Star Trek: Their Finest Hour
- Thread starter Funngunner
- Start date
Chapter 23: Dreams of Flight
Amid the towering redwoods the Muir Woods, Seth McClusky was five minutes from an epiphany.
McClusky and the eight other cadets of second squad were crouched in a single-file line behind a bored sergeant at the edge of a fog-shrouded, moonlit field. Miles from anything resembling civilization, the only sounds they could hear were the chirps and trills of strange insects, the rustling of mysterious mammals in the underbrush, and the shifting of nervous cadets.
A few miles away, lay the sprawling, bustling city of San Francisco, filled with raucous nightlife, mag-lev rail lines, highways and dozens of colleges and universities. Over eight million people lived just beyond the tree line of the redwood forest, but deep in the woods, late at night, Seth and the others felt like they were the last ten people on the Earth.
‘At least we have each other,’ McClusky thought as he peered up through the cathedral-like canopy, catching a stray glimpse of distant stars in the night sky overhead.
The Academy was boring. Hours upon hours of endless classrooms during the day, lectures in the evening, and homework dominated the cadets’ time late into the night.
The academy was exhausting. Three times a week, Seth and the rest of his squad were up with the dawn for PT -- a rotating schedule of strength and stamina tests, obstacle courses, road marches and swimming tests.
The academy was illogical and frustrating as well, immersing the newly-minted cadets in a swirling sea of acronyms and phrases: WTO (Wing Tactical Officer), OOD (officer of the deck), POA (point of attack), GCTE (Ground Combat Training Exercise) and a thousand other new combinations of letters floated atop the surface of conversations on the Presidio grounds like driftwood. Underneath this flotsam of bureaucracy lay the phrases, equally confusing, and rooted in the fleet's blue-water history like “Oh-dark-thirty,” "Balls-to-two,” “Poogeybait” and “Puddle Pirates” -- an epitaph aimed directly at the fledgling Border Service.
But the one thing the Academy never was for McClusky and the others was lonely. Every trial and inconvenience that resulted from pulling double-duty as a cadet and a student, there was always at least one person who understood. There were more than 100,000 men and women in Starfleet, and they all had one thing in common: they’re in Starfleet. As simple as it sounded, there was a simple, tremendous power in belonging to such a large group, even one with such a relatively short history.
In one month at the Academy, Seth had come to understand there was an emotion many people outside the walls did not -- could not -- understand, an emotion that made normal men and women willing to fight -- and, at times die -- not for their home planet or some political cause, but for the person next to them in the foxhole or in the engine room.
Belonging.
The idea was enough to make Seth McClusky’s heart pump faster -- so loud he could hear it over the sounds of the woods. ‘Since when did my heart sound so loud?’ he thought
A vast humming sound, like world's largest grandmother using a planet-sized vacuum. McClusky looked up, craning his neck to scan the star-sprinkled sky and spots red and yellow lights twinkling in the distance over the trees. For a moment, he thought they were from a tower, or a freighter leaving San Francisco. But they are moving too fast.
In seconds, the lights and source of the sound are on top of him. A hot, dry wind whips at the underbrush and sets the trees swaying. The bulky, angular shape of the utility shuttle blots out the sky above, it’s silver fuselage barely visible in the blackness overhead.
Even in the darkness it was clear to Seth that the shuttle was as long as a school bus and as sleek as sports car. But, there the cadet’s familiar automotive analogies came to an end, because unlike the ever-present ground cars, this thing was alive. A pair of thrusters protruded from the sides. As the engines rotated downwards, their exhaust bathed the surrounding woods in a warm, light blue glow. For a moment, the shuttle hovers over the nearby clearing like a metallic dragonfly, then wobbles and rears its pointed nose upwards as it flairs and touches down in the tall grass.
Twigs, leaves, dirt and fog scatter in the windstorm. Watching the dark shuttlecraft kneel impatiently in the middle of the field, Seth could hardly believe that the aerial monstrosity could not only fly, but could fly fast, and move so nimbly. Seth realized his was smiling, awestruck at the powerful machine, and looked around at the other cadets. They too are grinning, like small children at the fair.
A door on the right side of the shuttle slid open, and a man in a dark blue jumpsuit and a bulbous helmet hops out. The crew chief. Seth watched as the man yells into the boom mike that extended out from the helmet to near his chin and hustles towards the cadets. When he spots them, huddled together along the tree line he raises his hand and motions.
Come forward.
Let by the sergeant, McClusky and the others jog single-file to meet the crew chief at mid-field. Over the whine of the thrusters it’s impossible to hear anything else, so the chief simply makes faces and gestures. Crouch boarding the shuttle. Board one at a time. Do not touch anything. Like everyone else at the Academy, Seth had heard horror stories, of how a shuttle's thrusters incinerated an over-anxious ground crew member. And how, last year, a cadet pulled the wrong handle trying to get out of the shuttle and accidentally popped open the emergency hatch.
Tonight, the crew chief was merely wasting his breath. Hours before there were any real shuttles anywhere nearby, McClusky and the rest of the squad had rehearsed loading and unloading from the transport, using a square patch of dirt to simulate the shuttlecraft’s interior. Now, was it happening for real.
Outside the shuttle’s cabin, Seth and the rest of the squad drop their bulky rucksacks at the sergeant's feet before climbing aboard the shuttle and taking a seat on one of the little nylon hammocks that passed as a seat. Taking his spot, Seth secures the nylon straps that ran over his shoulders and around his torso, buckling them in a quick-release disk over his mid-section. Confident that everyone is seated and strapped in correctly, the sergeant tossed in the rucksacks then boarded the shuttle himself. The crew chief was the last to re-board, shutting the door and making quick eye contact with everybody, checking the cadets’ harnesses before flashing a thumbs-up to the pilots.
Seconds later, the whole world fell away outside the shuttle’s square windows and Seth discovered what it felt like to fly. Not flying in the sanitary passenger transports, but true unrestrained flight.
It felt like a roller-coaster ride, smooth in places, bumpy in others, noisy and impossibly fast. The sensation tickled at Seth’s stomach, especially when the two pilots decided to treat their human cargo to a low-level swoop over the woods. Peering through the windows, Seth could make out two shades of black slipping by. The darker shade was the ground, the hard, boring mass to which Seth had been anchored to his whole life.
Until now.
A big toothy smile crossed the Bostonian’s face as he pulled himself away from the window. In the exhilaration of the flight, he had forgotten about all the aches and pains -- a sprained ankle, bruised shins and sore shoulder -- he had endured over the first week of Field Training Exercises. In the red-lit interior of the shuttle, he could make out the faces of his classmates. Some looked bored, some were already asleep. On the opposite side of the shuttle he could see Ariah, her brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail pressed against her window. Across from him, J.J. Carmichael sat asleep, his head rolled back and forth with the shuttle’s movement, his rifle propped up between his legs. On his face, was a new addition for the troubled cadet, a half-smile. Seth knew in an instant that his roommate was loving this flight as well.
Belonging.
For the first time since arriving at the Academy, Seth could not feel that nagging sense of having made a mistake. He sighed deeply, and returned his attention to the world soaring past his window. At that moment, Seth realized he’d made up his mind. Leave the ambushes and machine gun massacres to somebody else, like those gung-ho MACO snake-eaters. They’re welcome to it. ‘ He did not care if Starfleet idolized its starships. He doesn’t care if the aerospace corps is more dangerous, but less prestigious than going out and exploring new worlds, or hauling dignitaries around space for a living. He does not care of the aerospace ‘boys,’ as they are derogatorily called, are considered unprofessional, or arrogant, or cannon-fodder. None of it matters anymore to him.
Cadet Fourth class Seth McClusky is going to become an aviator
Amid the towering redwoods the Muir Woods, Seth McClusky was five minutes from an epiphany.
McClusky and the eight other cadets of second squad were crouched in a single-file line behind a bored sergeant at the edge of a fog-shrouded, moonlit field. Miles from anything resembling civilization, the only sounds they could hear were the chirps and trills of strange insects, the rustling of mysterious mammals in the underbrush, and the shifting of nervous cadets.
A few miles away, lay the sprawling, bustling city of San Francisco, filled with raucous nightlife, mag-lev rail lines, highways and dozens of colleges and universities. Over eight million people lived just beyond the tree line of the redwood forest, but deep in the woods, late at night, Seth and the others felt like they were the last ten people on the Earth.
‘At least we have each other,’ McClusky thought as he peered up through the cathedral-like canopy, catching a stray glimpse of distant stars in the night sky overhead.
* * *
The Academy was boring. Hours upon hours of endless classrooms during the day, lectures in the evening, and homework dominated the cadets’ time late into the night.
The academy was exhausting. Three times a week, Seth and the rest of his squad were up with the dawn for PT -- a rotating schedule of strength and stamina tests, obstacle courses, road marches and swimming tests.
The academy was illogical and frustrating as well, immersing the newly-minted cadets in a swirling sea of acronyms and phrases: WTO (Wing Tactical Officer), OOD (officer of the deck), POA (point of attack), GCTE (Ground Combat Training Exercise) and a thousand other new combinations of letters floated atop the surface of conversations on the Presidio grounds like driftwood. Underneath this flotsam of bureaucracy lay the phrases, equally confusing, and rooted in the fleet's blue-water history like “Oh-dark-thirty,” "Balls-to-two,” “Poogeybait” and “Puddle Pirates” -- an epitaph aimed directly at the fledgling Border Service.
But the one thing the Academy never was for McClusky and the others was lonely. Every trial and inconvenience that resulted from pulling double-duty as a cadet and a student, there was always at least one person who understood. There were more than 100,000 men and women in Starfleet, and they all had one thing in common: they’re in Starfleet. As simple as it sounded, there was a simple, tremendous power in belonging to such a large group, even one with such a relatively short history.
In one month at the Academy, Seth had come to understand there was an emotion many people outside the walls did not -- could not -- understand, an emotion that made normal men and women willing to fight -- and, at times die -- not for their home planet or some political cause, but for the person next to them in the foxhole or in the engine room.
Belonging.
The idea was enough to make Seth McClusky’s heart pump faster -- so loud he could hear it over the sounds of the woods. ‘Since when did my heart sound so loud?’ he thought
A vast humming sound, like world's largest grandmother using a planet-sized vacuum. McClusky looked up, craning his neck to scan the star-sprinkled sky and spots red and yellow lights twinkling in the distance over the trees. For a moment, he thought they were from a tower, or a freighter leaving San Francisco. But they are moving too fast.
In seconds, the lights and source of the sound are on top of him. A hot, dry wind whips at the underbrush and sets the trees swaying. The bulky, angular shape of the utility shuttle blots out the sky above, it’s silver fuselage barely visible in the blackness overhead.
Even in the darkness it was clear to Seth that the shuttle was as long as a school bus and as sleek as sports car. But, there the cadet’s familiar automotive analogies came to an end, because unlike the ever-present ground cars, this thing was alive. A pair of thrusters protruded from the sides. As the engines rotated downwards, their exhaust bathed the surrounding woods in a warm, light blue glow. For a moment, the shuttle hovers over the nearby clearing like a metallic dragonfly, then wobbles and rears its pointed nose upwards as it flairs and touches down in the tall grass.
Twigs, leaves, dirt and fog scatter in the windstorm. Watching the dark shuttlecraft kneel impatiently in the middle of the field, Seth could hardly believe that the aerial monstrosity could not only fly, but could fly fast, and move so nimbly. Seth realized his was smiling, awestruck at the powerful machine, and looked around at the other cadets. They too are grinning, like small children at the fair.
A door on the right side of the shuttle slid open, and a man in a dark blue jumpsuit and a bulbous helmet hops out. The crew chief. Seth watched as the man yells into the boom mike that extended out from the helmet to near his chin and hustles towards the cadets. When he spots them, huddled together along the tree line he raises his hand and motions.
Come forward.
Let by the sergeant, McClusky and the others jog single-file to meet the crew chief at mid-field. Over the whine of the thrusters it’s impossible to hear anything else, so the chief simply makes faces and gestures. Crouch boarding the shuttle. Board one at a time. Do not touch anything. Like everyone else at the Academy, Seth had heard horror stories, of how a shuttle's thrusters incinerated an over-anxious ground crew member. And how, last year, a cadet pulled the wrong handle trying to get out of the shuttle and accidentally popped open the emergency hatch.
Tonight, the crew chief was merely wasting his breath. Hours before there were any real shuttles anywhere nearby, McClusky and the rest of the squad had rehearsed loading and unloading from the transport, using a square patch of dirt to simulate the shuttlecraft’s interior. Now, was it happening for real.
