Fleet Academy

by M. Scott Cottrell

  Dinner came while he was still working on the data pad. A small blond nurse brought in a tray of food for him.

  “Well, it’s good to see you stayed put this time.” She said as she folded a table out from the bottom of the bed and set the tray on it. “Eat hearty Lieutenant.” She said with a smile as she turned and headed out the open door.

  Matt ate a surprisingly good meal for what he considered hospital food. He managed to finish the large helping of ham and mashed potatoes before the little blond nurse returned for his tray.

  “Well it looks like you ate well.” She said as she came back into the room.

  “It was quite good. Thank you” Matt replied as he handed her the tray.

  She carried the tray out of the room and returned a minute later with a small cup containing a pill and a pitcher of water. She set the pitcher down and handed Matt the cup.

  “What’s this?” Matt asked.

  “Oh, it’s just a little something to help you rest. The doctor wants to make sure you get plenty of sleep before you go back on duty tomorrow.” She replied with her still cheery smile.

  “I really don’t need this.” Matt protested.

  “Sorry, doctor’s orders. Now take your medicine like a good boy.” She said without ever losing her smile.

  “Yes ma’am.” Matt answered. He swallowed the pill and downed it with the cup of water she held out for him.

  “There, that wasn’t so bad was it?” she asked.

  “No ma’am it wasn’t.”

  “Good. Now go to sleep Lieutenant.” She said as she walked out of the room, turning the lights off on her way past the switch.

  Matt settled down in his bed, the medicine taking effect quickly, drawing him closer to sleep.

  It was morning when Matt awoke to the cheery voice of the morning shift nurse. “Good morning Lieutenant. I brought you a fresh set of clothes.”

  “What time is it?” Matt asked groggily.

  “It’s 0700, Lieutenant. I’ll just leave these here for you; the shower is just across the hall.” She answered as she turned to head back out the door. “Just holler if you need any help.” She finished as she strode out the door.

  Matt lay there for a long time, letting his groggy mind claw its way completely back to reality. Finally deciding to climb out of bed and head to the shower; he tossed back the covers and climbed out of bed, pulling a newly arrived robe on. He headed to the bathroom and climbed into the shower tube. He was just stepping out when crewman Tempe stepped into the bathroom.

  “Sorry sir, I didn’t know it was occupied.” She said as she started to back out of the room.

  “No problem Tempe, you can stay. It’s not much different than the suit room showers any way.”

  “Thank you sir. I really need to get a shower.” She said as she stepped the rest of the way into the room, letting her robe fall from her shoulders. She stepped into the shower tube as Matt stood drying himself off with a small towel.

  “Did you sleep good last night?” Matt called through the shower tube door.

  “Like a baby. How bout you Sir?”

  “I was out like a light.”

  “That’s good sir. That means that you must have had a good night. Tempe answered from inside the tube.

  “I suppose so. Well, see you later Tempe, good luck today.” Matt called as he pulled his robe on.

  “Yes sir.” Tempe called as Matt stepped out the door and headed back to his own room. Once there, Matt dressed and sat on the edge of the bed, flicking on the data pad. He quickly thumbed the menu to the duty roster and found he was assigned to the bridge at 0800. He put down the data pad and was just getting up when the overly cheerful nurse came back into the room.

  “Well that’s a bit better now isn’t it Lieutenant?” She said with a smile in her voice.

  “Yes, thank you nurse.”

  “Are you about ready to check out?”

  “I think I better, I have less than a half hour to get breakfast and on duty.

  “Well enjoy the day then, Lieutenant.” She said as she ushered him out the door. “Down the hall to the right, don’t forget to sign out.”

  “Thanks. I won’t.” Matt replied as he headed down the passageway.

  Matt signed out of the infirmary at the front desk and headed to the mess hall for some breakfast. Matt felt eyes turn to him as he walked across the room to the food table. He piled a plate full of food and found a place to sit. He was nearly done eating when Bounce sat down across from him.

  “Aren’t even going to say good morning?” she asked.

  “Hey Bounce! I was so busy eating I didn’t even see you.”

  “Well that’s a first. I’m usually noticed across the room.”

  “Yeah. I know.” Matt laughed between bites.

  “You doing alright?”

  “Yeah. I got a good night rest last night.”

  “Cool. After all your fun the last couple days you could use some.”

  “I suppose so. Well, I gotta go.” Matt said as he finished the last bite of his breakfast. “I don’t want to be late for duty.”

  “Well, have a good one. I’ll see you after watch.”

  “Ok. See you later.” Matt said as he walked off to dump his tray. Matt took care of his food tray and headed down to the suit room to pick up the sidearm and comm unit he left in his locker before his last EVA.

