“Like I’m going to settle for just that,” Miller grunted. “I want access to the details. The thing is, I don’t know why that furball wants me on this trip, so I don’t know what I need to know. And neither do you or Greg Townsend. So I need access to all of it.”
“That’s gonna be tough,” Bill admitted. “The security level on some of this stuff is cut-your-throat-after-reading. And in case you hadn’t noticed,” Bill added, waving at his gold leaves.
“I’ll admit I’m having a hard time with that,” Miller said. “Who the grapp was stupid enough to give you a commission?”
“More a concession to reality than anything,” Bill said, shrugging. “Lots of stuff works the Navy way for this. How to pack people into a ship and keep them fed, watered, aired and sane. How to run multiple complex systems. One big difference…”
“It ain’t water,” Miller said, leaning back.
“It ain’t indeed,” Bill said, grinning. “It ain’t even underwater. Space has damned few reference points, stuff that you don’t find on earth. Vacuum. Stars. You can think of them as rocks and shoals, but there’s a fundamental difference between brushing too close to a reef and brushing too close to a sun.”
“Heh,” Miller said, grinning back. “You run aground in a star…”
“And it’s a bad thing,” Bill said, nodding. “But then there’s gravitational effects, which are active when the boat is in normal space and… There’s a billion things that naval officers, no matter how well trained, aren’t prepared for. So we’ve got a CO and XO who are, in order, a former fighter pilot and a bubblehead, and then there’s me. Columbia was going through the merger mania that started after the Adar Commerce bill and they kept yanking me around to different departments and off the ship project. So I convinced the right people that what the boat desperately needed was an astrogation officer. Someone with fundamental knowledge not only of astronomy but of the way that the drive worked, how to handle gravitational effects…”
“Too bad you’re not the commander,” Miller said, shaking his head. “Wouldn’t that be a hoot.”
“It’s a command slot,” Weaver replied. “I’m in line for command. Third officer in line.”
“Jesus,” Miller said, his eyes widening. “Now that is grapping nuts!”
“I’ve been on two cruises as wet-navy navigator,” Bill replied, calmly. “Six month deployments. One in a carrier and one in a sub. I aced the Navy Nuclear Power Training course. I’ve been to Surface Warfare School, Underwater Warfare School and I did Submarine Officer Advanced Course and Command and General Staff College. I am a commissioned officer in the United States Navy and I’m damned well doing the job.”
“Sorry, sir,” Miller said, frowning. “I guess we’ve both been through changes,” he added, waving at his clothes.
“The point being, that while I’m an unusual lieutenant commander I am, nonetheless, a lieutenant commander. I’ll call some people but I can’t guarantee that you’re going to be given ‘full access.’ ”
“Figure it out,” Miller growled. “And you’re going to need to think about it for Mimi, too. But I definitely want to know how things work on this damned trip. I don’t know how I’m going to save the universe or whatever, but if I gotta I gotta.”
“You sure?” Bill said, wrinkling his brow. “I mean, there’s things about this tub I wish I didn’t know. You’re going to puke when you see the navigation system.”
“And all of it’s built by the lowest bidder?” the chief grumped.
“Lowest bidder, hell,” Bill said, chuckling. “Some of it was built by me in my garage while suffering from sleep deprivation. I could wish the lowest bidder had gotten it that right.”
“I just hope you got all the physics right this time,” Miller said with a grin.
“What the maulk does that mean, Chief? I always get the physics right.”
“Well, after things cooled down for us I read up on some of that particle physics stuff you were throwing around on that mission. And you told me that muons were made of two quarks. I remember it like it was yesterday. But muons ain’t…”
“Naw, Chief. I’m sure I didn’t say that,” Bill said sheepishly and took a sip from his coffee cup. “Muons are fundamental particles. Are you sure I didn’t say that mesons are made of two quarks?”
“No, sir. You said muons. And according to wikipedia.com muons ain’t made of quarks.” Miller grinned tight-lipped. A few years as a navy officer hadn’t changed his friend’s slow southern drawl a bit and hearing it brought back memories for Miller. After all, Miller thought, with Bill the word “naw” had two syllables.
“When exactly did I tell you that, Chief? Hell, I wouldn’t make such a fundamental mistake… not under any normal circumstance I can think of.” Weaver scratched at his head and shrugged as he tried to remember the conversations they’d had from, what was it, eight or nine years ago.
“It was right after the spike throwin’ boys rushed us…”
“Holy maulk, Chief. There was big green monsters from outer space tryin’ to grappin’ eat us for all I knew and you’re bitching cause I told you that muons were made of quarks?” Bill wasn’t sure if he should laugh or try to kick Miller’s ass. Come to think of it, laugh was probably the better choice.
“Hell sir, I’m just glad you figured out how to turn the safety off on that pistol.” Miller winked and tried not to giggle coffee across the table at his old friend.
“You think the way I handled a pistol was something wait till you see what I can do with a submarine!” Bill said with a chuckle.
4
“So we’ve really got a spaceship,” Berg said, shaking his head.
“Nobody briefed you, huh,” Lance Corporal Al Hattelstad said, grinning devilishly. The third member of Charlie Team, Second Platoon was short with curly, dark-brown hair. “Yeah, they got a drive from somewhere, where is classified, and stuck it in an old missile sub. It works, but it’s funky as hell. There’s plenty of gas, but sometimes we have to stop and ‘chill.’ Which really grapping sucks.”
“During chill we have to go to zero gee,” Jaenisch said, scrubbing at the breech of the M-10. The simulation rounds tended to dirty up a weapon even more than regular fire so they’d brought the weapons from the test engagement back to the armory to clean them. Normally, weapons cleaning was done in barracks or the unit offices, but the way that things were laid out it made more sense to do it in the armory. And since it was a secure area, they could talk about their jobs, which Jaenisch had pointed out was verboten in the barracks. “I don’t mind it but—”
“Free-fall sickness is the worst grapping feeling in the universe,” Hattelstad said. “Except maybe pre-mission physical. But I have to protest. Berg is still a Nugget. It’s a violation of standard operating procedure to give him a team name until he has established himself. We will be shamed before all the other teams if we assign him full nickname status as a mere Nugget! I mean, sure, he’s been through the physical…”