Outside the shuttle’s cabin, Seth and the rest of the squad drop their bulky rucksacks at the sergeant's feet before climbing aboard the shuttle and taking a seat on one of the little nylon hammocks that passed as a seat. Taking his spot, Seth secures the nylon straps that ran over his shoulders and around his torso, buckling them in a quick-release disk over his mid-section. Confident that everyone is seated and strapped in correctly, the sergeant tossed in the rucksacks then boarded the shuttle himself. The crew chief was the last to re-board, shutting the door and making quick eye contact with everybody, checking the cadets’ harnesses before flashing a thumbs-up to the pilots.
Seconds later, the whole world fell away outside the shuttle’s square windows and Seth discovered what it felt like to fly. Not flying in the sanitary passenger transports, but true unrestrained flight.
It felt like a roller-coaster ride, smooth in places, bumpy in others, noisy and impossibly fast. The sensation tickled at Seth’s stomach, especially when the two pilots decided to treat their human cargo to a low-level swoop over the woods. Peering through the windows, Seth could make out two shades of black slipping by. The darker shade was the ground, the hard, boring mass to which Seth had been anchored to his whole life.
Until now.
A big toothy smile crossed the Bostonian’s face as he pulled himself away from the window. In the exhilaration of the flight, he had forgotten about all the aches and pains -- a sprained ankle, bruised shins and sore shoulder -- he had endured over the first week of Field Training Exercises. In the red-lit interior of the shuttle, he could make out the faces of his classmates. Some looked bored, some were already asleep. On the opposite side of the shuttle he could see Ariah, her brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail pressed against her window. Across from him, J.J. Carmichael sat asleep, his head rolled back and forth with the shuttle’s movement, his rifle propped up between his legs. On his face, was a new addition for the troubled cadet, a half-smile. Seth knew in an instant that his roommate was loving this flight as well.
Belonging.
For the first time since arriving at the Academy, Seth could not feel that nagging sense of having made a mistake. He sighed deeply, and returned his attention to the world soaring past his window. At that moment, Seth realized he’d made up his mind. Leave the ambushes and machine gun massacres to somebody else, like those gung-ho MACO snake-eaters. They’re welcome to it. ‘ He did not care if Starfleet idolized its starships. He doesn’t care if the aerospace corps is more dangerous, but less prestigious than going out and exploring new worlds, or hauling dignitaries around space for a living. He does not care of the aerospace ‘boys,’ as they are derogatorily called, are considered unprofessional, or arrogant, or cannon-fodder. None of it matters anymore to him.
Cadet Fourth class Seth McClusky is going to become an aviator
I loved this chapter, seeing Seth realize his calling, and embracing it no matter what anyone might say about it. I think you got the scene descriptions just right, too, I could really picture them all in the shuttle. Seth's reflections on the different aspects of Academy life and belonging to Starfleet were excellent, as well; they felt very authentic.
Now for a couple of nitpicks: You're missing a few periods at the ends of sentences, including the last one, and you did the switching between tenses thing again.
Still, overall, though, a very good chapter with great character development for Seth (who has been my favorite character in your story so far!).
Now for a couple of nitpicks: You're missing a few periods at the ends of sentences, including the last one, and you did the switching between tenses thing again.
Still, overall, though, a very good chapter with great character development for Seth (who has been my favorite character in your story so far!).
Thanks you guys, I'm glad you liked it! I was a bit worried about all the exposition, and the lack of dialogue in this chapter. But it seems like it worked without it too.
As to the shifting tenses that Kes pointed out... Yikes. I thought I had changed that. Originally this was part of that 'experimental' chapter from earlier, where I tried to write it in present tense. But, I wanted to expand some more on the Academy experience than I had originally. Alas, apparently I forgot to fix all the present tense passages.
I'm sorry about that. I promise that the next chapter will hopefully climb back to Their Finest Hour's traditional standards of writing. (Whether that's a good or a bad thing is entirely your own opinion... heh)
As to the shifting tenses that Kes pointed out... Yikes. I thought I had changed that. Originally this was part of that 'experimental' chapter from earlier, where I tried to write it in present tense. But, I wanted to expand some more on the Academy experience than I had originally. Alas, apparently I forgot to fix all the present tense passages.
I'm sorry about that. I promise that the next chapter will hopefully climb back to Their Finest Hour's traditional standards of writing. (Whether that's a good or a bad thing is entirely your own opinion... heh)
Chapter 23: Pushing the Limits
Exhausted and fatigued, it was nearly midnight when the cadets of Romeo Company finally reached the darkened passageway that lead to their rooms. Each underwent a physical transformation as soon as the camouflaged plebe crossed through the open doorway.
Their rigid disciplined gait, marked with the harsh clap of boots upon linoleum, gave way to a belabored shuffle. Their shoulders sagged. Their heads drooped down towards their chest. The heavy rucksacks were unslung and dragged wearily across the floor. The hearty cadences that had echoed through the night sky as the company marched back to the barracks were replaced with slurred words and halting speech patterns as their brains turned to mush with the rest of their muscles.
Dragging his rucksack behind him, J.J. Carmichael stabbed clumsily at the control panel for his room. The door slid open with a comforting sigh allowing him to stagger towards his bunk. When he had first arrived at the Academy, the thin mattress had been a hindrance, forcing him to toss and turn before finally falling asleep. Now, that same mattress looked as inviting as the bedroom of the plushest hotels in San Francisco. Collapsing on to it, he stared at his down at his black mud-caked boots and fumbled at the laces.
“Screw it,” he sighed as he decided to forgo the process of unlacing them and simply yanked them off instead, tossing them aside with a relived flourish. The hard-soled vinyl boots smacked into the wall with a resounding smack.
Across the room, Seth McClusky faced a similar problem with his boots. The bulky plebe got halfway through de-lacing them before giving up and simply hosting his weary legs back up into the bunk. Lying on his mattress, he reached into his uniform and pulled out the small silver Saint Christopher medal he wore around his neck and gave it a quick kiss.
“Are you really going to sleep in those?” Carmichael asked as he lay back in his bunk. It had never felt so good before. With great effort, McClusky raised his head to look at his roommate.
“Why the hell not,” he said, eyeballing the offending footwear from his pillow. “They keep telling us to die with our boots on; I might as well sleep with them on to. You know, in case I die in my sleep. I wouldn’t want to disappoint Nolte.” An awkward silence came over the two cadets as they began to drift in and out of consciousness.
“Hey, J.J.,” Seth finally whispered. “Are you still awake?”
“Yeah, mostly.” came the reply. J.J.’s voice sounded distant.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” J.J. replied. “Just don’t make it too deep. Something simple, like what is two plus two.”
McClusky laughed. “No, seriously though. What do you think of Ariah?”
“What do you mean, ‘what do I think of her?’” J.J. said as he rolled over in his bunk to face his roommate. “You mean as a person? She seems okay. She's just a bit too driven and determined for my tastes.”
“I meant, do you think she’s attractive?” Seth clarified.
“Oh,” J.J. paused for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess she is, kind of. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it. I mean, I’m pretty sure she’s not my type and I’d imagine I’m not hers either. As far as looks go though, I don’t know. It’s hard to tell how someone looks when they’re wearing BDU’s.” He stopped for a moment, as his brain computed Seth’s line of questioning and came up with an answer. “Why? You got a thing for her or something?”
Seth stared up at the ceiling of the room. “I think I might. We have Introduction to Basic Warp Principles together. I’ve worked with her a couple times. She’s pretty cool. And pretty.” His voice began to trail off. “Yeah, I guess I have a kind of thing for her. Maybe.” He paused, his mind struggling to compose his sentences. “What about you,” he finally muttered. “Anyone catch your eye?”
Now it was J.J.’s turn to stare up at the ceiling as he pulled out a picture out of the storage compartment over his head. The image was a traditional posed shot of a high school couple. The girl had flaming red hair in an over-done attempt at a glamorous hairstyle, and an elegant flowing gown. The reflection from the lights made the dress shimmer. Her date wore a dark black tuxedo and was trying to look mature and regal. But ultimately, both just appeared awkward like children dressed in their parents’ formal wear.
“No,” he answered finally, looking at the picture. “I had a girl a few months ago; we dated all though high school. She was a great girl too, smart, funny, sexy as hell. But, then I made a big mistake and it cost me. I lost her for good. I don’t think I’m quite in the market yet.” He stopped and thought some more on the answer.
“Well, I don’t know,” he finally continued. “There is one girl here who keeps catching my eye. That blonde over in Delta Company, we met her our first day here. I don’t know what it is but I can’t seem to get her out of my mind. Weird, huh?” His question went without an answer. Carmichael looked over to see that Seth had fallen fast asleep, still wearing his combat fatigues and his boots.
Sitting up, J.J. stripped off his dirty fatigues and changed into a fresh t-shirt and shorts before crashing back onto the cool inviting mattress and toggling the lights off. In the darkened room, with only the faint illumination from the moon outside the window, he stared at the picture from his senior prom until he lost track of time.
"Reveille! Reveille! Reveille! All hands heave out and trice up. Reveille," The loudspeaker in the cadets' rooms blared. “Fourth Class PEP commences in 15 minutes. Uniform is Sweat gear, summer.”
It was 0605.
Vanessa Macgruder and her roommates bounded out of bed at the first scream of the loudspeaker, threw on a pair of navy blue shorts and their white T-shirts, neatly folded and stowed their nightshirts, ran out the door and formed up with the rest of their platoon outside Cochrane Hall for the daily ritual of PEP or performance exercise program.
The platoon leader, a stocky cadet named Schluntz, marched them out to the end of Gagarin Field, where ten platoons of thirty-six plebes were already in place and stretched out in single file, perpendicular to the grid lines striping the field. All the cadets were dressed in the same navy blue shorts, white shirts with blue-ringed collars, white socks and white sneakers.
A slightly damp morning breeze blew in off the bay, forcing several plebes to jump in place and rub their upper arms to keep warm while waiting for the rest of the Fourth Class Wing to arrive. Vanessa took a deep breath of the salty bay air and looked out toward the historic San Francisco harbor where centuries ago, fleets of wooden sailing ships had disgorged their gold-fevered passengers. But this morning the choppy slate-gray waters of the bay were devoid of disturbances other than the occasional lone seagull searching for breakfast. For a moment as she watched the bird soar over the water, the hustle around Vanessa disappeared.
But only for a moment.
“Fourth Class, are you out there?" A strong, unmistakably German accent hailed them. Vanessa looked up at the three platforms at the head of the field. On the middle one stood a short, muscular elderly man wearing the same blue shorts and white shirt as the cadets. The man was built like a fireplug.
“I said,” he repeated loudly, “Fourth Class, are you out there?”
“Yes sir!" twelve-hundred-plus voices answered back at him. So early in the morning, the response was less than enthusiastic. The elderly man scowled.
“I can't hear you.”
“Yes sir!” they roared again.
Satisfied with the response, the man began his introduction. “Cadets, I am Coach Levy. I will be your instructor for the many days you have been given to excel in physical fitness. Up until this point, first classmen have overseen your PEP sessions. Now, with the beginning of the academic program, I will be assuming that role. Here at the Academy, not only to we train your mind to become a finely-honed piece of equipment, but we also will be training your bodies. For the next forty-five minutes, I want you to give me everything you have. I want you to push yourself harder than you ever thought possible, and by the end of the program, you will be able to out-perform your enemy, not only mentally but physically as well.”
Levy gestured to his right and left at the two cadets perched atop the other platforms dressed in standard workout garb as well. “These two first classmen will assist me in demonstrating the exercises each morning. Are you ready, Fourth Class? Let's begin!” He started them out with jumping jacks, and then pushed them to their individual limits with sit-ups, push-ups, leg lifts, squat thrusts, running in place, and more. It had only been three months since Vanessa had last experienced a daily physical training regimen, prior to her assignment to Earth, but already she could tell the PEP workouts would test her endurance.
Throughout Levy's sadistic drill, he encouraged “supers” to perform push-ups with one arm or sit-ups with hands in front of their chests instead of behind their heads. A faint smile crossed Vanessa's lips as she performed ten of the one-armed pushups. On the tenth time she pushed herself away from the damp grass, she sensed someone staring at her. Elbows locked, she looked up, her eyes meeting the eyes of another cadet. Vanessa recognized him as the same cadet who had helped carry her bag during induction day several months ago.
“Keeping up with firsties, huh, Ploob?" he remarked with a smile. She smiled back.
“Ploob?" she asked curiously as she lowered herself back down to the ground. "What the hell is a ploob?”
“Yeah," J.J. Carmichael said, also continuing his workout lest they draw the wrath of the first classmen watching from the platforms. “You haven't heard that slang yet? It's simple. A ploob is a plebe with boobs,” he explained. “One of the guys over in the Twenty-Seven squadron thought it up.” Vanessa rolled her eyes.
