cookie smiled. “Well, if it were a real fire and the ship was in danger, would you prefer to be asleep in your bunk? In an actual emergency, we would support those doing the real work by supplying food or beverages, helping to tend the injured, or otherwise lending a hand.”
I nodded blearily. “Okay, makes sense. I can deal with that. How often do we have these drills?”
Pip snickered. “Only once a quarter for fire drills but we have suit and lifeboat drills as well. We get about a drill a month.”
“Consider it a down payment on learning how to stay alive in case anything really bad happens, young Ishmael.” Cookie smiled and patted my shoulder.
I chuckled and nodded. “Good point.” I went out and started up a fresh urn of coffee.
After about ten ticks the announcement came over the ship’s speakers. “ALL HANDS STAND DOWN FROM FIRE AND DAMAGE CONTROL STATIONS. THE DRILL IS COMPLETE. THE DRILL IS COMPLETE. SET NORMAL WATCH.”
A tick later, the speakers crackled again. “This is the captain speaking. Excellent work, people. Very fast response times and outstanding performance by the damage control teams in assessing the situation. My congratulations to you all.”
Cookie pulled a tray of pastries from one of the coolers and set it out just in time for about a dozen people who burst onto the mess deck. I was glad I had already started the brewing. The official exercise might be over, but the after drill action had only just begun. Cookie waved over his shoulder as he left, but we stayed around. It didn’t last that long, really. Within half a stan most people had wandered back to their beds and the ship quieted down once more. Pip and I stacked the dirty mugs in the washer and made a quick pass wiping down the tables to make sure we’d be ready for breakfast before going back ourselves.
As I crawled into my bunk I noted the time, 02:21, and hoped that Pip and Cookie were right about not always having drills at night.
***
As I was prepping for dinner, I was still pondering how best to approach my academic pursuits. Between The Handbook and the ship’s tablet, I held all the answers to the standard questions. My problem was I don’t think what I was considering was normal. What I needed was somebody who was actively engaged in moving up, someone who could help me plot a path to advancement. I’d already gotten Pip’s perspective, and he was only a step further ahead than I was. Then I remembered that when I came aboard Sandy Belterson had been studying for Spec II in Astrogation. I made a mental note to catch her when she came through the serving line.
“Hey, Sandy,” I smiled at her as I dished up her plate. “Would you have time to talk with me after dinner?”
“Probably. What about?”
“I’m thinking about my specialty and I want to find out more about the process. I know you’re studying, so perhaps you have some pointers?”
She nodded. “Sure. Running track? Twenty thirty?” She took her tray and went to find a seat. Pip elbowed me and waggled his eyebrows. I just kicked him.
When I got to the gym at 20:30, Sandy was already on the track. I changed my clothes and caught up with her.
She nodded in greeting. “Hi Ish. What’s up?”
We paced ourselves so we could run and talk. “I’m considering going to half share. What’s the process like?”
“It’s in The Handbook.”
“Yeah, I read about it, but you’re the only person I know who’s actively working through it. Are there any tricks? Tips for getting through?”
She laughed. “I think half the crew is working on the next pay grade. And, no, it’s just what you see. The Handbook has the curriculum and some practice tests. For half share, it’s almost all book learning. As you move up you have to demonstrate skills so there’s some hands-on stuff. Every quarter, the Training Officer administers the exams and, if you pass he adds the rating to your personnel jacket. You can also take them whenever you want at any Union Hall.”
“Okay, I was just checking. It seems a lot like earning scout badges.”
She laughed again. “I suppose it is, but as a system, it seems to work.”
We reached the end of a lap and paused at the top of the ladder. “One last question. Who’s the Training Officer?”
“The third mate, Mr. von Ickles. It’s in your tablet.”
“Thanks, Sandy. I appreciate it.”
Chuckling, she headed down the ladder with a you’re welcome wave over her shoulder. “Good luck,” she called from below.
I took a couple more laps before heading for the showers and the sauna.
***
The next day I experienced my first transition. I’d been through a jump before, but I didn’t remember much about it as I was pretty young when Mom and I arrived on Neris. According to the countdown timer on my tablet, transition would occur sometime in the middle of the afternoon watch. We had already furled the sails and retracted the gravity keel. The kickers, the auxiliary engines in the stern, were on something called hot standby according to what I’d overheard from the engineering crew. Presently, we were lined up on the jump trajectory and just coasting into the correct position.
Sure enough, about 14:00, as Pip and I were finishing clean up, the announcement came. “ALL HANDS, SECURE FOR TRANSITION. SET TRANSITION DETAIL. TRANSITION IN TEN TICKS, MARK.”
I looked at Pip. He shrugged. We stowed the cleaning gear and settled at one of the mess tables.
“It’s no big deal,” Pip said conversationally, apropos of nothing.
“It can’t be too traumatic, I did it as a toddler, and I don’t remember a thing.”
