Terms of Enlistment (29 page)

“Each of those has the name of a ship on it,” our commanding officer explains. “We will call roll, and each of you will step up and pull a name out of the bowl. We do it this way so everybody gets the same chance to get on one of those luxury cruise ships you all want to serve on.”

The ships in need of new Network personnel range in size from small escort corvettes to giant assault carriers, and everything in between: frigates, destroyers, supply ships, space control cruisers, and deep-space reconnaissance ships. When it’s my turn to draw a ship, I mask my nervousness by quickly reaching into the tub, and popping the cap off the cylinder before giving myself time to think about the process. I shake out the slip of paper and read the name of my new ship out loud to the assembled crowd.

“NACS Polaris.”

There are whistles and hoots all over the room as soon as I say the name of the ship.

“Damn, Grayson,” the petty officer in charge of the tub says with a grin. “Pulled the jackpot ticket.”

I raise an eyebrow and reach for my PDP, but the trainee standing to my right supplies the information eagerly.

“She’s a brand new assault carrier. Newest and biggest ship in the Navy, one of the new Navigator class. That’s the most advanced ship in the Fleet, Grayson.”

I tuck the slip of paper into my shirt pocket and take another swig of my drink as the next trainee is called to the lottery bowl to draw his assignment.

We’re almost at the end of the lotto when one of the students pulls a ticket out of her cylinder and announces her new assignment to the rest of us, and I feel a jolt of surprised shock when I hear the name of her ship.

“NACS Versailles.”

There’s general groaning as our classmates consult their PDPs and find out that the Versailles is a tired little frigate from a now obsolete class that has long been superseded by more capable designs.

“That’s a rust bucket,” someone chuckles, but I don’t feel like laughing. Instead, I walk up to her as she steps away from the table with a dejected look on her face.

“Trade with me,” I tell her, and she looks at me in wide-eyed surprise.

“Are you joking?” she says. “Didn’t you pull the Polaris?”

I pull the slip of paper out of my pocket and hold it up for her to see.

“I did. What do you say? I’ll trade you my assignment for yours.”

“Are you serious? Why would you trade that ship for a frigate?”

“I have a friend on the Versailles,” I reply.

“Oh.” She looks at the nearest instructor, her expression a mix of incredulity and sudden excitement. “Can we just do that, trade off assignments?”

“I don’t see why not. They’re not finalizing our orders until tomorrow, anyway. Ask one of the petty officers.”

She walks over to one of our instructors and exchanges a few quiet words with him. When she comes back to where I’m standing, I can tell the instructor’s response by the excitement in her face.

“He says it’s no problem, as long as we both agree.”

“Well, I agree. How about you?”

“Are you kidding? Hell, yeah, I agree.”

I hold out my hand, and she gives me her paper slip. I hand her my own, the ticket to the most advanced warship in the Navy. She takes the slip gingerly, as if she suspects a last-minute hoax on my part. Then she walks off, looking over her shoulder with an expression that makes clear she thinks I’ve lost my marbles.

The next morning sees me packing up my things and stuffing them into a duffel bag again. The staff office has our final orders ready, and we all file in one by one to pick up our official printouts. We’re all dressed in our Class A uniforms, because that’s the required smock for reporting to a new unit, and I notice a few of my fellow trainees glancing furtively at the small collection of ribbons above my left breast pocket.

All of us have assignments on Navy ships, so we board shuttles to Gateway Station.

The Versailles is docked in a far corner of the Gateway fleet yard. I have to traverse what seems like miles of increasingly narrow and dirty corridors before I finally reach the docking collar that says
NACS Versailles FF-472
on the sign above it. There are two Marines guarding the airlock, both wearing the Marine Corps version of ICU battle dress and carrying sidearms in thigh holsters.

“I’m new to the ship,” I say and hand my orders form to one of the Marines. “Where can I find the XO?”

The Marine looks at my order printout and looks at my breast pocket.

“Uh, try the CIC. You the new Network guy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Go through the lock, follow the gangway to the central fore-and-aft corridor, and turn right. You’ll get to an elevator bank. Ride down to Deck Five. CIC will be straight ahead as you step out of the elevator.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I take my order form back, pick up the duffel bag I had rested on my foot and render a sharp salute in textbook TA fashion. The Marine corporal salutes back, and I step past him into the airlock to set foot onto my new ship for the first time.

The Versailles is showing her age. She has a patina of wear almost everywhere. The flooring in the gangways is smoothed out from decades of constant foot traffic, and the markings on the bulkheads and walls look like they have been refreshed and painted over many times. The interior of this ship is a little more cramped and a lot more worn than the fleet destroyer simulator back at Great Lakes. As old as the ship is, however, every deck and gangway is neat and clean. The floors are worn, but there are no supply crates and broken equipment piles in the corridors like at Gateway.

I take the elevator down to Level Five. CIC, the Combat Information Center, is hard to miss. It’s a big, circular room that takes up a big chunk of the deck. The hatches and windows are armored, and I can see the tell-tale synthetic gasket of an autonomous environmental system on the edges of the open entry hatch. This is the battle station for the ship’s captain and the senior staff officers, one of the best-protected parts of the ship.

I hand my order form to the Marine guarding the CIC hatch. He studies it briefly and waves me on.

“Leave your gear out here,” he says and nods at my duffel bag. “The Skipper hates it when people drag their kit into CIC just to report in.”

“No problem.” I take the duffel bag off my shoulder and slide it up against the wall, away from the hatch.

There are enlisted crewmen sitting at consoles all along the periphery of the room. The center of the CIC is a sunken floor space with a large holo table in the middle. There are three officers standing in a small group on one side of the holo table, holding a discussion in low voices. One of them looks up when I step into the center of the CIC. He’s a tall man with the sharp and angular features of an infantry grunt just out of some hard training regimen. He’s wearing the gold leaves of a Lieutenant Commander on the collars of his khaki shirt, which makes him the highest-ranking officer of the small bunch. I walk up to him and render a snappy salute across the holo table.

