Poor Man's Fight (17 page)

As Tanner had suspected, much of the standard training practice
lay dead on the parade field.

The company cleaned and inspected every inch of the shelter, which turned out to be extensive. Below the squad bay was a small assortment of necessary facilities: an infirmary, kitchen and refrigeration rooms
. Below that lay engineering spaces to provide constantly recycled air and water, along with power generators so finely tuned to the shelter’s low, efficient needs that their fuel would last for years. Still below that was a large, open water tank bigger than any public pool in Tanner’s hometown. Under Everett’s direction, recruits who’d never maintained such equipment before brought it all to working order.

Even with all the repairs the company did in that first week,
some systems and machinery broke down frequently. The shelter hadn’t been maintained in decades. Base personnel had clearly made a habit of raiding it for spare parts. Aside from the marching and PT, Oscar Company worked on it day and night for a week.

On that first
Sunday, immediately after various religious services concluded, Chief Everett called the company to attention in the squad bay. “You will write to your families, friends, whoever. I expect each of you to write to
someone
. The message you will write is short and sweet. Tell them that they will not hear from you for an extended period, nor will you hear from them. All communications are to be routed to me. I will attach information on how to reach that point of contact to your letter.

“Do not use ambiguous terms. Do not tell them they ‘might’ hear from you, or that I ‘may’ be pulling your leg, for I am most certainly not. There is a time frame involved. I will tell the recipient of your letter what that time frame is. I will
not
tell you.

“Tell them that no news is good news. Whatever heartfelt messages or cries for help you want to include are your own business, but you
will
relay these details to your families and loved ones. People care about you. Don’t leave ‘em wondering. Anyone who fails to follow my instructions will be dealt with harshly.”

He stared at them, his lean face hard as stone. “You have
fifteen minutes. Get it done.”

That Sunday was the last time they went outside the shelter.

***

“This repair and maintenance bullshit is bullshit,” Einstein fumed. His face loomed over Tanner’s, looking down at him through four feet of machinery and tubing.

“Did you just say bullshit is bullshit?” Tanner asked. He lay on his back, twisted uncomfortably to get at the guts of the secondary oxygen recycler. There were two smaller recruits in the work party better suited for this work, but it was his turn.

It was also Einstein’s turn. “Fuck you,” the bigger recruit answered. He
did little actual work; his only real role was to feed rigid tubing down to Tanner until it could be firmly secured. That, and to drip sweat from his face down onto Tanner’s. “Nobody needs to hear your schoolboy grammar bullshit. It’s not gonna get this fixed any faster.”

“Neither are your circular statements
.” Tanner grunted repeatedly as he tried to force the wrench in his hands around another ninety degrees. It stopped moving after the first twenty. “Sonofabitch!”

“Whatsamatter, you too weak?”

“Shut up, Einstein,” Tanner heard Baljashanpreet say from outside the recycler. “Tanner, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t get this stupid nut to turn.” He pushed yet again, achieving no more success than he’d met over the last minute.

Ventilation and circulation systems repair wasn’t the sort of work Tanner expected when he enlisted. Nor did the company receive much in the way of training other than several lessons on the fundamentals of equipment and repair safety. Past that, all they had to work with were technical manuals, tools so scarce that repair parties frequently had to borrow from one another, and the endless impatience of their instructors.

It hadn’t been on any recruit-training syllabus Tanner had seen. It wasn’t part of training for
Union Fleet recruits, nor for NorthStar Security Forces, nor for Sol System Defense or any of the other system militia training programs Tanner researched before coming to Fort Stalwart.

On-the-job training brought valuable lessons
. Tanner learned that despite the numerous technological advances of the last few centuries, some jobs could only be accomplished with big, clunky machinery. He learned that engineers designed equipment with the belief that it would never need to be fixed, and thus ease of access was never an issue. He learned, therefore, that he hated design engineers.

He learned that he really, truly loved trees.

“You need me to get in there?” Alicia Wong’s voice carried through the crevices of the recycler.

“No,” Tanner grunted yet again, “no, I’m gonna get this... stupid!” he growled, slamming his hand on the stuck wrench. “Fucking! Nut! Gah! There,” he sighed. “Now it’s moving. Dammit.”

“Finally. Can I let go now?” Einstein complained.

“Yeah, let go,” Tanner said. “Just lower the last few bits.” He shifted to work on the next nut and bolt. It would have been easier had Einstein remained to keep the tubing firmly in place, but Tanner didn’t want him staring down at him and complaining anymore. He expected Einstein to at least pass the last few parts down to him by rope, though, rather than dropping the bits carelessly down on and around his head. “Hey!” he shouted. “What the hell?”

“Bruning,” Einstein called as he pulled away, “come patch this thing up.”

“I’m not done yet,” Tanner protested, then sighed as the light from above was covered up. “Fuck it,” he decided, activating the holo screen for the tech manual program on his wrist computer. He didn’t need the schematics so much as he needed the light.

“Aren’t you finished with this yet?” he heard Everett ask. Tanner let out another rueful breath as he picked up the pace of his work.

“Almost finished, Chief
Everett,” Wong answered. She and Baljashanpreet were both squad leaders. Having the better performance scores of the two, Wong was in charge of the twelve-person work detail. Tanner would have preferred to work with his own squad, or Wong’s. Everett, however, seemed to feel that learning to work with assholes like Einstein was a high priority, and so he continually mixed up work detail rosters.

“What’re we waiting on?”

“Recruit Malone is still fastening the last few relay tubes, chief,” Wong said.

“Malone!”
Everett yelled. “When are you gonna be done with that?”

