“That’s some tattoo,” Berg said wonderingly.
The mystery of Drago’s nickname was revealed as he walked out of the team showers with a towel around his waist. Most of the corporal’s back was taken up by an intricate dragon tattoo.
Loading had continued until 2000, an hour behind schedule. It wasn’t the snafu with the battle rattle that held things up, but getting the rest of the company’s “common” equipment stored. When they were done, everything could be accessed, more or less, at least if you only wanted the stuff that was on the outside of the piles.
Fortunately, Top seemed to have an uncanny ability to determine what was going to be required in order of need. The term was “combat loading.” The idea was that the first things you needed would be the last things stored. And Top knew what was going to be needed and when. Or at least seemed to. The proof would be in the access as the mission progressed.
But, finally, the ship was loaded and the Marines were given forty-five minutes to “maulk, shower, shave” and prepare for an inspection. There were high-ranked visitors coming to see the still unnamed ship head out to sea, and the Marines were, by God, going to look like Marines, not ragbag sailors!
“Got it in Singapore,” Drago said, going over to the sinks and pulling out shaving gear. “I wasn’t even drunk, believe it or not. But it took, like, days to do. Blew all that month’s pay and bonuses plus I had to hit my credit card. But worth it.”
“Hell of a tattoo,” Berg admitted. His turn for the shower had come up and while he was in it he took a surreptitious glance around. Just about everyone in the unit had one tattoo or another, although Drago’s was, by far, the most spectacular. He shaved in the shower. His beard hairs were as blond as his head, but came in dark for some reason. If he was going to be standing inspection at 2200, he had to shave or get gigged.
By 2100 he was down on the quarterdeck, uniform squared away, maulk, showered and shaved.
“Open ranks,” First Sergeant Powell ordered, then walked the line.
When he got to Berg he just looked him up and down and nodded. Nothing to disapprove of. On the other hand…
“Crowley, who taught you to shave… ?”
They were bussed to the sub, which was docked about two miles away. Berg spent the trip just looking out the windows. It wasn’t that he was particularly tired, despite occasional nausea, having been up most of the night and one long damned day. It was just that… Once they entered the sub pen, that was the last time he might ever see Earth. There wasn’t much to see; they spent the whole trip on the base. But it was something. They did manage to pass the base McDonald’s, which caused a slight increase in his nausea.
The Marines were allowed a designated cubage of “personal effects” to be stored in a bag about the size of a plastic grocery bag. That included their shaving gear, any medications they cared to bring along and whatever else they desired in the way of “personal effects.” When they got to the ship, Berg followed Sergeant Jaenisch and Lance Corporal Hattelstad down into the bowels of the boat. He had the bottom bunk, naturally. Land-based groups, the seniors got the bottom bunks, but on ships, well, you wanted to be above any splatter. But the bunks were surprisingly better than he expected.
Instead of a curtain, the bunk sealed with a memory plastic door that could be set to be transparent or opaque. Hit a button it closed; hit another button it turned black. There was a private air supply that could be set to any temperature. There were several small bins, the largest being above where his feet would go. But he had a small shelf for personal items at the head of the bed as well. Best of all, the bunk could be slightly elevated and there was a keyboard and a flip-down plasma screen. He wasn’t sure what was available on the terminal, but he could hope for the best.
The bad part was that it looked like the entire “company,” at least the junior NCOs and the privates, were in the same bay. With nearly thirty people in the narrow corridor, crowded didn’t begin to describe it.
He tossed his bag up on the bunk, then climbed in to get out of the way.
“What now?”
“Ten minutes we have to be in the missile compartment for final inspection,” Jaenisch said, climbing in his own rack. “Then we hang out until it’s time to form up on deck.”
“Nice racks,” Berg said. “Better than on a transport, that’s for sure.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Hattelstad said. “You need to read the manual on them. They’re spaceworthy so if we get decompressed we can just hunker in the bunks and… well, hope somebody comes to save us I guess. The whole package can be ripped out and pulled out of the compartment, though I wouldn’t want to try in anything but zero gee. There’s a water port and a piss tube, all the bells and whistles. Oh, and computerized training systems so we don’t have to clog up another part of the ship when we’re playing Dreen War.”
“What’s on the terminal?” Berg asked, flipping down the screen. “Just Dreen War?”
“Just about anything,” Jaenisch said. “Movies, TV shows, music. Use the buds, though.”
“Got it,” Berg said. Two ear buds were racked in holders on the side of the bunk. He pulled them out and inserted them, then used a laserpad to navigate to the shows menu. “Jesus, you weren’t kidding. I think there’s just about every TV show ever made.”
“Nah, there are a few missing,” Jaenisch said. “Ever see reruns of WKRP in Cincinnati?”
“Love that show,” Berg said. “But I can never find the chip for it.”
“That’s because it’s got a bunch of legal stuff holding it up,” Jaenisch said. There was a slight tympani coming from his direction and he’d raised his voice. “Grapping RIAA. I mean, nobody buys those albums anymore. Release the maulk and let Micro-Vam or Napple put it out for sale.”
“No maulk,” Berg muttered. “Shiny! They’ve got Firefly!”
“They’ve got what?” Jaenisch said loudly.
“Never mind,” Berg said. “What in the hell are you listening to?”
“Within Temptation,” Jaenisch said. “You ought to try it!”
“I already am,” Berg replied. “Ah, Trash…”
“You listen to country?” Hattelstad said as they climbed the ladder up to the sub’s surface deck.
“And the sergeant listens to death metal; what’s your point?” Berg asked.
“Within Temptation is not death metal,” Jaenisch pointed out. “It’s Goth. Although I listen to death metal, too. But country?”
“I like ballads,” Berg said.
“So why not Heather Alexander?” Hattelstad asked.
“Who?”
“Can it,” Jaenisch said as they reached the deck.
Assembly on the top deck of an SSBN is normally an exercise in gymnastics. The majority of the deck is rounded. However, the area over the missiles, and in this case the mission specialist package, was more or less flat. Most of the eggheads were by the sail, nearest the distinguished visitor area on the dock. Then the officers and crew of the ship, then the “mission specialist” security force, who were senior NCOs from Army special forces, then the Marines, right down by the fantail.
The Marines were the first ones on deck and submitted to a third inspection, this time by the CO and Top. Given the conditions, they couldn’t open ranks or the rear rank would have been in the water. So the first sergeant and the CO had to squeeze their way down the sections.
It was the first time Berg had seen the Marine CO, Captain Michael MacDonald. The commander of the security contingent was a tall, spare man with short-cropped, dark-brown hair. Technically, he was in charge of the SF guys as well. But Berg had picked up enough scuttlebutt that it was pretty apparent they ran their own show. Since they were all experienced NCOs, that probably worked just fine.