Tales from the Academy
Chapter 27
"Jer! Have you seen this?" Jer Naddel jumped in surprise as Alby Vorsworth thumped down on the bunk next to his. He was holding a flimsy in his hand and waving it at him.
"Uh, no, what is it?"
"It's our ship assignments for the training cruise! The company is being split up between a couple of frigates!"
"Happens sometimes," said Jer, shrugging. "They aren't going to rearrange the fleet's schedule just to put you on a battleship, y'know. What have they given us?"
"Daring and Swiftsure. But that's not what I'm talking about! Anny is the one who drew up the roster and she put you, me and Patric on Daring, while she's going on Swiftsure! What do you think of that?"
"It's her call," he replied, trying to hide his own disappointment.
The anger vanished from Alby's face and suddenly he looked terribly young. Young and hurt. Like a five-year old who'd just lost his puppy. "Why's she doing this?" he whispered. "Why doesn't she like us anymore?"
"I don't know."
"Was it something we did?" he persisted. "I mean everything seemed fine until the Winterfaire break. Did something happen then when I was …?"
"I said: I don't know!" snapped Jer. "Leave me alone, will you? I'm trying to study!"
Alby's face twisted into a snarl and he stomped off, muttering something under his breath.
Great.
What the hell was he going to do? This wasn't just affecting him and Alby and Patric, it was affecting the whole company. Anny had been utterly fair, utterly professional—and utterly distant with everyone. The marvelous sense of solidarity the company had had since the fire—hell, since the end of their first year!—was starting to come apart. It saddened him beyond words.
She has to see it! She has to see what's happening. From some of the things she'd said, from the looks on her face Jer was convinced that she did see it—and didn't like it. But she hadn't changed the way she was behaving. Why? And what could he do about it? As First Sergeant the morale of the company was part of his responsibility. And there was so much important stuff coming up. This cruise to Komarr was just three days off and then mid-terms right after they got back and then, on top of everything else, somehow, they had to start getting ready for this year's Vorbarra Pentathlon.
We're gonna finish last if we can't figure this out!
Jer sat there on his bunk and totally failed to regain the train of thought he'd been following before Alby interrupted. Part of him wanted to pound on the door leading to Anny's quarters, drag her out here, and demand an explanation. But somehow he didn't think that would do any good. Damn it, he wished there was someone to talk to about this! But who? Anny had never really hung out with anyone outside the company. Maybe one of the new girls…?
Wait a second…
[Scene Break]
"Sergeant-Major? Can I talk to you for a minute?" Sergeant-Major Szytko looked at Jer through the doorway of his quarters with a mild expression of surprise on his face.
"It's 'lights-out' in twenty-five minutes, cadet," he replied. "You don't want to be AWOL."
"Please, sir, it's important."
"Well come in then." He stepped aside and let Jer through the door. He'd never been in the Sergeant-Major's room, indeed he'd never had call to be in the Academy's NCO Staff Quarters before. His eyes darted around taking in details. On the one hand it was exactly the sort of utilitarian space he would have expected from the veteran Szytko, but unexpected details started jumping out: The shelf of bound books that didn't look the least bit like military manuals, the embroidered pillow on the corner of the bed, a framed picture on his desk…
"Have a seat," said Szytko, pulling up one of the room's two chairs while sitting down in the other. "What's on your mind, Cadet-Sergeant?"
Jer sat down and opened his mouth, but couldn't decide what to say. He'd rehearsed a half-dozen opening on the way over here, but they all stuck in his throat. Szytko stared at him and raised an eyebrow. He was still wearing his fatigues from the day's duties, but for the first time Jer could remember, his collar wasn't buttoned.
"Spit it out, kid!" snapped Szytko.
"I… uh… I'm worried about Anny, sir."
"I assume we are talking about Cadet-Captain Andreanne Payne?"
"Yes sir."
"And you're coming to me because…?"
"Sir? I just assumed… I mean it always seemed like you… uh… liked her, sir."
"I admired her spunk. And I tried to see that she got a fair shake. Damn few people get a fair shake in this world. It's almost as rare to get the chance to give someone a fair shake. A shame to pass up a chance like that. But that's all I did. She did the rest—all the rest—on her own."
"Yes sir, I know…"
"Last I heard she was still sticking her finger in their eye. A medal before she even graduates. Not many can claim that—'course you got one of those, too. So what's the problem?"
"She… she's changed lately. Before… before we were close, really close. Like this." Jer held up his hand with the first two fingers squeezed together. "Not just her and me," he added hastily, "me and Alby and Patric, heck she was close to everyone. But now… now it's like she's a stranger—and wants to stay a stranger. We don't understand it and the company's starting to come apart at the seams. I don't know what to do about it, sir."
"And this is a recent development?"
"Yes, sir. She seemed… she seemed a little different after we got back from the fire. But it really became noticeable after the Winterfair break."
