Fleet Academy

by M. Scott Cottrell

  “Yeah, maybe we kin rustle up some grub too.” Kevin said as he hefted his sea bag headed down the corridor with Matt following close behind. Matt paused when he came to cabin 216, pressed the announce button and then pressed his thumb to the contact pad. The door slid open with an almost inaudible whir, giving him the first look at what would be his new home for the coming months. He felt a certain amount of nervousness as he stepped over the combing and into the small cabin. The door sensed he had entered and slid closed almost as silently as it had opened.

  Matt stood surveying the small quarters for long seconds before the sounds of a shower tube blower slowly bought him back to reality. The room was not large, probably six meters long and three meters wide with a narrow space running the length of the cabin from the entry door to the door that was probably the head. There were four bunks built into the walls of the cabin, two on each side of the door end of the cabin. Each bunk, roughly a meter wide and a little more than two meters long, had plenty of room for a single person to be comfortable in. Looking around, it appeared that three of the four bunks were already occupied, so he tossed his bag on the unmade upper bunk. Past the bunks on the left side of the cabin were a set of four lockers, and on the right, two built in desks with computer consoles. Beyond that was the door of the apparently occupied head. Matt looked in the four lockers to find an empty one and started unpacking his sea bag and putting his gear up in the small locker. It didn’t take long for him to get his limited amount of gear stashed and get signed in on the computer panel on one of the desks, after which he started to work on making his top bunk with the sheets and blankets he found in the locker. As he worked on the bunk, he heard the head door open. He startled and turned around at the sound of a female voice. “Well hello, I guess you’re our fourth. I’m Katelyn Sparks!” The female voice belonged to a young lady, slightly shorter than he was, wrapped in a fluffy red robe, holding her hand out toward Matt.

  Matt shook the offered hand and then tried not to stare at her as she released his hand and pulled the bright red robe open, letting it slide off her arms. She smiled a crooked little smile at Matt as she turned to hang it in the wall locker. Even after three years in combined quarters at the academy, Matt had yet to get completely used to the arrangement, which some cadets seemed quite at home with.

  “Matt Molter. Pleased to meet you Katelyn.” He finally said as she bent over and started slipping into a pair of frilly pink underwear, her ample breasts wiggling as she looked back at him with a grin.

  “I hate Katelyn, call me Sparks. Pete and Bounce are in the mess getting some chow. If we hurry up we can catch them. Have you eaten yet?” She said as she straightened and started stepping into the regulation blue jump suit.

  “No I haven’t had a chance yet,” Matt answered as he tore his eyes from her curvy body and back to finish his bunk. By the time he had gotten the bunk squared away Sparks had finished dressing and run a brush through her short brown hair.

  “Ready to go?” She asked as she opened the cabin door.

  “Sure,” Matt answered as he turned from the finished bunk and followed her out into the passageway, allowing the door to close behind them. Matt followed her through the ship toward the officers’ mess, winding through passage ways and zipping up ladders between decks. “It’s going to take a while to get the hang of this,” he said to no one in particular.

  “It’ll come fast. I got in yesterday and I felt pretty good after wandering around lost for a couple hours.”

  They stepped through a door labeled “Officers Mess” and into a long room with varying sized tables set in long rows. A number of people were sitting around talking or eating, clearly waiting for the upcoming officer’s call. Sparks headed over to a table against the bulkhead with several warmers and a variety of trays of food. “Even at this hour they have food ready. There are crews coming off watch or what not at all hours,” she said as she grabbed up a plastic plate and looked under the metal warmer covers. It only took a few moments before she had her plate full of ham, bread and some vegetables. She picked up a glass and filled it with a red drink from a dispenser. Matt followed along and got the makings of a hot roast beef sandwich. “You can get bug juice or coffee. That’s about it unless you want to drink plain processed water which really tastes like crap.”

  “Bug juice sounds good.” Matt replied, filling a glass with the red liquid that was supposed to resemble some kind of fruit juice, and then following Sparks over to a table with a number of people sitting and chatting noisily. She sat down signaling Matt to take the spot next to her. “Matt, meet Lisa Briggs and Pete Yostov, your other two roomies,” she said motioning to the two ensigns sitting across from them.

  Lisa was a thin woman with a slightly darker skin color, probably of African descent, that seemed to fill her jump suit almost to overflowing. Her dark eyes and curly hair framed a friendly face with a pleasant smile. She reached across the table and offered Matt her hand, which he took, returning her surprisingly firm handshake. “My friends call me Bounce.”

  “Hi. How did you get the nickname Bounce?” Matt asked quizzically as he let her hand go.

  He could see her cheeks flush slightly darker as the ensign sitting next to her spoke up. “She kept bouncing off the walls during zero g training. Call me Pete, and welcome aboard.” He said sticking his hand out across the table over his overflowing plate of food.

  Matt reached out and shook his hand. “Thanks. The accent sounds almost Russian, you from that area?”