“ALL HANDS, TRANSITION IN TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN…” the announcer counted down and I couldn’t help but brace myself. “…THREE, TWO, ONE, ZERO. TRANSITION COMPLETED. WELCOME TO DARBAT. ESTIMATED ARRIVAL AT DARBAT ORBITAL IN TWENTY-FOUR DAYS. SECURE FROM TRANSITION STATIONS. SET NORMAL WATCH, FIRST SECTION HAS THE CONN.”
I don’t know what I expected—some kind of sensation at least, perhaps a flicker of the lights, or some kind of trilling in my brain. Pip shrugged with a grin. “Told ya,” was all he said as Cookie called to him from the galley.
“Mr. Carstairs, I have those figures we needed…”
He waved and I pulled out my tablet to message Mr. von Ickles for an appointment to talk about my education. I knew him, at least by sight, of course. Everybody comes through the mess line. It seemed like I’d no sooner hit send, when Mr. von Ickles walked into the mess deck. He nodded to me, grabbed a mug of coffee, and sat down at my table.
“How can I help you, Mr. Wang?” I didn’t know how he’d even had time to read the message, but I plowed ahead. “I’m interested in moving up to half share, sar. Is there anything I need to do? File an application? Notify you?”
He sipped his coffee. “Not really. It’s just like The Handbook says. Half share is pretty straightforward. Study until you’re ready and then just show up and give it a shot. I’ll be administering the next round in about a month. It’ll be just after we leave Darbat.” He paused. “You realize that passing the test doesn’t give you the pay bump?”
“Oh yes, sar. I’m just thinking ahead. I don’t plan on leaving the galley anytime soon. I just want to expand my options.”
&nb
sp; “That’s good to know. This is the best coffee this ship has ever had.” He grinned at me and then focused back on my question. “What test will you be taking?”
“Engineman, sar,” I told him and I felt compelled to add, “First.”
“First?” he raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, sar. I’m…uh…planning to pursue all four of the half share ranks.”
He blinked. “Really?”
“I’m not sure what I want to do for the rest of my life, sar. About the only thing I know is I like life in the Deep Dark, and I want to do what I can to stay out here.”
He pursed his lips and nodded. “Why not pick a specialty and take it up to full share? It’s more money.”
“Well, eventually, I will, but like I said, I don’t know which division I’ll like the most and until I figure it out I want to maximize my employability. If something should happen, and I find myself ashore for some reason, I want to be able to get back on a ship as quickly as possible, and not have to wait for a berth. In the amount of time it would take me to get up to full share, I could have at least two half share ratings.”
“Makes a certain amount of sense.” He sipped his coffee thoughtfully.
“For me, I’d rather be underway, even if it’s not my favorite position, then to wait planet-side for a preferred one.”
“True enough. But would you be able to do a job you hate for weeks at a time?”
“Sar, I have no idea which ones I might like more than any other. Until I get to actually do them, there’s no way I can tell.”
He nodded.
“That’s another reason I want to diversify. So I can try them out. Once I’m rated in each, I should have a pretty good idea what the jobs are like and then I can pick. If I don’t like something I’ll know enough not to pursue it. Going through the test should give me some indication, won’t it, sar?”
He leaned back in his chair and tapped the tabletop with a fingertip while he considered. “Yes, Mr. Wang. It probably will. It’s certainly an interesting approach.”
“Do you foresee any kind of difficulty, sar?”
He shook his head. “Only the time it’ll take to get through all four exams. We only offer the tests once a quarter.”
“Is there any limit on the number of tests I can take in a single period?”
He looked startled. “Could you be ready for more than one at a time?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, sar, but three months is a long time, and I’ve seen the half share curriculum. It doesn’t seem like it would be that much compared to, say, a university program.”
He smiled and gave a short laugh. “No, I suppose not, but at the university, you’re not working ten stans a day in addition to going to school.”
“True enough, but here I’m not drinking my nights and weekends away,” I countered with a laugh of my own.
Mr. von Ickles grinned at that. “True enough, Mr. Wang. True enough.”
He stood and headed out into the passage. At the hatch he paused for a tick and looked back at me. “Engineering is a good place to start but look at cargo as well. There’s a lot of turnover with cargo handlers. The work is a bit boring and relies more on muscle than mind at the lower ratings. If you’re trying to maximize employability, then having your cargo rating is a good step.”
“Thank you, sar. I appreciate the tip.”
He nodded and left me to ponder. I was still sitting there when Pip came out of the galley. “Problems? I heard you talking with Mr. von Ickles.”
I shook my head. “Actually, no. He wasn’t exactly supportive, but he didn’t try to talk me out of it. What’s up with Cookie?”
Pip ran a hand through his cropped dark hair. “We’re good, but I need to find a computer. I don’t want to run my sims on the ship’s system just yet. The equations are getting complicated enough that I need to get some substantial computing cycles.”