"You had a quite an adventure during the fire, didn't you?"
"Yes sir! It was really… something."
"You were nearly killed. You and some of your friends. How'd that make you feel?"
"Sir? Well, it was a near-run thing, but we made it out okay. Anny got burned some, but she's fine now. Are you saying that her getting hurt is the cause? But why would that make her push the rest of us away? A lot of the company got hurt!"
Szytko stared at him for a while. Finally he spoke: "I knew a man once, long time ago, he was the most popular man in our company. Made friends with everyone, everyone liked him. But he had one special buddy. They were just like that." He held up his hand with the fingers like Jer had done. "But then his buddy got sliced in half by a plasma arc during a ground action. Really tore him up—the guy I'm talking about, I mean, not his buddy—although he was really torn up, too. He was different after that, kept his distance after that, didn't make any new friends. Didn't want to risk losing another buddy, I guess."
"But we got out okay!" protested Jer. "We didn't lose anyone! I… I don't think she even knew that guy in 3rd Battalion!"
Szytko shrugged. "Hard to know what's goin' on inside a man's head." He looked at the time. "You got twelve minutes to get back to your barracks, cadet."
The 'audience' was clearly over. Jer got to his feet, thanked Szytko and left. He had to double-quick to get back before 'lights out', but he made it. He lay awake in his bunk for a long time before sleep came.
[Scene Break]
"Mind the gravity! Mind the gravity! Full gravity on this side of the red line, gentlemen! Right this way! Keep moving!" The chief petty officer was clearly having to restrain himself from just grabbing the cadets and hauling them aboard the frigate Daring. The warship was so small it didn't even have an internal hanger bay with artificial gravity. The shuttle which had brought them up from the Academy was just nestled into a pocket in the ship's hull. Jer held onto his duffle bag and awkwardly made the transition from free-fall to a full gravity. He managed to do it without falling on his face—which was more than a few of the cadets could say.
He went to stand by Cadet-Lieutenant Fallon and they waited until all thirty of their charges were aboard. He and Fallon got along well enough, but it felt very awkward being his right-hand man instead of Anny's. He could tell that Fallon was uncomfortable with the arrangement as well. Oh well, the cruise was only going to last eight day, they would get used to it.
The last cadet stumbled out of the shuttle and Fallon turned to the petty officer. "That's the lot, Chief."
"Very good," said the man. "If you gentlemen will just follow me, we'll get you squared away." He led them aft, through several pressure doors and then into a compartment that seemed nearly filled with humming and clanking machinery. "'Fraid we haven't got much spare room for you fellows. You're going to have to sleep with the recyclers. There's a pile of hammocks over there, just string them up wherever there's room."
"But… but we can't fit all of us in here!" protested Fallon. "There are thirty-two of us!"
"Oh, we once fit sixty-eight troopers in here with all their combat gear," said the CPO cheerfully. "Lots bigger than it looks. And once you get assigned to your watches, only a third of you will be here at any one time. In any case, the Exec says you're to go here and I'm not going to be the one to argue with him. But you're welcome to try, of course." He grinned at them, giving Jer an idea of what their chances would be. "The showers and toilets are just aft and inboard, past frame thirty-eight. Right on down the same companionway we took to get here. You can't miss it. Well, I'll leave you to get settled in. Someone ought to be along shortly with your duty assignments." He turned and left.
"What a dump," said Alby.
"Sure ain't the Princess Kareen," agreed Fallon, referring to Barrayar's most luxurious passenger liner. "But we'll make out. I hadn't thought about the watch schedule. At any given time most of us won't be in here. Let's figure out the best spots to sling the hammocks and then a spot to store our gear. Right, Sergeant?" He looked to Jer.
"Yes sir. Okay, let's get to it." They had only just begun when a ship's officer arrived with a couple of enlisted ratings and called them to attention.
"All right, listen up," said the man. He was a lieutenant and didn't look terribly happy. "I am Lieutenant Vorkagan, welcome aboard Daring. I hope you come to love this ship as much as the rest of do. First thing: your cadet ranks mean nothing here! Strip off any insignia you might have. Second: as cadets you are at the absolute bottom of the heap. The greenest spacer-third-class outranks you here! Get that through your heads! You do not give orders, you take them! Understand?"
"Yes sir!"
"Third: since you come here with no useful skills whatsoever… don't give me that look! I was in your place not that many years ago and I know what I'm talking about! In any case, the Exec has decided that you will be assigned tasks appropriate to your abilities."
"Scrubbing bulkheads?" muttered Alby. Jer would have sworn that Alby's whisper could not have been heard more than two meters away, but apparently the compartment's acoustics allowed the comment to reach the lieutenant's ears, because Vorkagan's head swiveled around and he stared at Alby.