  “Yeah. New Leningrad actually. I went to the academy in France though. It ruined a perfectly good accent.” He finished with a chuckle. “You better eat, I don’t think you’re going to get any more time once the old man gets here.”

  “Thanks” Matt said before digging into his sandwich. He surveyed the room while he ate, noting a variety of new ensigns, all there for the same thing he was. There were about forty other ensigns in the room all together, most looking like they were from earth, but a couple looked to Matt like they could be off-worlders, having spent a long time either on one of the stations or moon base. There was a pretty good spread of both men and women in the group, but all of them were characteristically military looking. Three years in the academy will do that to you, he mused silently. He finished his sandwich and took a large swig of his juice. At least the food is good he thought as he listened to his three roommates speculate on what was to come.

  “I heard the old man can be a real hardcase,” Pete said.

  “You don’t get to be a Captain without being a hardcase when it’s needed,” Sparks replied seriously. “I hear she was recommended to this job after she saved a ship full of Marines when their shuttle crashed on the moon a few years back. Word was that she was hitching a ride on a mainline shuttle and took over after the senior officer died in the crash. Must have been one hell of a job.”

  “Yeah I heard something about that at the academy,” Bounce agreed. “Something about she was able to get her emergency gear on just before the bridge window blew. I guess there were something like fifty Marines in a transfer pod and she had to dig under the overturned shuttle to try to get the emergency hatch open.”

  “Yep. I heard they would have run out of air before the rescue shuttle could get there, so she jury rigged the shuttle air reserves to the pod to replace the destroyed air system and had them rig some patches on the inside. I guess all of the Marines suits were used up already before the trip. When she made it into the air lock her suit air had been exhausted for several minutes and she was near passing out.” Sparks finished.

  “Sounds like she earned her promotion.” Matt said to the group.

  They didn’t have time to discuss the story further as the room jumped to their feet at the call of ‘attention’. The group also stood and snapped to attention as the Captain walked into the mess.

  Captain Christina Seton was not an imposing figure, standing just over one hundred sixty centimeters. Her slight figure looked like it couldn’t w
eigh more than fifty kilos. However, there was no doubt that she was in charge, one look at her eyes said she was not to be trifled with and if you tried you might get eaten alive.

  “At ease!” Captain Seton called to the room.

  Everyone sat back down and swiveled their heads to look at their new captain. “Welcome to the Saint Claire. For all of you this rotation will finish you at the academy one way or the other. This rotation is designed to determine which of you are command material, and which of you will be going to other specialties.” She started walking around the room, making eye contact with each Ensign as she spoke. “Command is more than learning how to deal with people and equipment. Command is learning how to react when the pressure is on. Command is learning how to do the right thing, even if it’s not in the rule book. Command is knowing when to lay it all on the line and when to play it safe, always for the good of your command and the people under you. Command ability comes from inside. Either you have it or you don’t. It can’t be taught, and it can’t be learned. This is a training ship, but we do more than training. We sift you, we drive you, we put you into a grinder and see who comes out showing the ability and who comes out as ground meat.” She paused and looked around the room again before continuing her slow march down the row of tables. “Much of the crew contains experienced officers and ratings, some are newly qualified ratings, new to their posts. Treat them all as if they know what they’re doing, by now they should.” She made her way down to Matt and made eye contact with him. Matt didn’t let his eyes waver as she looked at him, feeling as if she could actually look deep into his soul. “Many of you will wash out and go back to the academy to look into other specialties. Those of you who are left will be those that have real command potential. It’s my job, and the job of my officers to determine which of you fall into which category. A word of advice; don’t bother to do what you think I want to see. Do what needs to be done and let me worry if it was right or not.” She paused as she scanned the room one final time. “Lieutenant Commander Yates is my training officer. He will give you your orders. Good luck!” And with that she strode out of the mess.

  Everyone in the room jumped to silent attention as the Captain left, each considering which group they would end up in.

  “Ok ladies and gentlemen, at ease! Let’s get to work.” A very large officer stated. All eyes turned to look at a mountain of a man, almost two hundred centimeters tall and weighing over a hundred and seventy-five Kilos. “I am Lieutenant Commander Yates. It is my job to be sure you learn what you need to know so we can learn what we need to know about you. It is your job to learn and use this information and to act as a professional member of this crew. Each of you has had downloaded to your data block a list of things to take care of prior to shove off at eighteen hundred tomorrow. You will also find a duty rotation beginning first thing tomorrow. I suggest you study the materials in the data block and be ready to go to work tomorrow.” He paused a moment to look across the room. “Dismissed!” He barked before turning to exit the same way the captain had.

  Matt stood and looked at his companions. “I don’t know about you guys, but I think I’m going to go access my data block and find out what rotation I got.”

  “Good idea Matt, I think I’ll do the same thing.” Sparks agreed as she started cleaning up her place at the table.

  “Not me!” Pete said waving a data pad in the air. “I brought a pad with me. I’ll know my rotation before you slow pokes get back to your quarters.”

