A/N: So, did you know if one marine, air force and army general are on a ship with a navy cook, the cook is considered to be the ship's captain? And if that cook doesn't know and one of the generals takes command but screw up, the cook will be held responsible.

Ulman, Jackson and Coldmann had all been issued blue-grey uniforms, tickets for two minutes abrasive showers and transfer paper for their new CO.

Said CO, Commodore Hélène DuPont, had served eighteen years with the UED before being captured by Dominion forces. A Naval Intelligence member since she'd been released two years ago, Commodore DuPont now crumbled under her many responsibilities as Captain of a Battlecruiser and leader of the local DNI, which explained why she had chosen the Marines assigned to her ship at random amongst the able-bodied troops being shipped off planet.

Still, she didn't like handing her ship's security to just anyone and met her new crewmembers in groups of four, dress uniform and Navy rank insignias mandatory.

Both Coldmann and Jackson felt awkward with their new title of 'Crewmen', but the Sarge had quickly taken a liking to being called 'Master Chief Petty Officer first class'. Though the other two were overly muscular and looked awkward in their Navy uniform, Henry, being smaller, looked just like any other crew member. That caught the Commodore's attention as she inspected the three men, along with a woman they'd never met, a Medic, judging by the patches on her pearl white uniform.

DuPont smirked to herself when Jackson cringed under her scrutinizing eye. Just a kid. She went to the Sarge next and he didn't flinch, not out of defiance, but simply because he'd seen far too much for anyone to make him flinch, even superior officer.

She looked at his file through her ocular implants. Turned down five recommendations for commission, no explanation was ever given, he probably never wanted the responsibility.

"Chief Petty Officer Ulman, are you angry about being transferred to my ship?" If he was, it did not show, but a man like him was bound to resent being put on paper-pushing duty.

"Yes, Ma'am." The truthful answer surprised her, but not in a bad way, officers like Ulman were rare and those with enough guts to speak their mind downright precious.

She called them soldiers at ease and had them sit on four crates that served as office chair while the Commodore awaited actual furniture.

She took place behind the refrigerator-like neo-steel box which pretended to be a desk and fetched two forms from a mess of paperwork, filling the edge of her desk.

"This," She pushed a sheet toward the sergeant, "will get you transferred to the Marine ninth company and this," She handed him the other sheet, "is a recommendation for a Navy commission. Just need your name on either one of these documents and you're set.

-Why would I want a Navy commission?

-Your own ship, your own expeditionary force, Navy Spec ops, maybe… I don't care, Chief, the Navy needs men like you and the Marines don't seem to interest you anymore." The others kept quiet, feeling out of place but unwilling to mention it.

"I thought we were being transferred to Navy MP."

She smiled at that sentence, as though it were the most naïve thing she'd heard in a long time.

"You can't transfer someone from the Marine Corps to the Navy without getting bombarded with paperwork and red tapes, but Navy MPs are usually selected from the Marines and once the transfer is done, the MPs can request a commission in either the Navy or the Corps.

-So that's politics?

-Yup."

Commission. That word meant nothing to Coldmann and only evoked an abstract concept to Jackson, a piece of paper separating men from gods, enlisted from officers. He'd never thought the transition between the two had anything to do with politics.

He raised a hand, then quickly lowered it. Things don't work that way in the military. The Commodore, however, took notice and raised an eyebrow at him.

"Speak." That word alone felt more threatening than a whole swarm of Zergling.

"Uh… Is that an open offer, or just him?"

She blinked Jackson's file open and quickly revised her analysis of him. Not just a kid, not even brain panned. How could she have missed that? The severe frown on her face was interpreted as a negative answer by the Crewman, who mumbled an apology and sunk in his seat.

His civilian life was unremarkable and he never really stood out during his short military career, but that, in itself was quite interesting. This boy had gone from high-school to barman seamlessly, then switching to waiter when he lost that job, followed by card dealer in a casino, doorman at a hotel, butcher for that hotel's supplier and marine when it became obvious civilian life would never work out.

IQ, education, brain waves, there were many ways to evaluate someone's intelligence, but DuPont had developed her own over the years; Adaptability. An intelligent person could adapt to anything, never stopped learning and quickly grew bored once the situation lost its challenge.

