“Infantry Captain Andrew Nolte reporting, sir,” their leader said, as three Sergeants escorted the men off their transport boat. The sublight vessel was only capable of ferrying them between the Earth and the Moon. I’d already detailed several crewmen to escort them to their temporary barracks. The ship was going to be crammed to bursting when the Ensigns arrived. “Where do you want us?”
“Welcome onboard, Major,” I said. There could only ever be one Captain on the ship, so Andrew would receive a verbal promotion while he was onboard. “We’ve cleared out two of the crew wardrooms for you, along with one of the holds for your equipment. How many men do you have?”
“They didn’t tell you?” Andrew asked. I shook my head. They’d told me that it would be a Company, but I’d seen Infantry Companies that had everything from ten men to three hundred. “I’ve got seventy men and five sergeants. We should have more, but the Generals insisted that Botany was going to be a safe posting and I could spare a couple of platoons and two sergeants.”
“Typical,” I agreed. It had been clear from the start that Captain Harriman had too few officers and men. The Jacques Delors should have had more crew. As it was, if we ran into trouble, we might not be able to deal with it. The Engineer had been complaining about the shortage of crewmen trained to repair the ship for weeks, according to the reports the Captain had filed. “Are your men equipped for shipboard life?”
“Don’t worry,” Andrew assured me. He understood my meaning, all right. Infantrymen had a certain reputation on starships. It was why they were normally entrusted to troop transports and stasis pods. “We won’t cause trouble. You won’t even know we’re here.”
I laughed. “I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “We’re supposed to be departing soon, but things being what they are, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were delayed.”
“Exactly,” Andrew said. I found myself liking him, despite his career. He would have made a good starship officer. “Hurry up and wait.”
I shrugged. “Why are they sending an infantry company to Botany anyway?” I asked. It seemed rather odd to me and the orders had no explanation attached. “It doesn’t strike me as the kind of place an infantry company would be needed.”
“Just rumours, apparently,” Andrew said. The final infantrymen passed our position and marched onwards into the ship. The crewmen would be able to help them unpack and run through basic safety procedures with them. Unlike the reporters on the Devastator, they would probably be smart enough to listen. “You know what the Generals are like. They hear a rumour and suddenly everything has to be dropped until the rumour has been checked out.”
“I know just what you mean,” I said, remembering adventures on Heinlein. We’d been deployed in support of rapidly-mounted operations before on the planet’s surface. We’d just been lucky that there hadn’t been a second atrocity — as far as I knew. “We’ll get you there as soon as we can.”
“Oh, there’s no hurry,” Andrew assured me. He laughed, dryly. “Like you said, nothing ever happens there. We’re probably just wasting our time.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The UNPF’s original motive for disdaining military formalities was a reaction to the military formalities used by various national military forces, before they were integrated into the UNPF or dispatched to various colony worlds. It didn’t take long for the new hierarchy to realise that it enjoyed the formalities, and even that they served a purpose. Regardless, the UNPF takes a slapdash view — at best — of the requirements and it is sad, but true, that many Ensigns leave the Academy with only a vague idea of what they are.
I saw them coming through the cameras in the docking tube before they reached the Marines. There were five of them, wearing uniforms that were…slovenly, at best. I had a moment of Déjà vu — seeing them as Lieutenant Hatchet must have seen us, years ago — before they came up to the Marines and presented their papers. No wonder the Marines had smiled when they’d seen us. They’d known, and probably heard, the chewing out we’d received. We had deserved worse than we’d got.
The scene didn’t improve as they stepped through the airlock. They should have walked in one by one, in accordance with safety regulations. Instead, two of them pushed through, propelled by the other five. They stepped dead on seeing me and the others, who hadn’t seen me yet, pushed them forward. I almost expected them to fall flat on their faces — which would have been an embarrassing welcome to the starship — but they managed to keep their footing, barely. The other three saw me and stared. I’d worn my dress uniform — I’d shined it specially — and looked practically perfect in every way. They looked like they were wearing unearned uniforms, compared to me.
“Ah,” one of them said. “We’re reporting for…”
I cut him off, making a big show of reading my chronometer. “And what time,” I demanded, with another flash of Déjà vu, “do you call this?”
The spokesman stumbled, and started to recover. I didn’t give him a chance. “It is now 1307,” I said, coldly. It was my impression of Captain Shalenko and it worked. To them, it must have been thoroughly intimidating. “Your orders specifically ordered you to report onboard at 1300 precisely. Instead, you are seven minutes late. Do you have a good explanation for this?”
I allowed my eye to trail across nervous faces, some defiant, some twitching, and smiled inwardly. “Well?”
“We were…ah, admiring the ship from outside,” one of the female Ensigns said, finally. I mentally gave her points for truthfulness. We’d admired the ship too before we’d boarded, only to run right into Lieutenant Hatchet. “We didn’t mean to be late.”
“And yet you disobeyed orders,” I said, icily. I paused, as if I had just made a shocking realisation. “Why are you not at attention? Were you given leave to stand at ease?”
They straightened up. If anything, they were worse than we had been. The line wasn’t straight; they weren’t angling themselves on me and their uniforms…I didn’t want to think about what some of them had been doing to their uniforms. If they’d worn dress uniform, they would at least have been presentable, but really! No one in their right mind should report onboard a starship wearing standard ship-worn uniforms. They weren’t really capable of making a good impression.
“Good,” I said, grudgingly. It wasn’t anything like good enough and I knew it. I just hoped they knew it as well. “Sound off, by the numbers.”
There was a moment’s pause while they tried to remember who should go first. It was generally from left to right, but evidently they hadn’t bothered to practice that either. I listened as they finally gave their names and ranks, nervously eyeing me as if I were a tiger contemplating my dinner.
“Ensign Allan Barras, reporting for duty, sir!
“Ensign Yianni Gerasimos, reporting for duty, sir!”
“Ensign Evgenia Agathe, reporting for duty, sir!”
“Ensign Geoffrey Murchison, reporting for duty, sir!”
“Ensign Sandra Chang, reporting for duty, sir!”
“So you at least know how to do that,” I said, as if they had barely convinced me that they were their names. I had already read their files and matched names to faces, but I wanted them to go right back to the basics. “I am Lieutenant John Walker; First Lieutenant John Walker. I am the second-in-command of this vessel, which means that I am your supervisor during your time on this ship. If you have problems, you come to me with them. If you have questions, you ask me. I will be far less annoyed if you ask me stupid questions than if you fuck up because you didn’t understand something. Do you understand me?”