"That's right! Scraping, scrubbing and painting bulkheads, to be exact! And those will be the more pleasant chores. Daring hasn't had a proper refit in almost ten years and there's a lot of hard, dirty work that needs to be done and we're short-handed. We mean to take full advantage of the fact that you all have two arms, two legs, strong backs, and apparently enough brain power to keep them moving. So don't worry about finding space to hang you hammocks—you won't be using them! For the next three days you work. You can sleep during the wormhole jumps! Then, for reasons I can't fathom, you'll be given a day's leave on Komarr and then it's back home. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?" Jer and the others stared back at him blankly.
"Enough talk!" said Vorkagan. "You'll be in three groups. When I call your name come over here and wait with Hansen, there. Lafney! Lentov! …"
[Scene Break]
The next three days weren't quite as bad as Lieutenant Vorkagan had implied. They were allowed to sleep—now and then. And they were fed—now and then. They were even permitted to wash up. And even though it was every bit as hard—and dirty—as he had warned, it was also instructional. In three days Jer learned more about the inner workings of a military starship than he would have from a month of reading or simulations. While they did scrape, scrub and paint some bulkheads, far more time was spent crawling around in accessways watching far more skilled people do repairs and replacements, the cadets lending muscle where it was needed. Air recyclers, sewage recyclers, power conduits, sensor suites, targeting systems, one thing after another, the guts and sinews of the ship were revealed to him. There was a lot of information overload, but by the third day when someone handed him a heavy roll of flex-conduit and told him to take it to accessway G-97, he was able to find his way there unassisted.
And as his familiarity with the ship and the crew grew, he could see the obvious pride the men had in their vessel, despite their non-stop complaints about it. And some of that pride wore off on him and the other cadets. The real crew, who had just treated them as beasts of burden at first, were slowly starting to accept them and appreciate their labors. Given time, they would become part of the ship, just as these men had.
Except they wouldn't be given the time. The three days flew by in a blur of ducts, pipes, and circuitry and then, suddenly, they were accelerating out of Barrayar's orbit and heading for the wormhole terminus along with Swiftsure and a small convoy of merchant ships. That didn't stop the work, but with the ship underway many systems were no longer available for maintenance. They found themselves painting more bulkheads, but they were even running out of them. Eventually, the grueling schedule slowed and Jer ended up in the mess hall getting one last meal before they made the first jump. The other cadets had been warned to eat lightly since the jump often made people nauseous. Jer had been through it before and knew that it didn't affect him too badly, so he had a regular meal. Patric insisted he would be fine, too, but Jer kept warning him to be careful.
"Yeah," snorted Alby, "wouldn't want to get vomit all over those freshly painted bulkheads."
"They'll be issuing us all with puke bags before the jump," said Fallon, who, somehow, had become part of their group. It was kind of amazing when you thought about it. He'd tried to betray them back in their first year, but had later repented and become a loyal part of the company. Bit by bit they'd accepted him and now here he was, a member of the group. Sort of. He rattled around in the huge hole that Anny had left but he couldn't fill it and he seemed to realize that. But he wasn't a bad guy once you got to know him. He was Vor, but not a jerk like Vorlevey and some of the others had been. Jer was actually coming to like him.
"So what's it going to be like on Komarr?" asked Patric.
"Well, about all we're going to have time to see is the Solstice Dome. It's the capital and there's a major military base attached to it and that's where they'll be sending us from what I've heard. I'm from a dome almost on the other side of the planet, so I've only been to Solstice a few times. I think you'll find it interesting. It's nothing like Vorbarr Sultana. Very galactic."
"What about the countryside?"
"Dull. Flat, swampy, cold. And those are the nice parts."
"Oh, come on, Jer," said Alby, "you're leaving out the best thing about it!"
"What's that?"
"It won't burn!"
They all laughed at that. "Yeah, that's certainly true," chuckled Jer. "Not enough oxygen in the air for an open fire. But keep that in mind: even though we probably won't be going outside, you'll be issued breath masks. Keep them handy."
"You going to be able to meet up with your family while you're there, Jer?" asked Alby.
Jer frowned. "I don't know. There won't be time for me to travel home, but I sent them a message that'd I'd be there on that date. Maybe they can come to Solstice. I'll find out when we arrive."
"It's been a long time since you were home, hasn't it?" asked Patric.'
"Yeah, quite a while." Quite a while…
Now hear this! Now hear this! Shouted the wall speaker. The ship will jump in five minutes! All hands to jump stations! Repeat: all hands to jump stations!
"Which means we stay right here," said Fallon. It was true: they had no jump stations. From this point on, they were just passengers. A rating appeared and handed them a stack of puke bags which they distributed. The cadets were growing excited and chattered loudly. There were no windows and they could only follow what was going on by the occasional announcements over the speakers. Swiftsure would make the jump first, followed by the freighters and then Daring would come last.
Minute by minute the time wound down and Jer found himself growing excited, too.
I'm going home.