“You wanna borrow mine?”
“You have a computer? You brought one aboard?” He gaped at me with his mouth half open.
I looked up at him with a shrug. “Yeah. Is there a rule against it?”
He shook his head. “It’s just that they mass so much and most people don’t want to burn quota on something they can get using the ship’s.”
“Oh well, see, I didn’t know that was available here, and it was my mom’s. I thought it might be useful for studying and stuff and it has more processing power than my peeda.”
“Studying what?”
“I downloaded several dozen courses from the University of Neris before they shut off Mom’s access. Did I tell you she was a professor there?”
“You’d mentioned it, but I didn’t think you’d have brought the university with you.”
“Why not? Your aunt told me that all I really needed was entertainment cubage.”
“And you put university classes in the category of entertainment?”
I shrugged and nodded.
“Amazing. What courses?”
“I don’t remember. Plant sciences, astrophysics, advanced mathematics. I was just grabbing all kinds of stuff. It was right after they told me…” I choked up and looked down.
“Hey, no problem. I understand. We’re clear until 15:30. Can we go look?”
“Sure, let’s go.
***
Down in the berthing area, we spread my stuff out on the table. Midafternoon was quiet since most people were on day watch and those who weren’t were either sleeping or engaged in their own pursuits.
Pip whistled when I brought out the computer. “This is a really good machine. It doesn’t mass anything like I would have expected it to.”
I shrugged. “Mom used it for her work, although I stripped her stuff off and sent it all to storage. It’s pretty empty now except for basic software.”
We started cataloging the courses I’d brought from Neris: astrophysics, plant sciences, ecological studies, accounting, advanced mathematics, and at least ten others. We didn’t get through the list because we kept getting side tracked by things we found and had to head back to the galley before we got through all the storage cubes. Pip kept exclaiming, “I can’t believe this.” Before we left I gave him the computer and credentials so he could use it.
“Thanks, Ish. This is going to make things much easier.”
“What simulations are you running?”
“Oh, just some trading sims.”
“Uh, huh.” I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, but I let him off the hook as we shifted into the evening routine.
Chapter 9
Darbat System
2351-September-28
The run into Darbat Orbital wasn’t terribly different then leaving Neris. The daily mess cycle gave all of us a structure to our day that became second nature. Cookie and Pip closeted themselves with the computer and whatever simulations they were running during the afternoon break. I took that opportunity to load up engineering training, intending to take the engineman exam after Darbat. I flashed through the instructional component in about a week and started taking the practice tests. I didn’t do too badly, but I couldn’t seem to get a passing grade.
The cargo materials were pretty straight forward: container types, cargo handling procedures, various techniques for securing containers and the proper way to use cargo manipulation tools like grav-pallets. There was not a lot of meat there, and I see that somebody might get a bit bored. The cargo handlers packed it in, made sure it didn’t move while we were underway, and unpacked it on the other end. I vowed never to complain about mess duty again as I tried to envision forty days in a row of: yup, it’s still there.
The other side of that coin would be that you’d have a lot of time to study for another rating. Looking ahead to cargoman, I saw the program got into various cargo types, trade rules, and some other more interesting stuff about the classifications of stores. The study guide contained lessons on margin, profit, and more safety regulations. Mr. von Ickles’ comment about turnover at the c
argo handler level made a lot more sense once I saw what the job was, at least on the tablet.
I ran through the cargo handler instructional materials in one evening and took the practice exam just for fun. I aced it. Thinking it was a fluke, I tried another test the next afternoon and passed with flying colors again. Smiling, I sent a calendar note to Mr. von Ickles to reserve a seat at the cargo handler rating exams when they came up.
***
Midmorning, about a week after jumping into Darbat, we had a suit drill. Pip and I had almost finished the breakfast clean up when the klaxon started doing a whoop-whoop sound at about a billion decibels. My coworkers dropped everything and ran to a panel at the back of the galley. By the time the klaxon stopped and the announcement came, they’d already pulled out three lightweight suits with helmets attached and tossed one at me. “THIS IS A DRILL. THIS IS A DRILL. ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY HAS BEEN BREACHED. ALL HANDS DON PROTECTIVE GEAR. ALL HANDS DON PROTECTIVE GEAR. THIS IS A DRILL. THIS IS A DRILL.”
The sudden silence came as a blessed relief as I struggled to get into my suit. I had one leg in, and was working on the other, when I noticed my two co-workers looking down at me through their clear helmets.
Pip looked at Cookie for permission before speaking. “This,” he said, indicating me sitting on the deck, “is why we drill.”
Cookie spoke inside his suit, but I couldn’t make out the words. It sounded like a short report made in a formal tone. I continued to struggle into my suit, but before I got the second leg fully in, the announcement came, “ALL HANDS SECURE FROM DRILL. ALL HANDS SECURE FROM DRILL.”
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