Terms of Enlistment

Chapter 17

Neural Networks school is my fourth duty station in eight months. Once again, I am getting used to a new building, a new duty schedule, and a new group of instructors and fellow students.

The school curriculum is devoid of anything that doesn’t have to do with networking. There’s no PT, no firearms instruction, no drilling, and no memorization of rank structures or military history. Instead, we spend eight hours a day learning the functions of a typical shipboard network, and how to manage and control it with our admin decks. Every week, we start a new subject, and every weekend, we have a skill test that covers the material from the week before. I haven’t spent this much time in a classroom since Public School. With the artificial gravity and the lack of windows, it’s easy to forget that we’re actually on Luna, and I occasionally have to remind myself that there’s a hard vacuum outside when I feel like going for an evening run in fresh air.

The week before graduation, I receive a mail container.

I check for the coded label on the sealed container, and see that it came from the Territorial Army’s 365th AIB—my old unit. I remember Sergeant Fallon’s promise to send me a Combat Drop Badge, and I open the seal of the container.

In the box is not just a single award case, but three. I open the first one to find a shiny new Combat Drop Badge, Basic level. In the second box is a Purple Heart, and the third box contains a Bronze Star.

Underneath the medal boxes, theres a neatly folded message form. I open it and see that it’s a hand-written note, penned in Sergeant Fallon’s precise block script.

I look at her signature twice before I notice the new rank after her name—SFC, Sergeant First Class. It looks like she received a merit promotion after Detroit.

I take the medals out of their velvet-lined cases and weigh them in my hand. The Bronze Star has a red and blue ribbon with a small, bronze-colored letter V on it, to signify an award for valor. The Purple Heart is the military award for receiving wounds in combat. It’s my reward token for a pierced lung, and three boring weeks in a military medical center.

The two medals have smaller ribbons in their cases, for wearing on the jacket or shirt of a dress uniform. I take the ribbons out of their spots, and walk over to my locker. I pin the ribbons onto the jacket of my Class A uniform, right above the top edge of the left breast pocket. The Combat Drop Badge, a little silver drop ship in frontal profile flanked by a set of curved wings, goes on top of the ribbons. When all the decorations are in place, I smooth out the front of my Class A jacket with my hand, and look at the arrangement for a few minutes, the two ribbons from Basic and Navy Indoc joined by the one for the Purple Heart, and topped with the Bronze Star ribbon and the CDB wings. The ribbons are just thin brass strips covered with a bit of colored fabric, and the badge is merely a piece of chrome-plated alloy. They hold no honor or achievement by themselves.

It feels good to have tangible, official proof that we did our jobs well on the ground in Detroit, but I would trade a whole warehouse full of ribbons and badges for an opportunity to go to the chow hall with Stratton one last time, and shoot the bull for an hour over sandwiches and coffee.

Halley completes her Combat Flight School training three days before I take my final Neural Networks exam. She sends me a message the morning after her graduation to let me know that she passed, and that she’s now wearing a brand new pair of pilot wings.

>91% score on the final flight exam, she writes. I am the fucking Mistress of the Wasp.

>Congratulations, I reply. When are you getting into the fleet?

>Tomorrow. We got our assignments last night. I’ll be on the Versailles.

I check my PDP for information on the NACS Versailles, and it looks like she’s a fleet frigate from an older class. She was commissioned almost thirty years ago, which means that she’s just a few years away from the scrapyard.

>I didn’t even know they had Marines on those little frigates.

>Just one platoon. One drop ship, and one in reserve. I’ll be one of four pilots on that tub.

>Well, good for you. Any leave before you ship out?

>I had five days, but they cancelled my leave for some reason. They’re letting me take it after the next deployment instead. Hey—maybe you’ll get some leave by then, too!

>That would be nice, I reply, even though I have no idea what I would do with a week or two off.

>We could go to some military resort somewhere, and do nothing but eat and screw for a week or two, what do you think?

Halley’s reply makes it look as if she had read my mind, and I chuckle at the screen.

>That sounds tolerable, I send back. Pencil me in.

Our final exam is a grueling eight-hour marathon session of computer tests and practical problems. We have to use our admin decks to serve requests from fictitious ship officers, and fix a series of ever more complex simulated Network problems. The final test is the solving of a total environmental control failure in fifteen minutes, before the crew suffocates. Most of us figure out the source of the problem—sabotage by virus—but a few of the trainees don’t find the solution in time and fail the exam, to be recycled into the next training flight.

At the end of the day, there’s the obligatory graduation ceremony, and I’m glad to see that it doesn’t involve parading in front of a flag officer in dress uniform. Instead, our section commander pins Neural Network Admin badges on our shirts, shakes our hands, and orders us down into the chow hall for a graduation party.

We all gather in the building’s galley, mingle with instructors, and drink crappy alcohol-free beer. Everybody is anxious to learn their assignment, and our instructors don’t keep us in suspense for long. One of the petty officers brings in a large plastic tub, and as we crowd around it, we can see a bunch of little white cylinders at the bottom.

“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, 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 clearly implies I must have 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.

For a moment, I am sure that she’ll simply give me a nod and a low-key “hello”, so her fellow officers won’t know that she’s socializing with an enlisted crew member, but Halley quickly disavows me of that notion.

“Huh,” she says, sounding like someone who has just found a lost and forgotten commissary note in their jacket pocket.

Then she crosses the distance between us in one step, grabs me by the front of my shirt, and shoves me back against the corridor wall before kissing me on the lips. Behind her, the other pilots stare and chuckle.

“Holy fuck, Andrew, what are you doing here?” she says when she finally lets go of me. My lips are now pleasantly tingly with the sensation of the unexpected contact.

“I got transferred,” I say. “I’m your new Network admin.”

“Huh,” she says again, and pulls me close for another kiss. I don’t resist.

“I’m off my watch in fifteen minutes,” she says. “Are you free?”

“I’ll be getting settled in the NNC,” I say. “You know where that is?”

She shakes her head in response.

“This deck, Foxtrot 7700.”

“Fifteen minutes,” she says. “Hope you’re rested.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I reply.