"Very creative. So what does that make you guys? Plicks?” she asked, smiling impishly.
This time it was Carmichael's turn to be confused. “What's a plick?” he queried.
“A plebe,” she answered proudly, “with a dick.”
Carmichael and Vanessa both started to laugh. Her elbows buckled, dropping her onto the damp grass and soaking the front of her T-shirt and shorts.
“Ah-ha,” Carmichael observed as she stop up. “Wet T-shirts! There may be something good about this PEP stuff after all.”
“Eyes in the boat, sailor!" she ordered smiling, pulling her soggy shirt away from her chest and turning to face the PEP instructors again.
"Bounce, Fourth Class, Bounce!" Coach Levy had them back up, bouncing from the balls of their feet. “Higher, Fourth Class! Higher!”
After forty-five minutes of physical torture, he ended the workout with each platoon jogging the length of the field in an elongated circle around orange cones. As she watched her workout companion, J.J. run the circle with the rest of platoon, she realized that although winded, she found the workout exhilarating. 'I feel great,' she thought pleased with herself. 'I really wanted to show them what I can do and I've proven it to at least one of them.'
She looked up in time to see Carmichael quickly wave at her as he rounded the orange cones. It was a subtle gesture, but not subtle enough to escape the notice of his platoon leader. She returned the wave with a slight grin, and then watched as the first classmen set on him like a guard dog, barking angry orders at J.J. as they ran. Carmichael, she knew, would have no doubts of her abilities.
'But, his opinion was not one to the ones that mattered,' she realized. 'So, why was I trying to prove it to him, and why do I care what he thinks?' She shook her head to clear the muddled thought from her mind as her platoon began jogging their way around the ring of orange cones.
Exhausted and fatigued, it was nearly midnight when the cadets of Romeo Company finally reached the darkened passageway that lead to their rooms. Each underwent a physical transformation as soon as the camouflaged plebe crossed through the open doorway.
Their rigid disciplined gait, marked with the harsh clap of boots upon linoleum, gave way to a belabored shuffle. Their shoulders sagged. Their heads drooped down towards their chest. The heavy rucksacks were unslung and dragged wearily across the floor. The hearty cadences that had echoed through the night sky as the company marched back to the barracks were replaced with slurred words and halting speech patterns as their brains turned to mush with the rest of their muscles.
Dragging his rucksack behind him, J.J. Carmichael stabbed clumsily at the control panel for his room. The door slid open with a comforting sigh allowing him to stagger towards his bunk. When he had first arrived at the Academy, the thin mattress had been a hindrance, forcing him to toss and turn before finally falling asleep. Now, that same mattress looked as inviting as the bedroom of the plushest hotels in San Francisco. Collapsing on to it, he stared at his down at his black mud-caked boots and fumbled at the laces.
“Screw it,” he sighed as he decided to forgo the process of unlacing them and simply yanked them off instead, tossing them aside with a relived flourish. The hard-soled vinyl boots smacked into the wall with a resounding smack.
Across the room, Seth McClusky faced a similar problem with his boots. The bulky plebe got halfway through de-lacing them before giving up and simply hosting his weary legs back up into the bunk. Lying on his mattress, he reached into his uniform and pulled out the small silver Saint Christopher medal he wore around his neck and gave it a quick kiss.
“Are you really going to sleep in those?” Carmichael asked as he lay back in his bunk. It had never felt so good before. With great effort, McClusky raised his head to look at his roommate.
“Why the hell not,” he said, eyeballing the offending footwear from his pillow. “They keep telling us to die with our boots on; I might as well sleep with them on to. You know, in case I die in my sleep. I wouldn’t want to disappoint Nolte.” An awkward silence came over the two cadets as they began to drift in and out of consciousness.
“Hey, J.J.,” Seth finally whispered. “Are you still awake?”
“Yeah, mostly.” came the reply. J.J.’s voice sounded distant.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” J.J. replied. “Just don’t make it too deep. Something simple, like what is two plus two.”
McClusky laughed. “No, seriously though. What do you think of Ariah?”
“What do you mean, ‘what do I think of her?’” J.J. said as he rolled over in his bunk to face his roommate. “You mean as a person? She seems okay. She's just a bit too driven and determined for my tastes.”
“I meant, do you think she’s attractive?” Seth clarified.
“Oh,” J.J. paused for a moment. “I don’t know. I guess she is, kind of. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about it. I mean, I’m pretty sure she’s not my type and I’d imagine I’m not hers either. As far as looks go though, I don’t know. It’s hard to tell how someone looks when they’re wearing BDU’s.” He stopped for a moment, as his brain computed Seth’s line of questioning and came up with an answer. “Why? You got a thing for her or something?”
Seth stared up at the ceiling of the room. “I think I might. We have Introduction to Basic Warp Principles together. I’ve worked with her a couple times. She’s pretty cool. And pretty.” His voice began to trail off. “Yeah, I guess I have a kind of thing for her. Maybe.” He paused, his mind struggling to compose his sentences. “What about you,” he finally muttered. “Anyone catch your eye?”
Now it was J.J.’s turn to stare up at the ceiling as he pulled out a picture out of the storage compartment over his head. The image was a traditional posed shot of a high school couple. The girl had flaming red hair in an over-done attempt at a glamorous hairstyle, and an elegant flowing gown. The reflection from the lights made the dress shimmer. Her date wore a dark black tuxedo and was trying to look mature and regal. But ultimately, both just appeared awkward like children dressed in their parents’ formal wear.
“No,” he answered finally, looking at the picture. “I had a girl a few months ago; we dated all though high school. She was a great girl too, smart, funny, sexy as hell. But, then I made a big mistake and it cost me. I lost her for good. I don’t think I’m quite in the market yet.” He stopped and thought some more on the answer.
“Well, I don’t know,” he finally continued. “There is one girl here who keeps catching my eye. That blonde over in Delta Company, we met her our first day here. I don’t know what it is but I can’t seem to get her out of my mind. Weird, huh?” His question went without an answer. Carmichael looked over to see that Seth had fallen fast asleep, still wearing his combat fatigues and his boots.
Sitting up, J.J. stripped off his dirty fatigues and changed into a fresh t-shirt and shorts before crashing back onto the cool inviting mattress and toggling the lights off. In the darkened room, with only the faint illumination from the moon outside the window, he stared at the picture from his senior prom until he lost track of time.
* * *
"Reveille! Reveille! Reveille! All hands heave out and trice up. Reveille," The loudspeaker in the cadets' rooms blared. “Fourth Class PEP commences in 15 minutes. Uniform is Sweat gear, summer.”
It was 0605.
Vanessa Macgruder and her roommates bounded out of bed at the first scream of the loudspeaker, threw on a pair of navy blue shorts and their white T-shirts, neatly folded and stowed their nightshirts, ran out the door and formed up with the rest of their platoon outside Cochrane Hall for the daily ritual of PEP or performance exercise program.
The platoon leader, a stocky cadet named Schluntz, marched them out to the end of Gagarin Field, where ten platoons of thirty-six plebes were already in place and stretched out in single file, perpendicular to the grid lines striping the field. All the cadets were dressed in the same navy blue shorts, white shirts with blue-ringed collars, white socks and white sneakers.
A slightly damp morning breeze blew in off the bay, forcing several plebes to jump in place and rub their upper arms to keep warm while waiting for the rest of the Fourth Class Wing to arrive. Vanessa took a deep breath of the salty bay air and looked out toward the historic San Francisco harbor where centuries ago, fleets of wooden sailing ships had disgorged their gold-fevered passengers. But this morning the choppy slate-gray waters of the bay were devoid of disturbances other than the occasional lone seagull searching for breakfast. For a moment as she watched the bird soar over the water, the hustle around Vanessa disappeared.
But only for a moment.
“Fourth Class, are you out there?" A strong, unmistakably German accent hailed them. Vanessa looked up at the three platforms at the head of the field. On the middle one stood a short, muscular elderly man wearing the same blue shorts and white shirt as the cadets. The man was built like a fireplug.
“I said,” he repeated loudly, “Fourth Class, are you out there?”
“Yes sir!" twelve-hundred-plus voices answered back at him. So early in the morning, the response was less than enthusiastic. The elderly man scowled.
“I can't hear you.”
“Yes sir!” they roared again.
Satisfied with the response, the man began his introduction. “Cadets, I am Coach Levy. I will be your instructor for the many days you have been given to excel in physical fitness. Up until this point, first classmen have overseen your PEP sessions. Now, with the beginning of the academic program, I will be assuming that role. Here at the Academy, not only to we train your mind to become a finely-honed piece of equipment, but we also will be training your bodies. For the next forty-five minutes, I want you to give me everything you have. I want you to push yourself harder than you ever thought possible, and by the end of the program, you will be able to out-perform your enemy, not only mentally but physically as well.”
Levy gestured to his right and left at the two cadets perched atop the other platforms dressed in standard workout garb as well. “These two first classmen will assist me in demonstrating the exercises each morning. Are you ready, Fourth Class? Let's begin!” He started them out with jumping jacks, and then pushed them to their individual limits with sit-ups, push-ups, leg lifts, squat thrusts, running in place, and more. It had only been three months since Vanessa had last experienced a daily physical training regimen, prior to her assignment to Earth, but already she could tell the PEP workouts would test her endurance.
Throughout Levy's sadistic drill, he encouraged “supers” to perform push-ups with one arm or sit-ups with hands in front of their chests instead of behind their heads. A faint smile crossed Vanessa's lips as she performed ten of the one-armed pushups. On the tenth time she pushed herself away from the damp grass, she sensed someone staring at her. Elbows locked, she looked up, her eyes meeting the eyes of another cadet. Vanessa recognized him as the same cadet who had helped carry her bag during induction day several months ago.
“Keeping up with firsties, huh, Ploob?" he remarked with a smile. She smiled back.
“Ploob?" she asked curiously as she lowered herself back down to the ground. "What the hell is a ploob?”
“Yeah," J.J. Carmichael said, also continuing his workout lest they draw the wrath of the first classmen watching from the platforms. “You haven't heard that slang yet? It's simple. A ploob is a plebe with boobs,” he explained. “One of the guys over in the Twenty-Seven squadron thought it up.” Vanessa rolled her eyes.
"Very creative. So what does that make you guys? Plicks?” she asked, smiling impishly.
This time it was Carmichael's turn to be confused. “What's a plick?” he queried.
“A plebe,” she answered proudly, “with a dick.”
Carmichael and Vanessa both started to laugh. Her elbows buckled, dropping her onto the damp grass and soaking the front of her T-shirt and shorts.
“Ah-ha,” Carmichael observed as she stop up. “Wet T-shirts! There may be something good about this PEP stuff after all.”
“Eyes in the boat, sailor!" she ordered smiling, pulling her soggy shirt away from her chest and turning to face the PEP instructors again.
"Bounce, Fourth Class, Bounce!" Coach Levy had them back up, bouncing from the balls of their feet. “Higher, Fourth Class! Higher!”
After forty-five minutes of physical torture, he ended the workout with each platoon jogging the length of the field in an elongated circle around orange cones. As she watched her workout companion, J.J. run the circle with the rest of platoon, she realized that although winded, she found the workout exhilarating. 'I feel great,' she thought pleased with herself. 'I really wanted to show them what I can do and I've proven it to at least one of them.'
She looked up in time to see Carmichael quickly wave at her as he rounded the orange cones. It was a subtle gesture, but not subtle enough to escape the notice of his platoon leader. She returned the wave with a slight grin, and then watched as the first classmen set on him like a guard dog, barking angry orders at J.J. as they ran. Carmichael, she knew, would have no doubts of her abilities.
'But, his opinion was not one to the ones that mattered,' she realized. 'So, why was I trying to prove it to him, and why do I care what he thinks?' She shook her head to clear the muddled thought from her mind as her platoon began jogging their way around the ring of orange cones.
This was a really nicely written chapter. You have a real talent for lavishly describing the scene without losing the pace of the story. It really gives the reader the feeling of being there.
So JJ likes the spy? And she seems to like him, too ... this is bound to be interesting down the line. Especially since he's a bit of a rebellious soul to begin with ... I wonder what will happen?
So JJ likes the spy? And she seems to like him, too ... this is bound to be interesting down the line. Especially since he's a bit of a rebellious soul to begin with ... I wonder what will happen?
Chapter 25: Ranger Challenged
On the morning of June 6, 1944, two hundred American commandoes packed into flimsy landing craft plied through the stormy English Channel toward the imposing cliffs of Pointe-du-Hoc, a German stronghold on the coast of Normandy.
