“Yes, sir,” I said.
The Captain studied the starmap on his display for a long moment. “We’re scheduled to depart in two weeks,” he said. I nodded. That had been in the data pack that he’d forwarded to me, along with instructions on boarding. “You’ll have two days to adjust yourself to this ship — again — and then the Ensigns will arrive. You’ll have a proper First Ensign, at least, so that won’t be a problem. Stand watch tomorrow with me and we’ll run through a few drills.”
I wasn’t deceived by his tone. He intended to put me though my paces… and it wouldn’t be easy. Captain Harriman wasn’t known for sparing the rod when it came to drills; I’d be tested on everything, corrected firmly, and then tested again, and again. It had worked while I’d been an Ensign and would probably work again.
“Yes, sir,” I said, trying frantically to remember everything I would need to know. My mind seemed to have gone blank. I could barely even remember my name. “Tomorrow?”
“Get some rest,” the Captain ordered. He smiled suddenly, as if he had just thought of a joke. “Or catch up with old friends. I’ll see you on first watch.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and saluted, before leaving the Captain’s cabin. I wasn’t surprised to see that the Senior Chief had gone, leaving an Ensign in his place. He would have hundreds of things requiring his attention before we departed… but it took me a moment to realise that I recognised the Ensign. “Sally?”
“John… ah, Lieutenant,” First Ensign Sally Brenham said. There was a bitter tone in her voice. I’d served with her on the last cruise — how was she still an Ensign? She should have made Lieutenant by now. “Welcome onboard the Jacques Delors.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The vast majority of UN Infantrymen, for various reasons, are not trained to the standards that the Marines or specialist Security Division units use. The net result is that most Infantry units are poorly led, poorly equipped and generally unsuitable for the type of war they are called upon to fight. While there are some capable and competent commanders in the UN Infantry, most of them find themselves marginalized. Their units are often asked to attempt the impossible.
I had only been inside Lieutenant Hatchet’s cabin once, back when I’d been an Ensign. It had seem palatial to my young eyes, being almost large enough to swing a cat, with a large bunk and enough storage space for almost anything we could want. The Lieutenant in me wondered if there was enough space. I had picked up a few personal possessions along the way, as well as my dress uniform, ground-side uniform and various other items of clothing. I even had a bra that Kitty had given me as a joke, just before we parted and she went to her next posting. I missed her dreadfully already.
Sally hesitated on the outside of the cabin. “Come in,” I said, already feeling myself floundering. What did one say to a person who had once been your equal — and then First Ensign, making her my superior — and who was now a full rank-grade below? She clearly had the same problem. Technically, she should have saluted me, but I let it pass. There were no witnesses anyway. “Sally…why are you still here?”
The blunt question seemed to surprise her. I wasn’t too surprised. I’d seen a handful of officers who’d spent too long in their grades ever to be promoted again and most people had tiptoed around them, afraid that failure would rub off on them and they’d be damned by association. Three years as an Ensign suggested that someone didn’t have a hope of advancement, but why? Sally hadn’t been incompetent, or stupid; Lieutenant Hatchet would never have allowed her to get away with it. She’d have been working off demerits for the entire voyage.
Her eyes, when she finally looked up at me, were raw and painful. “Just after you left,” she said, slowly. “Just after you left, we made the run to Albion again, carrying a new governor and his staff. The old one had suffered some kind of accident.”
I nodded. I could guess what form that accident had taken. Albion might not seethe with resistance, like Heinlein, but it was still unstable. The men and women who had been trying to escape the UN’s conscription program had probably escaped with the help of an underground resistance organisation, which might have started a new campaign of violence. Another world for the United Nations to occupy… if they could find the Infantry, after Heinlein.
“One of his staff was a Political Officer, but we didn’t know that,” Sally continued. “She seemed friendly and often engaged us on conversation and I shot my mouth off. She wanted my opinion of a few programs and… I told her just what I thought. I’d been assisting the Lieutenant with the logistics after you left and I knew enough to make a fool of myself. I thought it had gone well until I discovered that she’d entered a notation in my file forbidding further advancement.”
I winced. A Political Officer’s notation could be damning to a career. Nothing that Captain Harriman or his Political Officer could do would remove the blight from the file; whatever it said, it would prevent any further advancement. The only good thing about it was that it hadn’t seen her consigned to a deep-space fuelling station somewhere on the edge of the Beyond. Instead, she’d been left on a starship. I wasn’t sure if that was kindness or an extra twist of the knife.
“And so, here I am,” Sally said. Her voice was bitter. “What’s the point of doing anything when there’s no hope of going any further?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. I wanted to tell her about my plans, but I didn’t dare, not yet. This wasn’t the Sally I had once known, but a stranger consumed with bitterness and hatred, raging helplessly against the universe. Even if the notation were somehow removed from her file, she’d still be tainted by it…and her new attitude. On the other hand, I could use her. “Sally…we’ll find a way out, all right? I promise.”
“You can’t keep that promise,” Sally pointed out, angrily. “Part of me just wants to tell them to shove it and quit. The other part doesn’t want to give up the starship and service on her. John…why the fuck do I even care?”
A dozen possible answers ran through my mind, but I abandoned them all. They wouldn’t have made the situation any easier. “There are always possibilities,” I said. It sounded trite and I knew it, but I couldn’t tell her anything else just yet. “Listen. We will find a solution, one way or the other. Now, tell me about the ship and its new crew.”
“I shouldn’t even be socialising with you,” Sally pointed out, suddenly. I was surprised by her sudden grasp of regulations, and her willingness to heed them. “You’ll just have your career dragged down by mine.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, softly. “You should try serving on a monitor instead of this ship. That would give you a sense of perspective.”
I listened, carefully, as she talked about the other lieutenants, the ones I hadn’t met. They were all junior to me, having earned their promotions later, and had transferred in from other starships. The Captain had apparently decided that they all needed additional training and had run them through endless drills — I knew the procedure by now — until they improved. When Lieutenant Hatchet had left the ship, one of the new Lieutenants had served as First Lieutenant and succeeded in seriously annoying the Captain, enough for him to accept my transfer request. I hoped that that meant there wouldn’t be a second resentful officer onboard, but there was no way to know. If the Captain had been annoyed… it had to be bad.