The Ensign’s wardroom was smaller than I remembered, or perhaps it was just that I’d been getting used to a Lieutenant’s cabin. There were still the original eight bunks, one of which was occupied by Sally, who gave me an unreadable look as the Ensigns filed into the wardroom. I hoped that none of them had expected to be First Ensign, even though they all had the same graduation date; Sally would outrank them until they were promoted, which would happen unless they screwed up by the numbers. I nodded to Sally and left them to get acquainted, with a final warning that I’d see them on Deck Three in ten minutes. I was deliberately pushing them as hard as I could. How quickly could they change, make themselves presentable, and then reach Deck Three? It was just possible to do it all in ten minutes…
“Interesting lot,” the Senior Chief commented, as we walked towards Deck Three. Deck Three was generally used for storage space and sickbay. I’d introduce them to the other sections of the ship one by one. “Did you notice how badly they were dressed?”
“I handled out demerits for it,” I remarked, crossly. We hadn’t looked much better, but at least we’d worn dress uniforms. “Is there a reason for that?”
“Standards are slipping everywhere,” the Senior Chief said. I wondered if he’d heard it through the Brotherhood grapevine, or simply by keeping his ear to the ground. We’d have to talk once we were inside the wormhole and well away from Earth. Until then, there wasn’t much I could tell him. “The Academy has been trying to rush more cadets through on an emergency program — they think they’re going to have to meet much higher requirements in the next couple of years. I’m actually surprised they didn’t send us the full eight Ensigns, but maybe they’re trying to spread the newcomers out a bit.”
I frowned. “They’re speeding up the program?” I asked. I’d been at the Academy for four years and I had missed plenty that I’d needed to know. “What the hell are they going to cut out of the program?”
“Fucked if I know,” the Senior Chief said. He lowered his voice for a moment. “I bet you anything you care to put forward that they won’t have cut any of the political indoctrination.”
“Shit,” I said. I’d been taught the rudiments of using a spacesuit, operating in zero-gravity, piloting a shuttle, basic maintenance — which was really replacing a broken component with another component — and much else besides. How much had the Ensigns been allowed to skip? “We’d better get ready to test them on everything, just in case.”
I scowled. System Command had played around with our departure date again and now we were scheduled to depart in two days. I had that long to break the Ensigns in and remove, if necessary, any Ensigns who simply couldn’t adjust to life on a starship. It was quite possible that one or more of them would be far more of a liability than an assert, someone who had no idea how inexperienced they were until it was far too late. I’d have to weed them out quickly…because if we entered the wormhole, we couldn’t turn back. System Command were already bitching to the Captain because we hadn’t left earlier.
“Yes,” I agreed. “Get the dummy spacesuits and the retch gas. We may as well start with the fun test first.”
Sally led the Ensigns in and stood to attention. I checked my chronometer openly and allowed myself a slight smile. They’d made it — barely. Hopefully, they’d have learned the unspoken lesson as well; they needed to listen to and learn from Sally. She could talk to them as an equal, while they couldn’t talk to me, or even the Senior Chief, as anything, but subordinate to superior.
“At ease,” I said, checking their appearances with a glance. They showed few signs of haste, probably thanks to Sally. “There are five spacesuits on that rack there. Put them on quickly and go right into the next room. Sally, remain here.”
The Ensigns struggled, I saw, without surprise. It wasn’t easy to put a spacesuit on without assistance, even though it was something that the Academy taught everyone. Normally, they’d have help from their superiors…and that wasn’t something they’d have if they were alone. They were treating it as a race, I realised. Yianni was struggling with hers, but Allan, instead of helping her, was trying to beat her to the punch. They hadn’t realised that they needed to cooperate.
A moment later, Adam was finished and moving right into the next room, through the pressure barrier. A more experienced officer might have wondered why the barrier was there. They ran into the room…and, a moment later, we heard the sound of retching. The suits hadn’t been fixed properly.
“First lesson,” I said, as they staggered back into the room. The interior of their suits was truly disgusting. “Check everything, even if someone tells you it’s safe. Trust no one when it comes to your personal equipment. Take no chances. It’s not a race, you know. Why did none of you check the telltales on the suits?”
I smiled at their expressions. This time, the experience had been humiliating, but harmless. The next time, it might be lethal…and I could see the realisation sinking in. Despite their inexperience, perhaps there was something that could be made of them.
“Clean yourselves up,” I added, more gently. “We’ll reconvene at Ninth Watch.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The UN prefers not to ‘waste’ money on war games and exercises, insisting instead that it’s Captains — those who believe that training isn’t a waste of time or money, but a vital process — work with computer-generated simulations. This has the effect of allowing mistakes to be made and studied without any real life consequences, but it lacks a certain reality. The situation is worse in the Infantry. Training budgets are so low that infantrymen are rarely allowed to fire their weapons outside of combat…and the paperwork required is so extensive that most officers skip training altogether. The results of this can be imagined.
“Stand by to open the wormhole,” the Captain ordered. “Helm?”
Ensign Yianni Gerasimos looked nervous — and considerably more demure than she had on her arrival — but somehow also confident. She would have practiced in simulations at the Academy, yet now she was doing it for real. “Wormhole coordinates set, Captain,” she said, carefully. “We are targeted on Botany.”
I checked my own console. I hadn’t realised, back when I’d been an Ensign, how many safety precautions the Captain had had in place. I’d believed that I was solely responsible and anything that went wrong would be my fault. The Captain had had the Pilot and a Lieutenant watching over my electronic shoulder, ready to intervene if I charted a course right into a planet’s atmosphere or somewhere else equally dangerous.
“Good,” the Captain said. “Engineering, this is the Captain. Status of the Jump Drive?”
“Jump Drive inline and ready for operation, Captain,” the Engineer said. I hadn’t realised how involved he’d been either. “You may open the wormhole at will.”
“Excellent,” the Captain said, gravely. “Helm, open the wormhole and take us in.”
My display altered as space warped in front of us, opening up into a wormhole. A person watching from the observation blister would have seen an event horizon forming in front of us, opening up into a funnel that sucked us down out of normal space and time, but my display merely showed the energy flux. It reminded me of what the Senior Chief had said about how few people really understood the Jump Drive, or even how it worked. We were dependent on a piece of technology we barely controlled.