  Following his stop at the suit room Matt headed up to the bridge. It was only a couple minutes to eight when he stepped onto the bridge. Several sets of eyes turned to see who the new comer was, then turned back to their duty stations. Matt walked over to the weapons station, and the Ensign from security seated there.

  “I’m your relief Ensign.” Matt said to him quietly.

  “Aye sir. The board is clear, all systems are at nominal. All post-firing checks have been completed on rail gun five. The station is yours Sir.”

  “Thank you Ensign. Why was rail gun five fired?” Matt asked as he sat in the seat vacated by the Ensign.

  “The lost cargo container had slipped into a lower orbit than we could recover it from easily. With the damage it had sustained, the Captain ordered it destroyed so it wouldn’t impact any of the structures of the moon base.”

  “Thank you Ensign. You are relived.”

  “Aye sir.” The Ensign said crisply as he turned and headed off the bridge.

  Matt settled back in the chair and started running through screens of status information. It took almost an hour for him to feel confident that everything was ship shape with his duty station and its equipment. Matt flipped his screen over to the nav display and checked out the course data. It looked like they had started a short five day run to Mars.

  Matt’s watch went by slowly, with little to do on the bridge but scroll through displays and equipment reports. He signed off on the reports for the damage to four suits from the last EVA, and noted that three had been repairable, and parts of the forth were beyond repair. He also saw that the shuttle needed extensive repairs, which were under way.

  Matt looked up quickly when a female voice spoke from over his shoulder. “Sir, I am your relief.”

  Matt swiveled his chair around to face a young looking security officer. “Very well Ensign … Toller.” Matt said, reading her name from the tape on the front of her jumpsuit “The board is clear.” He told her as he stood up.

  “Thank your Sir, you are relived.”

  “Thank you Ensign.” Matt answered, and headed off the bridge.

  Matt headed down to the officers’ mess to get some lunch. He walked in and headed over to the food table and picked up a sandwich and potato salad. After filling a cup with bug juice, he looked around to see it there was anyone to sit with. Sparks was sitting on the far side of the room with Pete. Matt headed over and sat down with them.

  “Hey guys, what’s going on,” he asked?

  “Hey Matt, or should I say Lieutenant?” Sparks greeted him.

  “When were alone, Matt will do. Wha
t’s with him?” Matt asked pointing his thumb at an obviously gloomy Pete.

  “I’m dead meat.” Pete said quietly. “The head of security has me split shifting brig duty. I think he’s going to wash me out.”

  “How come,” Matt asked?

  “I’m not sure. We didn’t hit it off too well, and I’ve been pulling all the lousy assignments.”

  “Well did you do anything wrong?”

  “I don’t know, I haven’t been able to figure out what I did to get on his bad side.”

  “Well, you’re just going to have to talk to him and find out what the problem is.” Sparks added.

  “I tried, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk about it.”

  “Well” Matt said between bites, “It looks like you need to do something to work it out, or he’s going to wash you out.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Pete said quietly.

  The three of them finished the rest of their lunch in silence.

  “Well,” said Matt, standing up. “I need to get down to the armory.”

  “Hang on; I’ll head that way with you.” Sparks said, popping up from her seat.

  “Sure” Matt answered as they headed away from the table, leaving a glum Pete picking at the leftover food on his plate.

  “Man is he bummed.” Sparks said quietly.

  “Yeah, I think the problem is attitude, not anything he did.”

  “He did start off with kind of big headed. I wonder if his Commander is just trying to bring him back to earth.” Sparks asked.

  “Well, if that’s the case, he’s not going to make it. Pete thinks it’s personal.” Matt said as they headed down the first ladder.

  “Yeah, I guess. Pete’s just going to have to get over it and get to work or he’ll be out.” Sparks said quietly.

  “Well if I know Pete, he’s not going to get over it. I had some classes at the academy with him, and if he wasn’t number one he took it personally and was looking for someone or something to blame…This is my ladder down. See you later Sparks.”

  “You too Matt.” Sparks said as Matt headed down the next ladder to the lower decks. “See you at dinner.”

  Matt headed down to deck seven and the armorer’s office. He stepped in and found Trina hard at work on a pile of side-arms.

  “Hey Trina! How Goes?”

  “Hey Matt, what a site for sore eyes. Pull up a chair. I have to PM all these side arms.”

  “Sure. Slide a couple over.” Matt said as he pulled a chair over to the maintenance bench.

  Picking up one of the weapons, Matt started disassembling it to perform the required maintenance checks.