“NN2 Andrew Grayson, reporting for duty, sir.”

The Lieutenant Commander returns the salute with an expression that’s not quite a frown. His name tag says CAMPBELL T, and he’s wearing no decorations on his shirt other than the Space Warfare Badge in gold.

“Mister Grayson,” he says when I finish my salute and lower my hand. “You supposed to be our new Network guy?”

“Yes, sir. Just finished Network School yesterday.”

Lieutenant Commander Campbell shares a poignant look with the lieutenant standing next to him. “Well, Mister Grayson. Welcome aboard, I suppose. I’m your new Executive Officer. Would you walk with me for a second?”

“Of course, sir.”

I follow the Lieutenant Commander out into the corridor. When we are far enough to be out of earshot of the CIC, he stops and turns to face me.

“Every deployment cycle, I get a few crew members who decide to spruce up their smocks a little to impress the boys or girls at the rec facility on Gateway. Now, before we start off on the wrong foot here, would you mind telling me what you’re doing, coming fresh out of A-school with a valor award, a drop badge, and a freakin’
Purple Heart
? And if you don’t have a good explanation, I’m willing to give you exactly five seconds to pull those things off your jacket before the Command Master Chief sees them and has the Master-at-Arms toss you into the brig for wearing unearned awards.”

I feel my face flush with embarrassment, and a moment later, I chide myself for feeling shame at the XO’s accusation.

“That’s a negative, sir. Those are legit. I’m an interservice transfer, from the Territorial Army. Have the Chief check my personnel file.”

Lieutenant Commander Campbell looks at me with a raised eyebrow.

“No shit?”

He pulls his issue PDP out of his pocket and starts tapping on the screen.

“No need to ask the Chief. I can pull up your file right here and now.”

I wait as he digs through a few layers of menus on his screen. He studies the screen for a few moments and lets out a low chuckle.

“Well, I’ll be dipped in shit.”

He turns off his PDP and stows it. Then he extends his hand to me.

“I do apologize, Mister Grayson. I’ve been the XO on this boat for two years, and I’ve never had a transfer from TA before.”

“Not a problem, sir,” I say. “No apology required.”

I shake his hand, the discomfort at having put my new XO on the spot mixing with the sense of vindication I feel.

“Grab your gear, and I’ll unlock your new office for you.”

The Neural Network Center is a secured room in the aft section of the ship. It’s located on Foxtrot Deck, near the engineering section, and well away from the CIC and the crew quarters. Lieutenant Commander Campbell unlocks the armored hatch of the NNC, and I step into the room behind him. There’s an admin console and a pair of chairs near the front of the room, and the rest of it is taken up by banks of neural processing units and data storage modules.

“This is all yours now,” the Lieutenant Commander says. “We are supposed to have three Network admins--ideally. You were going to be Number Two, but my Network petty officer came down with something on our last cruise. We’ve been without a Network admin for a few weeks now.”

“I won’t have a petty officer at the top of the department? Who’s going to be my supervisor?”

“You’ll be reporting directly to me,” Lieutenant Commander Campbell says. “I could put you under the Engineering Chief, but he knows about as little about Neural Networks as I do, so we might as well streamline the chain a bit. You’re now your own department head. Don’t get too excited, though--if something breaks, you’re the one who will get the blame.”

“I’ll manage, sir.”

“The good news is that your job is technically an NCO billet. Impress me, and you’ll have a good shot at some petty officer chevrons as soon as you have the time in service.”

“Understood, sir,” I reply.

“Very good. Now let me set up with your access credentials, and then we’ll have the Command Master Chief find you a place to sleep.”

The single cabin I’m assigned is nowhere near as spacious and well-appointed as my room at Network School, but it beats the three-to-a-cabin arrangements most other junior enlisted ratings have to share. I have a cot that folds out of the way, a bathroom nook with a toilet, and a desk and chair that are bolted to the floor, just like the furniture in my room back at the PRC on Earth. Out here, the practice has a different reason, of course--rather than preventing theft, the Navy wants to minimize damage by untethered heavy objects if the ship gets jostled hard. I fill up my new locker with my belongings, and then change from my Class A dress uniform into the far more comfortable black-and-blue working uniform all the enlisted crew members are wearing for everyday duty. Then I sit down at my desk to do what I’ve been itching to do ever since the Lieutenant Commander enabled my network access--I check the ship’s Personnel Movement roster for Ensign HALLEY D.

Halley is assigned to the Versailles’ Combat Aviation section, a grand title for a pair of drop ships and a spare ship in storage. The ship’s personnel movement system tracks everybody on the Versailles through the low-power RF chip embedded in their dog tags, and the computer tells me that Halley is in a briefing room on Foxtrot Deck right now.

By the time I find my way around the ship and down to the right corridor, the briefing in F5103 is over. I pass the room’s open hatch, and try to look casual as I sneak a peek inside, only to see rows of empty chairs. I keep walking, not wanting to stop on the spot to pull out my admin deck and check on Halley’s new whereabouts.

As I walk around a bend in the corridor, I almost collide with a group of pilots in dark green flight suits, standing in front of a bulletin board on the corridor wall right past the bend.

“Whoops. Excuse me,” I say as I stop on my heels, a millisecond before I see that Halley is part of the little group. She stops her conversation with the pilot standing next to her, and looks at me in sudden, wide-eyed surprise. This is not exactly the way I had planned to reveal my presence on the Versailles to her, but she’s only three feet away from me now, and there’s no chance to rehearse and do this over.