The commandoes were called Rangers, five battalions of whom had been raised in 1942 as an experiment based on British experience with specially-trained elite infantry. Two Ranger battalions, each with four hundred men, were taking part in the “Great Crusade,” the Allied assault on Normandy. While their brethren churned towards Pointe-du-Hoc, the rest of the Rangers hurled themselves ashore at Omaha Beach with a couple of hundred soldiers from a regular infantry regiment. When the landing bogged down under a hail of murderous German machine gun fire, a general famously said, “I'm counting on you Rangers to lead the way.”
They did.
Meanwhile, the Rangers assigned to strike Pointe-du-Hoc hit the rocky beach, scaled the cliffs with rope and bayonet, and eliminated the German fortifications atop the bluffs. Half of the Rangers were killed or wounded, but they accomplished their mission and had given birth to a legend.
Two centuries later, the Ranger legacy had been reborn at the Academy, under the watchful gaze of Captain Nagumo. An ardent student of military history, Nagumo had instituted the 'Ranger Ethos' into the training program for first-year cadets as part of his charge to put the 'M' back in the school's military-training mission. Drill sergeants held up stories of Ranger heroism in France, Guadalcanal, Vietnam, Somalia and other more exotic locales as examples for the new recruits. The old unit's motto, “Rangers lead the way” became a constant cry across the Academy's training grounds or anywhere a leader was trying to motivate their cadets.
The final aspect of Nagumo's “Ranger” program had been resurrecting a long-since forgotten program called Ranger Challenge. Emphasizing the tactical skills and physical fitness of each plebe squad, the program served as a sort of 'varsity sport' for the cadets, building a heightened sense of teamwork and espirt de corps among the newly-minted plebes. The program also had a more sinister underbelly, since cadets that voluntarily dropped out of the Academy - or were separated, in Starfleet parlance - were still required to serve their time of service. The Ranger Challenge program helped ensure that those who could not, or would not, handle the training to become officers could still contribute to the fleet.
Because of the Ranger program, even a separated plebe was capable of being assigned a posting as an enlisted security officer either on a ground installation, an orbital base, or - if they were truly fortunate - aboard a starship. Nearly a quarter of the security personnel in the fleet were fallen 'plebes' who now wore the crossed rifle emblem and red uniform piping of the security division. Called 'idiot sticks' the bearers of this insignia often found themselves in hostile conditions and hazardous missions. Not all of them lived to finish their commitment to the fleet.
To the upperclassmen, the Ranger Challenge was equally important. Winning the day-long competition was an important checkmark on the way to the coveted Captain of Cadets position that oversaw all the cadets at the Academy, or the privilege of being one of the first to choose on Selection Day. For first classmen an early choice could mean being posted aboard one of the new NX-class ships coming out of the yards, while a low choice could mean an unglamorous desk job at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
To J. J. Carmichael, Ranger Challenge was a rare opportunity to experience a small taste of history and experience what the texts had left out. To a cadet who as a child was regaled by Nagumo and his father swapping tales of legendary historical battles, it was a little bite-sized morsel of infantry combat. For two weeks, they did PT -- Physical Training - five days per week with the Company Commander, a sharp-nosed cadet named Dirk Walker. They did sit-ups until they puked, push-ups until tears rolled down their faces and ran until their legs felt like rubber. They practiced the events themselves, throwing hundred of dummy grenades, stringing up countless rope bridges, poring up maps and wandering all over campus to get familiar with the antiquated magnetic compasses required by the Challenge.
For many cadets, just running the two-and-a-half kilometers required by the PT test, and doing it in comfortable shoes and shorts, was challenging enough. The mandatory Ranger Challenge required them to attempt to march three times that distance, burdened with combat boots, fatigues, and full canteens in addition to a fully-loaded pack. At 0500, hungry, half-awake and stiff from sleep, only reminded the cadets that most of their friends - the ones who hadn't enrolled at the Academy - were fast asleep and dreaming of scrambled eggs and bacon.
Road marches - or “ruck runs” as Walker called them - hurt in ways that Carmichael had never hurt before. His shins screamed, his shoulders popped and those fucking canteens bounced against his hips until he had bruises. And that damn rucksack constantly shifted and bounced and dragged until his spine felt like a pretzel and every muscle in his back threatened to pull right off the bone.
And that was only after a kilometer.
There was no mistaking the fact that road marches sucked. But, like many other unpleasant things, like exams and shitty part-time jobs, there was a reward at the end. The squads road marched together, shuffling down the road in a sloppy, single-file line. Everyone suffered. Everyone complained. But, it was rare that anyone actually quit, for to quit was to let down the squad, the other cadets that were hurting too, that were so tired that thoughts of sleep took on an erotic quality, that were so hungry the only thing that kept them going besides camaraderie was the thought of a big, greasy breakfast.
The reward was not physical fitness, for road marches seemed to cause more physical problems - mostly back pain, blisters, and bad knees -- than they solved. Nor was the reward monetary or academic, since if anything training for the Ranger Challenge competition - and especially road marches - ended up hurting the plebes' academic performance.
The reward was euphoria. A feeling that started somewhere nears the end of the agonizing marches, midway through the second week of training. It came from knowing the finish line was near, but that the rest of the squad was nearer. It came from knowing that even though the human body was never meant to run for kilometers with a forty-kilogram mass on its back, it could still be forced to do just that, more than once.
The euphoria felt different to everyone. To Seth McClusky, it was a tingling sensation. To Ariah Richards, it was an all-encompassing sense of numbness. To J.J. it was couple with an almost religious sense of peace and serenity, like his body had recognized that things simply could not get any worse, so relief must be on the way. Some cadets swore they had seen God on road marches. That the heavens had opened up and their Creator had cast loving beams of grace down on the faces of the suffering supplicant. But not Carmichael, he was a sensible guy, and knew for a fact that God would not favor Romeo Company during Ranger Challenge.
'God,' he thought as his feet pounded the pavement, 'doesn't take sucker bets.'
Despite a lack of assistance from the deities above, things went just fine for Romeo Company - for a while at least. Nine of the events would occur during a single day on a remote corner of the Academy Training Range in the San Bernardino Mountains as a small army of graders and spectators monitored the competition. Witnessing Ranger Challenge for the first time, Lieutenant Ostrowski felt as if she were watching a very orderly little war. Even the proverbial “fog of war” was in place. Companies drew their schedules from a hat - and when half the events were all, or mostly, physical in nature, the order of the schedule mattered. No one wanted to do a grenade assault, land navigation course, and night land navigation course all in a row. Thus, Ostrowski surmised, luck played a huge role in selecting the winning team.
Dirk Walker returned to Romeo Company's bivouac grinning from ear to ear. The gods of fortune had been kind to them, he explained to the others as he outlined the schedule. Romeo Company's day would start at 0400, just like all the other units, with the Applied Physical Fitness Test. Following that would come the rope bridge, grenade assault, obstacle course and weapons assembly portions of the exercise. Then, following a thirty minute chow time, would come the daytime land navigation, map reading and night land navigation competitions.
“It's perfect,” Walker explained as he peered past his hawk-like nose. “The physically-toughest events are separated by little breaks, like map reading and weapons assembly. Plus, rope bridge has been one of our better events. We can get a lead early, and then stay refreshed for the harder parts.”
Rope bridge was tough: a test of physical strength, skill with knots, and above all else, teamwork. In theory, the competition was simple: Get the company from end of a muddy pit to the other, but in practice it became far more complicated. Only four cadets could actually enter the obstacle. The others had to cross on the bridge while the timekeeper continued to count off seconds.
“Go!” The grader shouted as cheers of encouragement filled the air. Small, agile and quick, Ariah led the way out onto the course, grabbing an end of the long rope and plowing through the mud to the fare shore. Scampering over the embankment, she wrapped her end around a tall post. Meanwhile, the squad members on the near side were wrapping short ropes around their pelvises to make rappelling harnesses. The little devices of self-torture were called “Swiss seats” and were a staple of both the Fleet's own Marine Corps and MACO Special Forces teams and when done correctly, the harness would squeeze the genitals and the buttocks. To Carmichael they felt like some sort of super-charged wedgie.
The problem was that both commands had their own version of the Swiss seat. The Marine variant looped in one place and knotted in the back, while the MACO standard was slightly different. Romeo Company had been tying their seats to the MACO standard and did not realize the Marine approach was different. So, when the company completed their seats and turned to show them to grader, he dinged them all with an 'Unsatisfactory' score and made them try the whole process again.
All the while, the clock continued to tick down.
Finally, the seats were good to go, and the frustrated cadets line up on the free end of the rope. Seth grabbed a pair of thick leather gloves, lifted the rope high against the near-side post.
“Pull!” He yelled to the other cadets.
Like a team of lumberjacks in a drunken tug of war, the near-siders clung to the rope, pulling it taut between the two posts and burning blisters though McClusky's gloved hands as he held the rope high on the near post. Ignoring the pain, McClusky grabbed a little slack from the rope and wrapped it tight around the post. Meanwhile, Carmichael rushed up alongside him, quickly tying a knot in the rope to maintain the tension on the line.
Immediately, the near-siders lined up where the rope met the post. With their D-Rings, metal loops with spring-loaded gates, protruding from their Swiss seats, the cadets used each other as stepping stools and hook their lines to the rope. Carmichael goes out first, launched from the post with a violent shove from his comrades. Pulling himself hand over hand, he scurried down the rope like an inchworm and over the obstacle below. His arms burned fire and his legs ached as he reached the opposite post. Quickly, Ariah reached up, helping J.J. to disconnect from the rope so that the next one could start across the one-line bridge.
So it went, one cadet at a time, each inching their bodies down the taut rope, until McClusky was alone on the far side. Scanning the area, Seth untied the knot, gathered in the rope and tossed the coiled line over his shoulder as he took off in Ariah's footsteps, arriving as a muddy mess alongside his blistered and panting peers.
“Clear,” he called out in between heavy gulps of air. The grader checked the time, entering it into his scoring pad. It had taken Romeo Company just over four minutes to move the 36 person company over the obstacle, although it had felt much longer to the cadets. Were it not for the additional penalties imposed by the bad Swiss seats, it would have been a competitive time. Instead, it is simply a missed opportunity.
Less than an hour later, Romeo Company successfully polished off the grenade assault course. With heavy flak vests over their combat fatigues, the cadets lobbed fragmentation devices over a thick concrete wall at their targets: a series of bowling pin-shaped plaster figures called “Auggies” - snarling Eugenics War-era soldiers who had taken some beating and chipping over the years from the cast iron shrapnel of the grenades. The windows in the bunker shook from the concussions out on the field sending bits of plaster and dust raining down on the cadets waiting for their turn at the firing line. After the live grenade portion, Romeo Company charged through the sniper course, tossing pretend grenades into machine-gun nests.
Then it was over. With a quick thumbs-up from the grader, the company slung their rucksacks back over their shoulders and headed toward a small clump of trees to rest before they were scheduled to report to the obstacle course. There was no talking this time as the company marched out, only silence induced by their own ringing ears, and the grim determination that came from being in fourth place. 'Striking distance,' Walker thought as they followed the road towards the obstacle course. 'A good performance here and we could crawl back into the top-three.'
The thirty minute respite was sorely needed, providing the cadets the chance to recover their sapped strength and nurse sore arms and shoulders from the previous portions of the Challenge. J.J. Carmichael leaned back in the shade against the thick trunk of a redwood, alternating between brushing flakes of plaster from his uniform and taking relaxing sips of cool water from his canteen. Beside him, Seth treated the blisters he had acquired on the palms of his hands from the rope bridge. Near their feet, Ariah lay in the grass with her eyes closed, using her rucksack as a lumpy, uncomfortable pillow. Out of the corner of his eye, Carmichael could see Seth steal an occasional glance over at her sleeping form.
With only one eye open, he rolled his head back against the tree and smiled.
On the morning of June 6, 1944, two hundred American commandoes packed into flimsy landing craft plied through the stormy English Channel toward the imposing cliffs of Pointe-du-Hoc, a German stronghold on the coast of Normandy.
The commandoes were called Rangers, five battalions of whom had been raised in 1942 as an experiment based on British experience with specially-trained elite infantry. Two Ranger battalions, each with four hundred men, were taking part in the “Great Crusade,” the Allied assault on Normandy. While their brethren churned towards Pointe-du-Hoc, the rest of the Rangers hurled themselves ashore at Omaha Beach with a couple of hundred soldiers from a regular infantry regiment. When the landing bogged down under a hail of murderous German machine gun fire, a general famously said, “I'm counting on you Rangers to lead the way.”
They did.
Meanwhile, the Rangers assigned to strike Pointe-du-Hoc hit the rocky beach, scaled the cliffs with rope and bayonet, and eliminated the German fortifications atop the bluffs. Half of the Rangers were killed or wounded, but they accomplished their mission and had given birth to a legend.