“Just two more minutes, chief!” Tanner answered, turning nuts and bolts quicker still.

“You’ve got one! You’d better move!”

“Aye, aye, chief!”

“Is this thing gonna break again?” Everett asked. “We’re running on only one recycler. We’re supposed to have two.”

“I think
we’ve got it licked now, chief,” explained Wong.

“You think? You thought so before. Why’d it break again?”

“We—the last set of tubes weren’t fastened down properly and the casings melted, chief.”

“Melted? Who fucked that up?”
Everett’s irritation doubled. Tanner kept working quickly.

“I take full responsibility, chief,” Wong answered.

“I didn’t ask that! I know you’re responsible! I want to know who actually did it. Tell me who had his hands on the tools and the tubes before it melted. Don’t even think about trying to take one for your team, Wong. Tell me.”

“Recruit Einstein, chief,” Wong confessed.

“God damn it, Einstein, I knew she’d say that. What’s your excuse this time? Who are you gonna blame for this one?”

“Recruit Malone, chief!”
answered Einstein without hesitation.

“What the hell did Malone do?”

“He gave me the wrong fittings, chief!”

“Malone!”
Everett barked again. “Did you give him the wrong fittings?”

“No, chief!”

“Are you calling Einstein a liar?”

Tanner blinked. There clearly wasn’t a
right answer here. “No, chief!”

“Well, you should! I’ve caught him lying before! Einstein’s a lying slack-ass! But what the hell is
your
problem?”

“No excuse, chief! I
got confused on the fittings—“

“How could you get confused?”

“Again, no excuse, chief! I was tired and got confused while giving Einstein the fittings while he was down here but I—!”

“Malone, you are boring me already. Did you give Einstein the right fittings or not, yes or no?”

He paused again. The right fittings were, in fact, lying next to Tanner right now. He had passed Einstein the wrong fittings, but then realized his mistake before the job was finished. Rather than correcting the error, Einstein just left the incorrect ones in place and called it good, leading to the problem Tanner now fixed.

“Yes, chief!” Tanner finally admitted.

“So Einstein is lying to me!”

“Sort of, chief!”

“Malone, you were confused on the fittings and now you’re confused on whether or not you’re calling Einstein a liar! What the hell’s going on with you?”

“I thought that—“

“Don’t think so much! Just patch that up and get your ass out here right now!”

Tanner grimaced, knowing further punitive PT
awaited him. He put the last fitting in place as quickly as he could, then gathered the ones he’d had to strip loose to correct Einstein’s work.

Along the way, he heard a further grilling. “So you’re not payin’ attention to what you’re doing, is that it, Einstein?”

“No, chief!”

“No, what? No you’re not paying attention, or no, I’m wrong?”

“...I’m not a life support tech, chief!”

“You are if I say you are
.”

“I’m a marine recruit, chief!” Einstein pushed. “This is navy crew work
. They’re the ones that fix ship systems, not marines.”

“On your face, Einstein! Everyone, on your faces! Malone, you get out here and get on your face, too, right now!”

“Aye, aye, chief!” Tanner replied, hustling to squirm out of the recycler. He rushed to join the others as he was ordered.

“Don’t leave the job undone,
” Everett snapped at him. “Get over there and button that thing up, then get down on your face.”

Tanner scrambled back to the recycler to replace the access panel that he’d just crawled from. “Aye, aye, chief!” he huffed.

“As for you assholes, your job is what I say it is!” Everett roared. “You got me?”

“Yes, Chief
Everett!” the work detail shouted in unison—except for Einstein.

“Einstein, what are you gonna do if you’re on a ship and the life support systems take a hit?”

“Get the engineers to fix it, chief!”

“What’re you gonna do when the engineers get killed in that same hit, dumb ass? Have you considered that?”

Einstein didn’t answer. Tanner rushed over, taking up a position next to Einstein on the floor.

“Nothing? You’ve got nothing to say? Is that what you’re gonna do in combat, Einstein? Nothing? That’s not much of a plan
. Down! Up! Down again! Hold still there.”

Everett
walked over to the recycler, gave it a quick inspection and activated it. The machine hummed to life perfectly. “Good thing this works,” Everett said, “otherwise I’d be unhappy. Is it gonna keep working now, Wong?”

“Yes, chief!”
grunted Wong.

“Is she right, Malone?”

“Think so, chief!” He winced as soon as he said it. Sometimes it was hard to keep up with what passed for acceptable conversation with his instructors.

“You think? That’s not much of an answer. Is Oscar Company gonna have enough oxygen to survive, Malone?”

“Yes, Chief Everett!”

“Why’d it take you so long to get this done?”

“No excuse, chief!”

“I didn’t ask for an excuse. I asked why it took you so long to get this done.”

“Not much experience with machinery, Chief Everett,” Tanner answered. His arms trembled. He’d been up all night, along with the rest of the work detail. “Just a steep learning curve for me, chief.”

“So you’re great in a
classroom, but not much else?”

Tanner winced as if punched in the gut.
That one hurt. Yet before he could respond, the lights flashed red and the decompression alarm sang out. Tanner, Wong, Einstein and the rest leapt for their helmets, which were now never more than a couple meters away. Tanner heard the seals on his helmet working even as he reached for the oxygen cartridge panel on the closest wall. At least he was getting quicker at this.

As he inserted his spare cartridge in his helmet, though, he spotted the red indicator lights of the helmet on the recruit beside him.
The helmet’s tank was either depleted or jammed; the spare was apparently just as useless. There were no other spares in the wall recesses nearby.