"No, I have plans for you already…" That scared Jackson even more.

Coldmann was next being evaluated. A Marine to the core, former member of a street gang, two charges for murder on file and nothing else, the kid was loyal as a German Shepard and barely smarter, but he could pull apart and re-assemble a C-14 in thirty seconds. If Navarro-Jackson shone by his smarts and Ulman by his experience, Coldmann was notable for his sheer stupidity, though not in a bad way. This was a man you could depend on, smart enough to understand what's going on, too dumb to know when he should switch side…

The Medic was another story. A med school reject, expelled for stim usage and enlisted in the Confederacy at age fifteen, only to serve brig time on her eighteenth birthday when it was discovered she'd lied about her age during recruitment. Sure enough, throwing a party for your eighteenth when you're meant to be twenty-three comes across as pretty odd. A year after that, she went from the Confederate marines to the Dominion and, four years later, took part in the assault on Char.

Abigail Connor knew exactly what she wanted and had no doubt she would get it, the Commodore wouldn't have requested her otherwise. After almost a decade on the frontline, Abby wanted a stable posting, something with actual career opening and respect… Commodore DuPont, on her end, wanted a medical officer to man the med bay. Not a word was spoken between them, the medic signed a single form and earned the right to put 'Doctor' ahead of her name.

She was dismissed first, Ulman came next, stating that he would need some time to decide. Hélène agreed and, as he left, told Coldmann he should check in with Commander Miller on deck C. The crewman saluted before leaving Henry alone with DuPont.

She leaned forward on her desk, looking for the correct phrasing a moment, before simply dumping it on him. "What do you think?"

The ambiguous question did not surprise the soldier as much as his complete lack of answer for it. He thought nothing of the situation, this whole thing, the Navy, Marines, Military Police, Commissions, it was all just dancing around, paperwork, useless talking for the sake of the upper echelon alone. Grunts like him didn't get a say in those things. He'd been a Marine for all of a few hours and, just as he'd grown comfortable in that role, was sent into this mess.

"I think I much preferred when I could just shoot my problem, ma'am.

-Tell me about it." She nodded toward the mess of requisition forms, orders, counter-orders and personnel files that cluttered her fake desk. "But don't let that fool you, we see plenty of action around here." He look doubtful, so she explained, "Marines handle most of the heavy lifting, Reapers take care of recon and Ghosts handle black ops, but they'd be blind as bats without DNI.

-DNI?

-Dominion Naval Intelligence. Ghosts are great to have on the battlefield, but they're really just pretty princesses, won't do any heavy lifting or data analysis, let alone investigation…" She brought up his high-school profile; Decent in Maths. Good enough.

"I'm no analyst…" He seemed spooked by the prospect of a desk job. How cute.

"No? Your MCPO Ulman seemed to think otherwise in his report," She blinked said report into view and read the exact passage aloud, "'…Private Navarro-Jackson pointed out the weapon had been sabotaged by an organic compound, not brute force, and apparently guessed the traitor's identity based on that observation alone…'" She let the words sink in before talking again, "I'm not offering you a full time desk job, you're not made for it, what I offer is a post on my ship's intelligence division, analysing reports from ground troops and sending me the bullshit-free version..."

His mind returned to the trench. He'd wanted out back then, almost killed by a dead Zerg, and had managed to block out the incident by thinking of himself as a marine, a professional soldier, but now he was offered a way out, exactly what he wanted back then, and felt reluctant for whatever reason.

Seeing his hesitation, DuPont continued, "That means warm bed, regular hours better pay and, since you'd be helping me by dealing with all this," She made a dismissive gesture toward the pile of ink an paper, "I'd return the favor by helping you get that commission.

-What happens if I get it?

-Same as Ulman," She shrugged, "your own ship, as captain, engineer or whatever you decide to specialize in, your own team, if you stick to DNI, maybe both, if you get lucky like me… Now, I'm in a hurry, what'll it be?"

Jackson looked around at the crates DuPont used as furniture, obviously unconvinced there, but, after some internal deliberation, asked her which one of these papers he was supposed to fill out.