Two centuries later, the Ranger legacy had been reborn at the Academy, under the watchful gaze of Captain Nagumo. An ardent student of military history, Nagumo had instituted the 'Ranger Ethos' into the training program for first-year cadets as part of his charge to put the 'M' back in the school's military-training mission. Drill sergeants held up stories of Ranger heroism in France, Guadalcanal, Vietnam, Somalia and other more exotic locales as examples for the new recruits. The old unit's motto, “Rangers lead the way” became a constant cry across the Academy's training grounds or anywhere a leader was trying to motivate their cadets.
The final aspect of Nagumo's “Ranger” program had been resurrecting a long-since forgotten program called Ranger Challenge. Emphasizing the tactical skills and physical fitness of each plebe squad, the program served as a sort of 'varsity sport' for the cadets, building a heightened sense of teamwork and espirt de corps among the newly-minted plebes. The program also had a more sinister underbelly, since cadets that voluntarily dropped out of the Academy - or were separated, in Starfleet parlance - were still required to serve their time of service. The Ranger Challenge program helped ensure that those who could not, or would not, handle the training to become officers could still contribute to the fleet.
Because of the Ranger program, even a separated plebe was capable of being assigned a posting as an enlisted security officer either on a ground installation, an orbital base, or - if they were truly fortunate - aboard a starship. Nearly a quarter of the security personnel in the fleet were fallen 'plebes' who now wore the crossed rifle emblem and red uniform piping of the security division. Called 'idiot sticks' the bearers of this insignia often found themselves in hostile conditions and hazardous missions. Not all of them lived to finish their commitment to the fleet.
To the upperclassmen, the Ranger Challenge was equally important. Winning the day-long competition was an important checkmark on the way to the coveted Captain of Cadets position that oversaw all the cadets at the Academy, or the privilege of being one of the first to choose on Selection Day. For first classmen an early choice could mean being posted aboard one of the new NX-class ships coming out of the yards, while a low choice could mean an unglamorous desk job at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
To J. J. Carmichael, Ranger Challenge was a rare opportunity to experience a small taste of history and experience what the texts had left out. To a cadet who as a child was regaled by Nagumo and his father swapping tales of legendary historical battles, it was a little bite-sized morsel of infantry combat. For two weeks, they did PT -- Physical Training - five days per week with the Company Commander, a sharp-nosed cadet named Dirk Walker. They did sit-ups until they puked, push-ups until tears rolled down their faces and ran until their legs felt like rubber. They practiced the events themselves, throwing hundred of dummy grenades, stringing up countless rope bridges, poring up maps and wandering all over campus to get familiar with the antiquated magnetic compasses required by the Challenge.
For many cadets, just running the two-and-a-half kilometers required by the PT test, and doing it in comfortable shoes and shorts, was challenging enough. The mandatory Ranger Challenge required them to attempt to march three times that distance, burdened with combat boots, fatigues, and full canteens in addition to a fully-loaded pack. At 0500, hungry, half-awake and stiff from sleep, only reminded the cadets that most of their friends - the ones who hadn't enrolled at the Academy - were fast asleep and dreaming of scrambled eggs and bacon.
Road marches - or “ruck runs” as Walker called them - hurt in ways that Carmichael had never hurt before. His shins screamed, his shoulders popped and those fucking canteens bounced against his hips until he had bruises. And that damn rucksack constantly shifted and bounced and dragged until his spine felt like a pretzel and every muscle in his back threatened to pull right off the bone.
And that was only after a kilometer.
There was no mistaking the fact that road marches sucked. But, like many other unpleasant things, like exams and shitty part-time jobs, there was a reward at the end. The squads road marched together, shuffling down the road in a sloppy, single-file line. Everyone suffered. Everyone complained. But, it was rare that anyone actually quit, for to quit was to let down the squad, the other cadets that were hurting too, that were so tired that thoughts of sleep took on an erotic quality, that were so hungry the only thing that kept them going besides camaraderie was the thought of a big, greasy breakfast.
The reward was not physical fitness, for road marches seemed to cause more physical problems - mostly back pain, blisters, and bad knees -- than they solved. Nor was the reward monetary or academic, since if anything training for the Ranger Challenge competition - and especially road marches - ended up hurting the plebes' academic performance.
The reward was euphoria. A feeling that started somewhere nears the end of the agonizing marches, midway through the second week of training. It came from knowing the finish line was near, but that the rest of the squad was nearer. It came from knowing that even though the human body was never meant to run for kilometers with a forty-kilogram mass on its back, it could still be forced to do just that, more than once.
The euphoria felt different to everyone. To Seth McClusky, it was a tingling sensation. To Ariah Richards, it was an all-encompassing sense of numbness. To J.J. it was couple with an almost religious sense of peace and serenity, like his body had recognized that things simply could not get any worse, so relief must be on the way. Some cadets swore they had seen God on road marches. That the heavens had opened up and their Creator had cast loving beams of grace down on the faces of the suffering supplicant. But not Carmichael, he was a sensible guy, and knew for a fact that God would not favor Romeo Company during Ranger Challenge.
'God,' he thought as his feet pounded the pavement, 'doesn't take sucker bets.'
* * *
Despite a lack of assistance from the deities above, things went just fine for Romeo Company - for a while at least. Nine of the events would occur during a single day on a remote corner of the Academy Training Range in the San Bernardino Mountains as a small army of graders and spectators monitored the competition. Witnessing Ranger Challenge for the first time, Lieutenant Ostrowski felt as if she were watching a very orderly little war. Even the proverbial “fog of war” was in place. Companies drew their schedules from a hat - and when half the events were all, or mostly, physical in nature, the order of the schedule mattered. No one wanted to do a grenade assault, land navigation course, and night land navigation course all in a row. Thus, Ostrowski surmised, luck played a huge role in selecting the winning team.
Dirk Walker returned to Romeo Company's bivouac grinning from ear to ear. The gods of fortune had been kind to them, he explained to the others as he outlined the schedule. Romeo Company's day would start at 0400, just like all the other units, with the Applied Physical Fitness Test. Following that would come the rope bridge, grenade assault, obstacle course and weapons assembly portions of the exercise. Then, following a thirty minute chow time, would come the daytime land navigation, map reading and night land navigation competitions.
“It's perfect,” Walker explained as he peered past his hawk-like nose. “The physically-toughest events are separated by little breaks, like map reading and weapons assembly. Plus, rope bridge has been one of our better events. We can get a lead early, and then stay refreshed for the harder parts.”
Rope bridge was tough: a test of physical strength, skill with knots, and above all else, teamwork. In theory, the competition was simple: Get the company from end of a muddy pit to the other, but in practice it became far more complicated. Only four cadets could actually enter the obstacle. The others had to cross on the bridge while the timekeeper continued to count off seconds.
* * *
“Go!” The grader shouted as cheers of encouragement filled the air. Small, agile and quick, Ariah led the way out onto the course, grabbing an end of the long rope and plowing through the mud to the fare shore. Scampering over the embankment, she wrapped her end around a tall post. Meanwhile, the squad members on the near side were wrapping short ropes around their pelvises to make rappelling harnesses. The little devices of self-torture were called “Swiss seats” and were a staple of both the Fleet's own Marine Corps and MACO Special Forces teams and when done correctly, the harness would squeeze the genitals and the buttocks. To Carmichael they felt like some sort of super-charged wedgie.
The problem was that both commands had their own version of the Swiss seat. The Marine variant looped in one place and knotted in the back, while the MACO standard was slightly different. Romeo Company had been tying their seats to the MACO standard and did not realize the Marine approach was different. So, when the company completed their seats and turned to show them to grader, he dinged them all with an 'Unsatisfactory' score and made them try the whole process again.
All the while, the clock continued to tick down.
Finally, the seats were good to go, and the frustrated cadets line up on the free end of the rope. Seth grabbed a pair of thick leather gloves, lifted the rope high against the near-side post.
“Pull!” He yelled to the other cadets.
Like a team of lumberjacks in a drunken tug of war, the near-siders clung to the rope, pulling it taut between the two posts and burning blisters though McClusky's gloved hands as he held the rope high on the near post. Ignoring the pain, McClusky grabbed a little slack from the rope and wrapped it tight around the post. Meanwhile, Carmichael rushed up alongside him, quickly tying a knot in the rope to maintain the tension on the line.
Immediately, the near-siders lined up where the rope met the post. With their D-Rings, metal loops with spring-loaded gates, protruding from their Swiss seats, the cadets used each other as stepping stools and hook their lines to the rope. Carmichael goes out first, launched from the post with a violent shove from his comrades. Pulling himself hand over hand, he scurried down the rope like an inchworm and over the obstacle below. His arms burned fire and his legs ached as he reached the opposite post. Quickly, Ariah reached up, helping J.J. to disconnect from the rope so that the next one could start across the one-line bridge.
So it went, one cadet at a time, each inching their bodies down the taut rope, until McClusky was alone on the far side. Scanning the area, Seth untied the knot, gathered in the rope and tossed the coiled line over his shoulder as he took off in Ariah's footsteps, arriving as a muddy mess alongside his blistered and panting peers.
“Clear,” he called out in between heavy gulps of air. The grader checked the time, entering it into his scoring pad. It had taken Romeo Company just over four minutes to move the 36 person company over the obstacle, although it had felt much longer to the cadets. Were it not for the additional penalties imposed by the bad Swiss seats, it would have been a competitive time. Instead, it is simply a missed opportunity.
Less than an hour later, Romeo Company successfully polished off the grenade assault course. With heavy flak vests over their combat fatigues, the cadets lobbed fragmentation devices over a thick concrete wall at their targets: a series of bowling pin-shaped plaster figures called “Auggies” - snarling Eugenics War-era soldiers who had taken some beating and chipping over the years from the cast iron shrapnel of the grenades. The windows in the bunker shook from the concussions out on the field sending bits of plaster and dust raining down on the cadets waiting for their turn at the firing line. After the live grenade portion, Romeo Company charged through the sniper course, tossing pretend grenades into machine-gun nests.
Then it was over. With a quick thumbs-up from the grader, the company slung their rucksacks back over their shoulders and headed toward a small clump of trees to rest before they were scheduled to report to the obstacle course. There was no talking this time as the company marched out, only silence induced by their own ringing ears, and the grim determination that came from being in fourth place. 'Striking distance,' Walker thought as they followed the road towards the obstacle course. 'A good performance here and we could crawl back into the top-three.'
The thirty minute respite was sorely needed, providing the cadets the chance to recover their sapped strength and nurse sore arms and shoulders from the previous portions of the Challenge. J.J. Carmichael leaned back in the shade against the thick trunk of a redwood, alternating between brushing flakes of plaster from his uniform and taking relaxing sips of cool water from his canteen. Beside him, Seth treated the blisters he had acquired on the palms of his hands from the rope bridge. Near their feet, Ariah lay in the grass with her eyes closed, using her rucksack as a lumpy, uncomfortable pillow. Out of the corner of his eye, Carmichael could see Seth steal an occasional glance over at her sleeping form.
With only one eye open, he rolled his head back against the tree and smiled.
Chapter 26: Lead the Way
The afternoon had turned bewilderingly hot, evaporating the last of the morning dew and lending the cadets' fatigues the damply warmed effect of a restroom hand dryer. As the cadets crossed the grassy area leading to the obstacle course, their steps became muffled by the still-damp ground.
The items in their rucksacks and clipped to their belts delicately shifted as their gait slowed. The sound reminded Lieutenant Ostrowski of a symphony of out-of-tune wind chimes. Calls echoed from down the line, Walker's voice bellowing instructions to the rest of the company: Don't bunch up, drink water, and help your buddy remove their gear.
From atop a small rise overlooking the obstacle course, Ostrowski watched as her company marched up to the beginning of the course and dropped along the edge of the road. The course was a grueling series of impediments that required the company to slide on their backs under a web of barbed wire, scale a cargo net, cross a log, climb a hill, jump into and out of a ditch, hop of a succession of metal bars, then sprint to the end. Everyone was required to compete, all at the same time, until the last member of the company crossed the finish line. Under her intense and watchful gaze, the company lined up and, at the scorer's signal, sprinted toward the first obstacle.
Things were going well for the company as they cleared the barbed wire ahead of the expected time. The cargo net climbs and log crossings also succumbed to the onrushing horde of cadets. From her vantage point on the hill, Ostrowski allowed herself a faint smile.
"Walker has his people in shape," she commented to the Chief Petty Officer keeping the company's score. He nodded in agreement.