  Matt and Trina worked the rest of the day, finishing the maintenance work on the pile of weapons by the time their duty watch ended. The two headed up to the mess for dinner, Matt stepping thought the hatchway into a gentle din of multiple conversations. Trina followed him over to the food table and each of them filled trays with food. They had just set down to eat when his comm unit beeped. Picking it off his belt he answered it. “Ensign Molter here.”

  “Report to Commander Haskel on the bridge… Lieutenant” The metallic voice of the comm unit demanded.”

  “On my way.” Matt replied crisply before clicking the unit back off. “Now what?” He mused as he picked up his tray before he even had time to taste it.

  “Only one way to find out.” She replied.

  “Yeah.” He said. “See you later.”

  “Ok.”

  Matt walked out of the mess and made his way to the bridge. Stepping through the bridge doors Matt saw the Commander talking with the Captain. He stepped over to a discreet distance and stood at attention. “Lieutenant Molter reporting.”

  “Mr. Molter.” The Commander said. “At ease.”

  “Aye Sir.”

  “The colony on Mars had its armorer take ill. They need to have some weapons work done. Since you’re the senior trainee I’d like to know how you would handle it.” The Commander asked handing him a data pad.

  Matt took the pad and looked through the request. After several minutes looking it over he replied to the Commander. “With your permission, I think the best way is to just do an exchange with weapons from our supply on most of these, and then do the maintenance work onboard ship. Otherwise we will have to stay for a couple days in orbit. These rail gun packs will have to be changed out on site though.”

  “Do you have enough information to handle that Lieutenant?”

  “If we don’t have the procedure in our system I can get it sent up. Yes sir, I think we can handle it.”

  “Very well. Prepare the required equipment and have it loaded on the shuttle. Coordinate with the Quartermaster on loading. Make sure you are up to date on the colony procedures. Dismissed.”

  “Aye, Aye!” Matt replied crisply as he snapped to attention and spun to march off. Matt left the bridge and headed back down to the mess. Trina was still sitting at one of the tables and he joined her after filling yet another tray. He walked over and sat down next to her and dug into his food.

  “Hey. So what was the emergency?”

  “Mars colony needs some weapons work done. We’re going to put together a shipment of stuff to swap out and do the work up here.”

  “Ok. When do we start?”

  “First thing in the morning. I’m going to go over this list tonight and layout the groundwork. I figure we have three days to get it all together and loaded on the cargo shuttle.”

  “Ok. Let’s see what they want?” She asked picking up the data pad Matt was holding out to her. She scrolled through the list of needed items, whistling when she got to the energy packs for the big rail guns. “What do they need the big rail guns for?”

  “I read some place that they use them for protection against meteorites. The domes can take hits of stuff up to about two inches in diameter, but more than that will punch a hole. There’s supposed to be some fancy radar system that aims the rail guns at anything incoming faster than a particular rate, and starts shooting at it with some special projectile out of the rail guns. Kind of like hitting a bullet with a bullet.”

  “Sounds like a dangerous place to live.”

  “I guess the system works, they’ve never had a major rupture.”

  “Still sounds like a dangerous place to live to me.”

  “And living in a metal tube hurling through space is safe?” Matt asked with a grin. “We’ll start working up the order tomorrow. See you bright and early.” Matt said as he stood up. “I’m going to go start figuring out the load sequence.”

  “Ok. See you in the morning Sir.”

  Matt walked off, dumping his tray on the way out. In minutes he was back in the armorers’ office working through the list of equipment that needed repairs and what he would need to change out or repair on site.”

  It was late when Matt finally called it quits for the night. He punched open the door for his room and stepped into the gloom. He noticed two bunks were occupied as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Matt undressed and climbed up into his bunk exhausted.

  Chapter 5 - Shuttle Mission

  It was almost 1900 hours on the fifth day from the moon when the Saint Claire settled into an easy orbit. Matt had watched the red planet growing in size each day as he worked at getting the needed equipment together and loaded on the cargo shuttle. The hours were long in order to have everything ready in time for launch the next morning. Matt was just going over the final lists when Commander Haskel entered the armorer’s office.

  “Everything ready to go tomorrow Mister Molter?”

  “Yes sir. All the equipment is aboard as well as my EVA suit configured for ground use.”

  “Good. Add mine to the load. I decided to go out with you on the rail gun maintenance.”

  “Yes sir. I took the liberty to have the Master Chief prep it for ground use. I hoped to ask you later to assist me on that part of the mission.”

  “Very well. I’ll meet you at the shuttle bay at 0600.”

  “
Aye sir.” Matt said as the Commander left the office.

  Matt called down to the suit room and had the commanders suit moved to the cargo shuttle, and he added it to his equipment manifest. With that done, Matt flicked off the data pad and headed out of the office and up to the officers’ mess.