  “Nobody likes a smart ass.” Bounce shot at him as she got up. “Come on guys, let’s go.” The three of them filed out of the officers’ mess with the others, leaving Pete sitting alone at the table, and Matt wondering what past history he didn’t know that resulted in that reaction.

  Matt stepped into his quarters first and pulled out a data pad from one of the small desks. He jumped up on his bunk as Bounce and Sparks came through the door, the two having stopped to talk to someone on the way out of the mess. He logged in on the data pad and downloaded the personal data block from the main computer. He worked down the menu and pulled up duty rotation. “Looks like I got Armorer.” He said unenthusiastically to the room as Sparks rolled onto her bunk next to Bounce.

  “That doesn’t sound too bad.” Sparks replied absently as she scrolled through the menus to get to her assignment.

  “Hey!” Bounce shouted excitedly from where she sat. “I got a Nav slot!” She popped up next to Matt’s head, her face glowing with excitement. “Damn! What’d you get Sparks?” She asked turning, back to look down at Sparks in her bunk.

  “Just a minute, I’m almost there,” She said quietly as she read her orders. There was a long silence in the room as Matt and Bounce stared at her, waiting. A smile slowly broke on her face as she read down the data pad screen. “I got a Pilot slot,” She whispered. Then louder as it sunk in deeper. “Damn… I got a Pilot slot!”

  Bounce and Sparks were still doing high fives as Pete stepped through the door with a very depressed look. He walked over to his bunk and plopped down.

  “Damn Pete. You look like someone stole your dog.” Bounce said with a hint of concern in her voice.

  “They gave me Security.” He replied quietly as he stared at the deck plates.

  “It’s not that horrible.” Sparks said, leaning against Matt’s bunk. “Security is everywhere. There isn’t any place that they don’t get into.”

  “Not horrible? Fat chance of me getting any bridge time with that posting,” He grumbled. “Everyone knows if you want to get noticed by the Captain you need to get bridge time.”

  “Well you can be bummed if you want, but were going out to see what other people got.” Bounce said, a disgusted look on her face. “Come on guys. Let’s leave the grump to himself.”

  She and Sparks turned to leave the room while Matt rolled off the top bunk and hit the deck with a light bounce. The three of them headed out the door to celebrate leaving Pete sitting alone in their quarters. Matt followed his two roommates back up to the passageway toward the officers’ mess, hopping the knee knockers and bouncing lightly up stairs as they went. After a couple of turns that were starting to becoming familiar, the three of them stepped though the hatchway and into the mess. The room was quickly filling with other ensigns, each looking for a bit of celebration and trying to find out who was assigned duty stations with them. The three of them waded into the group asking people as they went what rotation they got, and pointing out people that had the same things. It wasn’t taking long for the room to begin breaking down into small knots of people, each comparing notes on their shared duty assignment. Matt was a bit concerned that he hadn’t found anyone else that drew the armorer assignment. He moved back into a group with Sparks.

  “Hey Sparks.” Matt said as he moved into the group.

  “Hey Matt. Any luck?”

  “No, not yet.” He replied looking around the room.

  “Well they’ll turn up. Meet Jason, Frankie, Susanne, Kusha, and Richard.” She said, pointing to each one in turn. “This is Matt, one of my roommates. He’s got an Armorer slot.”

  “Good to meet you Matt.” Frankie Weston replied. “I thought I came across another Armorer early on. I think her name was Forest or something like that.”

  “Thanks Frankie” Matt said holding his hand out.

  Frankie took his hand and shook it. “No problem Matt. Hope to see you around later.”

  “Sure thing. See you later Sparks.” Matt said as he moved away from the group.

  Matt moved around the room again looking for a lady with the name Forest. He had about given up when he saw a fairly tall young lady headed to the sandwich table. The name on her tape flashed at him as she picked up a sandwich and turned. Matt made his way over to her. “Excuse me, have you seen anyone around here that has an armorer slot?”

  “Yeah, in fact I do. What about you?”

  “I was beginning to think that I wasn’t going to find any other armorers. My name is Matt Molter.”
He finished, sticking his hand out.

  “Trina Forester” she replied shaking his hand firmly. She was about his age, with a nice build and an initially pleasant personality. “As far as I know there are only the two of us. We’ll be working for a Commander named Haskel. Supposed to be a real stickler for detail.” Trina added.

  “Haskel? I think I saw him earlier. Huge guy.”

  “That sounds about like what I heard to. I guess he’s big enough to break someone in half.”

  “I suppose it comes in handy working with those heavy suits.” Matt laughed.

  “Yeah. I’m a bit worried about that. I’m pretty strong, but a two hundred kilo suit will be more than I can handle.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean.” Matt said nodding and remembering how much trouble he had managing the suit components during suit maintenance training.

  “Well grab a sandwich and a drink and we can find a place to sit. I brought my data pad so we can look over our background data.”