"They're making good time," he confirmed as he checked the stopwatch. "They're only a few seconds of Bravo's time." Bravo Company was the odds-on favorite to win the Challenge. The fact that Romeo, and its hodge-podge assortment of both top achievers, like Ariah and Nolte, and chronic underachievers, like Carmichael and McClusky, was only seconds off the pace made the frigid smile on the lieutenant's face grow slightly wider.
Their uniforms caked with mud, Romeo Company broke free of the muck-filled ditch and weaved its way up the last hill before the monkey bars. Walker began encouraging his people, the same mixture of coaxing and prodding that he had received three years before.
"Pick up your feet."
"You're doing all the work if you're dragging. Gravity will help you out."
"One more left, Romeo Company, come on!"
"Once you hit the corner, its bars, sprint and it's all over."
His cadets were wilting, falling from a close-knit formation into a score-killing mass of browns and greens uniforms. Walker's voice rang out at individual cadets now, extolling them to catch up. "Keep going! Let's go, Calabanos. I know you can finish this. Sims, Rosenfeld, catch up. You don't wanna be fall-outs like those Charlie Company guys we passed!" The trail began to flatten out and the metal monkey bars loomed ahead. "Alright everybody into two columns," he bellowed. "Just like we trained! This is the last one, everyone's gonna finish this!" Slowly, the company split into separate lines as the first cadets reached the bars. "Alright, lead dogs, up! Let's go!”
The first cadets to the bars, Seth and J.J. lept into the air at Walker's command. The nerves in Carmichael's hands screamed in protest as his blistered palms grasped hold of the closest of the bars. With his remaining momentum from the jump, he swung his body forward like a pendulum and winced as he gripped the next bar then the next. The plebe repeated the process: Swing, grab, wince, swing, grab, wince down the last ten yards of the bars. At the last bar, his moment carried him clear sending him flying through the air for a few seconds before his boots crashed into the wet sand. Clearing the obstacle, he turned to shout encouragement to the rest of the company.
Things were going great for Romeo Company as cadet after cadet swung their way to the end, each landing in the sand with a relieved grin. Walker seemed to sense this shift in momentum too. Every time the company commander checked his watch, his hard-as-nails expression eased slightly. There only a few cadets left on the bars. Then only three continued to swing across. The next-to-last cadet fell to the ground in an ungraceful clump, rising to his feet brushing sand from his fatigue pants.
That left one. Walker turned around, his expression no longer soft as he watched the last cadet struggle across the bars. "Von Ortmann," he muttered. He checked his watch again and this time fumed.
"Goddamn it," he screamed at the cadet. "You are costing your company-mates time. Move your ass!" Samantha tried to pick up her pace, struggling to coordinate the swing and grab maneuver that the others made look so effortless. But she could not.
It was not a lack of effort or committment that slowed down von Ortmann. It was a simple matter of physics. Born in the low-gravity environment of New Berlin, every muscle in Samantha's body strained to perform in Earth's heavier pull. It took months for residents of the Lunar colonies, or "Lunies" as they were derisively called on Earth, to properly adjust to the physiological changes. The constant grind of physical training at the beginning of plebe year had helped Samantha overcome the majority of her muscular deficiencies. But, all the exercise and working out could not accelerate her brain's ability to compensate for the differences between the two gravities, or how to control the increased muscle mass she was developing.
"Jesus Christ," Walker admonished as she reached the last rung. "It's about fucking time! Romeo Company, let's move. One sprint."
As he barked orders to the rest of the squad, Samantha's brain calculated the amount of effort needed to reach the landing spot on the ground, the sandy tract of land marked with boot prints. She swung with her body one last time. Walker looked back. He had to wait until Von Ortmann's feet were on the ground before giving the order. Otherwise, Romeo Company would be penalized, again. He turned his attention to the rest of the company.
"Alright," he yelled. "On my order, double time march to the finish. Let's do this, Romeos! Finish strong in three …"
Samantha let go and felt that moment of weightlessness as she flew through the air. It took a fraction of a second before the revelation hit her that something was wrong. She sensed shehad been airborne just a fraction of a second too long. She watched the ground rush up to meet her.
"In two…”
Still slightly uncoordinated by the gravity change, the former gymnast's feet struck the sandy ground at an awkward angle. Her momentum carried her forward, sending her tumbling as she lost her balance. A dark shape loomed in front of her. She curled up into a ball as the dark mass resolved into a pattern of browns, tans, and greens. Camouflage.
Carmichael watched as Cadet Dirk Walker's countdown never reached "One" and Samantha's curled form slammed into the back of his legs. Caught by surprise, the company commander fell to the ground, knocked off balance by the surprising force of the impact. There was a sound like the snapping of a dry twig and a sharp cry from the first classman as the pair collapsed to the ground in a tangled, camouflaged mass of legs, elbows and arms.
The rest of Romeo Company just stared, shocked into a stunned silence at the speed of the accident, as Samantha untangled herself from the other cadet and scooting back from the company commander. Walker rolled from side to side on his back, groaning and swearing through clinched teeth. His right arm, oddly askew, clutched tight to his chest. Tears welled up in Samantha's eyes as she crawled over to inspect the fallen commander's arm.
"Medic!" Von Ortmann shouted towards the observers on the hill. "We need a medic over here!" Her voice echoed over the eerily silent obstacle course.
The afternoon had turned bewilderingly hot, evaporating the last of the morning dew and lending the cadets' fatigues the damply warmed effect of a restroom hand dryer. As the cadets crossed the grassy area leading to the obstacle course, their steps became muffled by the still-damp ground.
The items in their rucksacks and clipped to their belts delicately shifted as their gait slowed. The sound reminded Lieutenant Ostrowski of a symphony of out-of-tune wind chimes. Calls echoed from down the line, Walker's voice bellowing instructions to the rest of the company: Don't bunch up, drink water, and help your buddy remove their gear.
From atop a small rise overlooking the obstacle course, Ostrowski watched as her company marched up to the beginning of the course and dropped along the edge of the road. The course was a grueling series of impediments that required the company to slide on their backs under a web of barbed wire, scale a cargo net, cross a log, climb a hill, jump into and out of a ditch, hop of a succession of metal bars, then sprint to the end. Everyone was required to compete, all at the same time, until the last member of the company crossed the finish line. Under her intense and watchful gaze, the company lined up and, at the scorer's signal, sprinted toward the first obstacle.
Things were going well for the company as they cleared the barbed wire ahead of the expected time. The cargo net climbs and log crossings also succumbed to the onrushing horde of cadets. From her vantage point on the hill, Ostrowski allowed herself a faint smile.
"Walker has his people in shape," she commented to the Chief Petty Officer keeping the company's score. He nodded in agreement.
"They're making good time," he confirmed as he checked the stopwatch. "They're only a few seconds of Bravo's time." Bravo Company was the odds-on favorite to win the Challenge. The fact that Romeo, and its hodge-podge assortment of both top achievers, like Ariah and Nolte, and chronic underachievers, like Carmichael and McClusky, was only seconds off the pace made the frigid smile on the lieutenant's face grow slightly wider.
Their uniforms caked with mud, Romeo Company broke free of the muck-filled ditch and weaved its way up the last hill before the monkey bars. Walker began encouraging his people, the same mixture of coaxing and prodding that he had received three years before.
"Pick up your feet."
"You're doing all the work if you're dragging. Gravity will help you out."
"One more left, Romeo Company, come on!"
"Once you hit the corner, its bars, sprint and it's all over."
His cadets were wilting, falling from a close-knit formation into a score-killing mass of browns and greens uniforms. Walker's voice rang out at individual cadets now, extolling them to catch up. "Keep going! Let's go, Calabanos. I know you can finish this. Sims, Rosenfeld, catch up. You don't wanna be fall-outs like those Charlie Company guys we passed!" The trail began to flatten out and the metal monkey bars loomed ahead. "Alright everybody into two columns," he bellowed. "Just like we trained! This is the last one, everyone's gonna finish this!" Slowly, the company split into separate lines as the first cadets reached the bars. "Alright, lead dogs, up! Let's go!”
The first cadets to the bars, Seth and J.J. lept into the air at Walker's command. The nerves in Carmichael's hands screamed in protest as his blistered palms grasped hold of the closest of the bars. With his remaining momentum from the jump, he swung his body forward like a pendulum and winced as he gripped the next bar then the next. The plebe repeated the process: Swing, grab, wince, swing, grab, wince down the last ten yards of the bars. At the last bar, his moment carried him clear sending him flying through the air for a few seconds before his boots crashed into the wet sand. Clearing the obstacle, he turned to shout encouragement to the rest of the company.
Things were going great for Romeo Company as cadet after cadet swung their way to the end, each landing in the sand with a relieved grin. Walker seemed to sense this shift in momentum too. Every time the company commander checked his watch, his hard-as-nails expression eased slightly. There only a few cadets left on the bars. Then only three continued to swing across. The next-to-last cadet fell to the ground in an ungraceful clump, rising to his feet brushing sand from his fatigue pants.
That left one. Walker turned around, his expression no longer soft as he watched the last cadet struggle across the bars. "Von Ortmann," he muttered. He checked his watch again and this time fumed.
"Goddamn it," he screamed at the cadet. "You are costing your company-mates time. Move your ass!" Samantha tried to pick up her pace, struggling to coordinate the swing and grab maneuver that the others made look so effortless. But she could not.
It was not a lack of effort or committment that slowed down von Ortmann. It was a simple matter of physics. Born in the low-gravity environment of New Berlin, every muscle in Samantha's body strained to perform in Earth's heavier pull. It took months for residents of the Lunar colonies, or "Lunies" as they were derisively called on Earth, to properly adjust to the physiological changes. The constant grind of physical training at the beginning of plebe year had helped Samantha overcome the majority of her muscular deficiencies. But, all the exercise and working out could not accelerate her brain's ability to compensate for the differences between the two gravities, or how to control the increased muscle mass she was developing.
"Jesus Christ," Walker admonished as she reached the last rung. "It's about fucking time! Romeo Company, let's move. One sprint."
As he barked orders to the rest of the squad, Samantha's brain calculated the amount of effort needed to reach the landing spot on the ground, the sandy tract of land marked with boot prints. She swung with her body one last time. Walker looked back. He had to wait until Von Ortmann's feet were on the ground before giving the order. Otherwise, Romeo Company would be penalized, again. He turned his attention to the rest of the company.
"Alright," he yelled. "On my order, double time march to the finish. Let's do this, Romeos! Finish strong in three …"
Samantha let go and felt that moment of weightlessness as she flew through the air. It took a fraction of a second before the revelation hit her that something was wrong. She sensed shehad been airborne just a fraction of a second too long. She watched the ground rush up to meet her.
"In two…”
Still slightly uncoordinated by the gravity change, the former gymnast's feet struck the sandy ground at an awkward angle. Her momentum carried her forward, sending her tumbling as she lost her balance. A dark shape loomed in front of her. She curled up into a ball as the dark mass resolved into a pattern of browns, tans, and greens. Camouflage.
Carmichael watched as Cadet Dirk Walker's countdown never reached "One" and Samantha's curled form slammed into the back of his legs. Caught by surprise, the company commander fell to the ground, knocked off balance by the surprising force of the impact. There was a sound like the snapping of a dry twig and a sharp cry from the first classman as the pair collapsed to the ground in a tangled, camouflaged mass of legs, elbows and arms.
The rest of Romeo Company just stared, shocked into a stunned silence at the speed of the accident, as Samantha untangled herself from the other cadet and scooting back from the company commander. Walker rolled from side to side on his back, groaning and swearing through clinched teeth. His right arm, oddly askew, clutched tight to his chest. Tears welled up in Samantha's eyes as she crawled over to inspect the fallen commander's arm.
"Medic!" Von Ortmann shouted towards the observers on the hill. "We need a medic over here!" Her voice echoed over the eerily silent obstacle course.
Chapter 27: Forced March
God was listening to the company's wishes for more water, Carmichael noted with a trace of bitterness. But, his response to the requests left a little to be desired in the proportional response category.
Torrents of water fell from the skies overhead. It filtered down through the terraces of the trees overhead; leaves first, then thick branches, then the steady drumbeat of water hitting the company's combat fatigues, rucksacks and helmets. The first groans rose from the quiet and faces dropped the effort of expression as the unplanned additional challenge sapped them of their carefully marshaled strength. By the midway point of the march to the O-Course, the first cadet stumbled under the twin assault of exhaustion and the weather: Samantha Von Ortmann.
Dirk Walker, his arm wrapped in a makeshift sling, rode alongside his company in the rear of Ostrowski's command car as she drove the injured cadet back to the medical tent at the main staging area. He watched in disgust as the 'Lunie's' pace slackened and her gait became labored. "Fuckin' Lunies," he swore under his breath within earshot of Carmichael as the company commander as he passed by Second Squad. J. J. stole a quick glance towards Samantha to see if she heard Walker's insult. She had not, but the expression on Seth's face indicated he had. With a quick tilt of his helmeted head, Seth asked his roommate a silent question. Carmichael responded with a quick terse nod. The pair picked up their pace and angled into the loose cluster of marching cadets.
Pulling alongside the wavering cadet, Carmichael and McClusky matched their strides to the smaller cadet's steps in an effort to raise her determination to complete the march. Now, their body language signaled, it was no longer a case where she should not quit, it was now a situation where her squad mates would not let her quit. Her legs, her boots, her determination and her will were no longer simply powering her down the road, but were also responsible for the cadets flanking her.
“We're close,” Carmichael shouted to her between his own ragged gulps for air. “You can do this, Samantha. Don't let down the company. Don't let down the squad. Don't let yourself down. Don't quit.” The pair began repeating encouragement, trying to inducing their frail squad mate into a form of motion-based hypnosis. “Come on, Samantha, we're moving onto a flat piece of land. You can do it, Samantha; we're more than halfway there.”
With each heavy footfall, the murmurs from the two cadets slowly crept into von Ortmann's mind, an undertone to the march, until she too was repeating the encouragement. “I've got to want it. I know I want it. Let's go, let's go. Here I go. It's just a short little downhill. I'm doing great. Stay with the squad.” But, the trance could only last so long before her brain, ravaged by exhaustion and pain, filled with doubts again. The process became like bailing water out of a holed ship, the more that was poured out, the more room for water to flow in.
Samantha began to lag behind again, forcing Seth and J.J. to switch to a new strategy of encouragement. He leaned in, his face covered with camouflage paint. “You will not stop,” McClusky screamed in his best imitation of the drill sergeants. “Where's the mental toughness? Show me your mental discipline! Show me your warrior spirit! Quit - that word is not in your vocabulary! Fall out-those words are not in your vocabulary!”
Then Carmichael leaned in from the other side in a sooth voice: “Let's go. Stay with me. If you need me to carry you, I will.” Samantha stumbled. Her tired feet were no longer lifting off the ground; instead her heavy boots were shuffling across the pavement.
“I don't think I want to go on,” she announced, her voice reflecting the pain that coursed through her body.
“You don't think you want to, Samantha?” Carmichael asked, his voice hardening. “Well, you're going to.” From around the exhausted cadet, other voices joined in, prodding and pleading with von Ortmann to continue marching.
“Come on, Samantha.”
“You got this.”
“We're all behind you.”
Carmichael suddenly accelerated his pace, abandoning his position beside her, and began running in front of her. “Grab my ruck,” he ordered. “You started this - whether you like it or not, you're going to finish it. The only time you can think about quitting is when you are done!”
“Grab my ruck!” Somewhere deep in the back of Samantha's mind a synapse fired. She understood. The decision to quit wasn't hers alone - it could not be - because Starfleet wasn't just about her. She reached for Carmichael's ruck sack.
“You're not going to stop, Sam,” Seth shouted from alongside. “I don't care how you feel.”
“Grab my ruck!” Carmichael ordered again. Once more Samantha reached out for the bulky pack looming in front of her. The tips of her fingers brushed against the coarse fabric. Her finger wrapped tight around the straps along the back of the rucksack. The change in pace caused her stumble forward, nearly crashing into Carmichael. She panted, grunted and winced as her legs throbbed in protest as Carmichael slowly began to run faster.
“Quit thinking it's hard,” he called out from in front of her. “Fight it!”
Tears ran down her face as the pain overwhelmed her.
“Love it!” Seth prodded. “It's easy!”
“Last hill!” Carmichael shouted. ”We can do this!” This time the yell was not directed just at her, but to the rest of the squad that remained circled around their faltering squad mate.
“Now let go of the strap,” McClusky rasped. “You are going to finish it on your own power.”
Samantha hands let the strap of J.J.'s rucksack fall away. Her feet and legs, now accustomed to the quicker gait continued to keep pace. Her muscles burned, her joints ached, but surrounded by the rest of the squad, somehow she kept in stride as Second squad crossed the finish line. Together.
From his vantage point along the finish line, Captain Isoruku Nagumo watched silently as the tightly-bunched cluster of cadets staggered across the painted yellow line on the pavement. Sweat and rain poured off their faces as they doubled-over and gulped air. He had watched von Ortmann struggle to keep up, fall out of formation, and slowly drift toward the rear of the company. He and all the other instructors had seen the same scene countless times before: The tell-tale signs that a cadet was finished and had reached the physical limits of their endurance.
Far rarer, he realized, were the times when he had witnessed the other cadets act as selflessly as Second squad did. He had watched in silent admiration as Cadets McClusky and Carmichael cajoled, harassed, prodded, and probably used every other trick they could think of to keep their squad mate from quitting. He had watched the girl struggle onwards as if carried simply by the verbal motivation of the other two cadets. Even more impressive had been the moment the rest of the squad had slowed down, not only sacrificing their own individual scores but also their squad score on the road march.
A faint smile crossed the captain's wrinkled face as he walked past Second squad. He stopped briefly, patting them on their backs and whispering “Good job" to each of the worn-out cadets, then strode on to the medical tent to check on the condition of the injured Cadet Walker. Even without knowing the severity of the young man's injury, Nagumo already knew moved up to fill Walker's billet as Romeo Company commander. That would also mean one of the plebes would have to be bumped up to squad leader. Already, the Academy commandant had a candidate in mind. The thought of Lieutenant Ostrowski going ballistic over the proposed squad leader only added to the grin that was spreading across his lips.
God was listening to the company's wishes for more water, Carmichael noted with a trace of bitterness. But, his response to the requests left a little to be desired in the proportional response category.
Torrents of water fell from the skies overhead. It filtered down through the terraces of the trees overhead; leaves first, then thick branches, then the steady drumbeat of water hitting the company's combat fatigues, rucksacks and helmets. The first groans rose from the quiet and faces dropped the effort of expression as the unplanned additional challenge sapped them of their carefully marshaled strength. By the midway point of the march to the O-Course, the first cadet stumbled under the twin assault of exhaustion and the weather: Samantha Von Ortmann.
Dirk Walker, his arm wrapped in a makeshift sling, rode alongside his company in the rear of Ostrowski's command car as she drove the injured cadet back to the medical tent at the main staging area. He watched in disgust as the 'Lunie's' pace slackened and her gait became labored. "Fuckin' Lunies," he swore under his breath within earshot of Carmichael as the company commander as he passed by Second Squad. J. J. stole a quick glance towards Samantha to see if she heard Walker's insult. She had not, but the expression on Seth's face indicated he had. With a quick tilt of his helmeted head, Seth asked his roommate a silent question. Carmichael responded with a quick terse nod. The pair picked up their pace and angled into the loose cluster of marching cadets.
Pulling alongside the wavering cadet, Carmichael and McClusky matched their strides to the smaller cadet's steps in an effort to raise her determination to complete the march. Now, their body language signaled, it was no longer a case where she should not quit, it was now a situation where her squad mates would not let her quit. Her legs, her boots, her determination and her will were no longer simply powering her down the road, but were also responsible for the cadets flanking her.
“We're close,” Carmichael shouted to her between his own ragged gulps for air. “You can do this, Samantha. Don't let down the company. Don't let down the squad. Don't let yourself down. Don't quit.” The pair began repeating encouragement, trying to inducing their frail squad mate into a form of motion-based hypnosis. “Come on, Samantha, we're moving onto a flat piece of land. You can do it, Samantha; we're more than halfway there.”
With each heavy footfall, the murmurs from the two cadets slowly crept into von Ortmann's mind, an undertone to the march, until she too was repeating the encouragement. “I've got to want it. I know I want it. Let's go, let's go. Here I go. It's just a short little downhill. I'm doing great. Stay with the squad.” But, the trance could only last so long before her brain, ravaged by exhaustion and pain, filled with doubts again. The process became like bailing water out of a holed ship, the more that was poured out, the more room for water to flow in.
Samantha began to lag behind again, forcing Seth and J.J. to switch to a new strategy of encouragement. He leaned in, his face covered with camouflage paint. “You will not stop,” McClusky screamed in his best imitation of the drill sergeants. “Where's the mental toughness? Show me your mental discipline! Show me your warrior spirit! Quit - that word is not in your vocabulary! Fall out-those words are not in your vocabulary!”
Then Carmichael leaned in from the other side in a sooth voice: “Let's go. Stay with me. If you need me to carry you, I will.” Samantha stumbled. Her tired feet were no longer lifting off the ground; instead her heavy boots were shuffling across the pavement.
“I don't think I want to go on,” she announced, her voice reflecting the pain that coursed through her body.
“You don't think you want to, Samantha?” Carmichael asked, his voice hardening. “Well, you're going to.” From around the exhausted cadet, other voices joined in, prodding and pleading with von Ortmann to continue marching.
“Come on, Samantha.”
“You got this.”
“We're all behind you.”
Carmichael suddenly accelerated his pace, abandoning his position beside her, and began running in front of her. “Grab my ruck,” he ordered. “You started this - whether you like it or not, you're going to finish it. The only time you can think about quitting is when you are done!”
“Grab my ruck!” Somewhere deep in the back of Samantha's mind a synapse fired. She understood. The decision to quit wasn't hers alone - it could not be - because Starfleet wasn't just about her. She reached for Carmichael's ruck sack.
“You're not going to stop, Sam,” Seth shouted from alongside. “I don't care how you feel.”
“Grab my ruck!” Carmichael ordered again. Once more Samantha reached out for the bulky pack looming in front of her. The tips of her fingers brushed against the coarse fabric. Her finger wrapped tight around the straps along the back of the rucksack. The change in pace caused her stumble forward, nearly crashing into Carmichael. She panted, grunted and winced as her legs throbbed in protest as Carmichael slowly began to run faster.
“Quit thinking it's hard,” he called out from in front of her. “Fight it!”
Tears ran down her face as the pain overwhelmed her.
“Love it!” Seth prodded. “It's easy!”
“Last hill!” Carmichael shouted. ”We can do this!” This time the yell was not directed just at her, but to the rest of the squad that remained circled around their faltering squad mate.
“Now let go of the strap,” McClusky rasped. “You are going to finish it on your own power.”
Samantha hands let the strap of J.J.'s rucksack fall away. Her feet and legs, now accustomed to the quicker gait continued to keep pace. Her muscles burned, her joints ached, but surrounded by the rest of the squad, somehow she kept in stride as Second squad crossed the finish line. Together.
* * *
From his vantage point along the finish line, Captain Isoruku Nagumo watched silently as the tightly-bunched cluster of cadets staggered across the painted yellow line on the pavement. Sweat and rain poured off their faces as they doubled-over and gulped air. He had watched von Ortmann struggle to keep up, fall out of formation, and slowly drift toward the rear of the company. He and all the other instructors had seen the same scene countless times before: The tell-tale signs that a cadet was finished and had reached the physical limits of their endurance.
Far rarer, he realized, were the times when he had witnessed the other cadets act as selflessly as Second squad did. He had watched in silent admiration as Cadets McClusky and Carmichael cajoled, harassed, prodded, and probably used every other trick they could think of to keep their squad mate from quitting. He had watched the girl struggle onwards as if carried simply by the verbal motivation of the other two cadets. Even more impressive had been the moment the rest of the squad had slowed down, not only sacrificing their own individual scores but also their squad score on the road march.
A faint smile crossed the captain's wrinkled face as he walked past Second squad. He stopped briefly, patting them on their backs and whispering “Good job" to each of the worn-out cadets, then strode on to the medical tent to check on the condition of the injured Cadet Walker. Even without knowing the severity of the young man's injury, Nagumo already knew moved up to fill Walker's billet as Romeo Company commander. That would also mean one of the plebes would have to be bumped up to squad leader. Already, the Academy commandant had a candidate in mind. The thought of Lieutenant Ostrowski going ballistic over the proposed squad leader only added to the grin that was spreading across his lips.
Chapter 28: The Fine Art of Covering Your Ass
While the cadets were learning to shoot at each other in the woods and having epiphanies in the cabin of tactical shuttles, Lieutenant Beth Ostrowski spent the weekend of Ranger Challenge sitting in a small canvas tent at base camp, worrying about snakes, turned ankles and car accident, and filling out the inevitable accident and injury reports once things went wrong.
As the Commander of the Corps of Cadets, Ostrowski was in charge of planning Ranger Challenge; responsible for the safety of the cadets in the field; and the human face of the boring half of Starfleet. Every week, the red-haired officer stood before the Academy's commandant, her old friend and former captain, Isoruku Nagumo, and briefed him on the week's activities. One of the most important elements of the briefing was the risk assessment, where Ostrowski imagined all the things that could possibly go awry during the week's exercises, and how to prevent them from occurring. Risk Assessments were simultaneously the dullest, most serious, and most hilarious part of Starfleet planning, she thought as she studied the risk assessment for the current Ranger Challenge field training exercise with a combination of disgust and bemusement.
It was all common sense, of course, Ostrowski thought to herself. But, so was almost everything else in Starfleet. Honestly, even the dumbest freshman cadet knew better than to handle snakes and play in road. But, knowing better and acting on it were two different things, so eventually some gung-ho, eighteen year old plebe was going to eat the tempting yummy berries, pet the cute little snapping turtle, or chase a stray practice grenade into the road. 'And when that happens,' Ostrowski thought crossly, 'somebody is going to have to answer to the powers that be.'
Creating risk assessments were, in the insulated world of Starfleet, an important skill for any leader to have. It reinforced their ability, as Nagumo had so succinctly explained when she took command of the Corps of Cadets, to quickly and effectively take cover in a bureaucratic combat environment. 'Translation,' she thought to herself, 'it taught the fine art of covering your own ass.' While Starfleet, more than most institutions, demanded that the officer in charge take responsibility for everything that went wrong on his or her watch, Ostrowski had to concede that when your organization was comprised of just over one-thousand college-aged kids, it was wise to have your defenses prepared in advance. As Nagumo had summed it up: “We have to able to tell the admiralty and the parents that 'we warned them.'”
Rubbing her temples, Ostrowski stared at the datapad in her hand containing the full accident report for the afternoon's incident on the obstacle course. The report contained the first-hand accounts of accident from the course safety officer, herself, as well as the testimonies of Cadets Samantha Irene Von Ortmann and Dirk Jonathan Walker. The report also contained three appendices, the injury reports from the medic that treated Cadet Walker on the course, the collaborating report from the chief medical officer at base camp, as well as a copy of Ostrowski's Risk Assessment report, clearly indicating that the cadets had been properly briefed in safety procedures on the obstacle course.
She setting the datapad back on to the cold metal table and stood up to stretch. Her muscles were stiff from spending several hours seated in uncomfortable camp chair filling out reports for Walker's injury, and various other bumps and bruises from other cadets. Of course, as predicted, one of the reports recounted a plebe who couldn't resist the cute turtle and her subsequent surprise when the turtle returned her gentle petting by taking a quick nip of her fingers. Two other, again as predicted, involved a pair of Bravo company plebes that clearly had slept through the Risk Assessment briefing and tried a handful of the wild berries. They would spend the rest of the night in the infirmary beside bed pans, wishing they had not succumbed to curiosity.
Brushing aside the flap that covered the entrance to her tent, she stepped out into the crisp fall air and inhaled the scent of pine needles that permeated the forest. For a brief moment, the frayed nerves of the Lieutenant and her tired mind felt soothed and refreshed by the tranquility of the night.
“It's been quite the day hasn't it, Lieutenant?”
The comment took her by surprise, causing her to jump slightly, before she recognized the distinct timbre of Captain Nagumo's voice over her shoulder. Turning to the source of the sound, she snapped to attention, standing ramrod-straight with her right hand saluting -- fingers together, middle finger touching the edge of her eyebrow. Nagumo returned the salute with an embarrassed wave of his hand. “Save it for the admirals, Beth.” He grumbled. “After eight years under my command, I think you would have learned how much I can't stand all that pomp and circumstance.” Ostrowski lowered the salute with just the faintest upturned traces of a smile on her face.
“Of course, sir,” she answered with a hint of humor. “-and yes, it's been quite the day. I just finished up the report on Cadet Walker's accident. I was about to send it out.”
“Just finished it?” Nagumo asked. “What took so long? The accident was hours ago.”
Ostrowski nodded. “Oh, I know. I was waiting for the medical report from the doctor here at base camp. It took him four hours to get around to filing the paperwork.” Nagumo rolled his eyes at the unsurprising lack of urgency from the medical division. “They were doctors not paper-pushers, after all,” Beth added sarcastically.
“They're going to be janitors if they keep holding up my people's reports,” Nagumo grumbled. “So, how is the young Mister Walker? A broken arm, I assume?” Ostrowski nodded.
”Yes sir. He must have been pretty unlucky when he landed,” she said. “He managed to break both the radius and the ulna bones in his forearm. The docs say getting both is somewhat rare, but it happens. Apparently, because it's both, it will require some microsurgery to get the bones aligned correctly before they can put him in a soft-cast. Either way, he's definitely out for tomorrow and probably a few months before he can resume his PT regimen.”
Nagumo grimaced at the report. 'Walker will take the news hard,' he thought. 'He's a competitor, being held out of PT and field exercises will be a challenge to him.'
“Have you chosen a replacement for him?” the captain asked with a distant look in his eye.
“Well, Fitzpatrick from Third squad is next in the order,” Ostrowski answered. “But I was leaning toward giving Nolte a shot at company commander. His leadership scores were better than Fitz' were. Not to mention, Nolte aced his tactical training program. He's probably the better choice for tomorrow's exercise. I figured if he does adequately during the 'Crucible' he can keep the chair warm until Walker comes back from his injury.”
“That will leave Second squad without a squad leader,” Nagumo observed. “Who did you have in mind to replace him?” he added pointedly. Ostrowski shrugged.
“I was leaning toward Ariah Richards,” she answered cautiously as she began to piece together Nagumo's intentions. “Her scores thus far have been above-average across the board, unlike the other members of the squad. She's a bit weak in athletics, but her academics have been exemplary. The rest of them, well,” she paused and fidgeted uncomfortably. “The rest of the company calls them 'Red Squad,' because of their scores.” Both of them caught the reference. On the wall of the company's common room - a combination study hall and family room - was a large board showing the aggregate scores for each squad. Under each course was a number: green was an above-average score, black indicated an average performance, while red was used to designate an unsatisfactory performance. Thus far, on Romeo Company's board, most the numbers in Second Squad's row were red.
“- I could move von Ortmann up to squad leader,” Ostrowski continued. “Her scores have been good enough as well, although her athletic performance has been sub-par. Except --”
“Except,” Nagumo said, finishing her sentence. “It would look bad for morale if we promote the cadet who caused Walker’s injury. I know he was rough on her to begin with, but promoting her would only exacerbate the rumors that she hurt him on purpose.” Ostrowski nodded in agreement. “What about Cadet Carmichael,” the captain asked, stroking the day-old stubble on his chin. “Have you given any thought to giving him command of Second squad?”
Ostrowski cringed inwardly. “No sir,” she responded candidly. “His performance, especially in the academics portion, has been abysmal.”
“I saw him this afternoon during the road march,” Nagumo continued. He either had not heard Ostrowski answer, or did not care. The lieutenant was certain it was the second possibility. “Did you happen to see it,” he asked. Ostrowski shook her head. “No, of course not, you were having to tend to Walker's injury. Either way, it was an impressive performance. The squad seemed to respond to his leadership, despite his scores. He might be worth considering for the position.”
Ostrowski blanched at the thought. “Sir,” she asked formally. “Are you instructing me to give Cadet Carmichael command of Second Squad?” Nagumo responded with a wise grin and clasped Ostrowski on her shoulder.
“No, my old friend, I'm not ordering you to do any such thing. I'm merely suggesting that I would be very interested in seeing what Mister Carmichael can do with a squad under his charge,” he paused and squeezed her shoulder as he looked directly into the lieutenant's eyes, “Very interested, indeed.” He let go of her shoulder, and turned to continuing his rounds through the base camp. “Good night, Lieutenant, I'll let you head out and brief Rome Company on the situation.” Nagumo said as he strolled away. “I'm sure you'll make the correct decision and I look forward to seeing what Romeo Company can do in the 'Crucible.'”
Ostrowski managed a feeble 'yes sir,' at the captain's retreating figure. 'Well,' she thought bitterly, as she made her own way towards the pool 'I guess that answers that question. Worst case scenario, he's squad leader until Walker comes back from his injury. But, odds are, he'll screw up well before that.' The thought of Carmichael somehow fumbling his responsibility as squad leader warmed her slightly as she requisitioned a ground car from the base camp's motor pool. 'I just have to wait long enough, and he'll do the rest.'
Starting the engine of the ground car, Ostrowski suddenly realized that while she knew where Romeo company was bivouacking for the night, she did not know the way to their campsite. “Sergeant,” she called out to the motor pool chief. “Do you happen to have a map of the area here?” The grizzled enlisted man nodded, handed her a map of the exercise area and watched as Ostrowski pulled out from the base camp, the taillights of her ground car recede into the woods.
“Hey McMasters,” the sergeant hollered to a nearby private, up to his waist under the hood of an armored personnel carrier. “Do you know what the most dangerous thing in Starfleet is?” He waited a second. “Give up? A lieutenant with a map!” McMasters looked up from the oily engine compartment with a quizzical expression on his face. “Listen son,” the sergeant continued. “Lieutenants are the last people you should ever trust to get you anywhere. It's not they are stupid. It's just they are inexperienced and in charge. I tell ya,” he said, his voice reverberating off the parked vehicles. “You just remember one thing as long as you are in this here fleet: You can't spell 'lost' with the “Lt.”
While the cadets were learning to shoot at each other in the woods and having epiphanies in the cabin of tactical shuttles, Lieutenant Beth Ostrowski spent the weekend of Ranger Challenge sitting in a small canvas tent at base camp, worrying about snakes, turned ankles and car accident, and filling out the inevitable accident and injury reports once things went wrong.
As the Commander of the Corps of Cadets, Ostrowski was in charge of planning Ranger Challenge; responsible for the safety of the cadets in the field; and the human face of the boring half of Starfleet. Every week, the red-haired officer stood before the Academy's commandant, her old friend and former captain, Isoruku Nagumo, and briefed him on the week's activities. One of the most important elements of the briefing was the risk assessment, where Ostrowski imagined all the things that could possibly go awry during the week's exercises, and how to prevent them from occurring. Risk Assessments were simultaneously the dullest, most serious, and most hilarious part of Starfleet planning, she thought as she studied the risk assessment for the current Ranger Challenge field training exercise with a combination of disgust and bemusement.
It was all common sense, of course, Ostrowski thought to herself. But, so was almost everything else in Starfleet. Honestly, even the dumbest freshman cadet knew better than to handle snakes and play in road. But, knowing better and acting on it were two different things, so eventually some gung-ho, eighteen year old plebe was going to eat the tempting yummy berries, pet the cute little snapping turtle, or chase a stray practice grenade into the road. 'And when that happens,' Ostrowski thought crossly, 'somebody is going to have to answer to the powers that be.'
Creating risk assessments were, in the insulated world of Starfleet, an important skill for any leader to have. It reinforced their ability, as Nagumo had so succinctly explained when she took command of the Corps of Cadets, to quickly and effectively take cover in a bureaucratic combat environment. 'Translation,' she thought to herself, 'it taught the fine art of covering your own ass.' While Starfleet, more than most institutions, demanded that the officer in charge take responsibility for everything that went wrong on his or her watch, Ostrowski had to concede that when your organization was comprised of just over one-thousand college-aged kids, it was wise to have your defenses prepared in advance. As Nagumo had summed it up: “We have to able to tell the admiralty and the parents that 'we warned them.'”
Rubbing her temples, Ostrowski stared at the datapad in her hand containing the full accident report for the afternoon's incident on the obstacle course. The report contained the first-hand accounts of accident from the course safety officer, herself, as well as the testimonies of Cadets Samantha Irene Von Ortmann and Dirk Jonathan Walker. The report also contained three appendices, the injury reports from the medic that treated Cadet Walker on the course, the collaborating report from the chief medical officer at base camp, as well as a copy of Ostrowski's Risk Assessment report, clearly indicating that the cadets had been properly briefed in safety procedures on the obstacle course.
She setting the datapad back on to the cold metal table and stood up to stretch. Her muscles were stiff from spending several hours seated in uncomfortable camp chair filling out reports for Walker's injury, and various other bumps and bruises from other cadets. Of course, as predicted, one of the reports recounted a plebe who couldn't resist the cute turtle and her subsequent surprise when the turtle returned her gentle petting by taking a quick nip of her fingers. Two other, again as predicted, involved a pair of Bravo company plebes that clearly had slept through the Risk Assessment briefing and tried a handful of the wild berries. They would spend the rest of the night in the infirmary beside bed pans, wishing they had not succumbed to curiosity.
Brushing aside the flap that covered the entrance to her tent, she stepped out into the crisp fall air and inhaled the scent of pine needles that permeated the forest. For a brief moment, the frayed nerves of the Lieutenant and her tired mind felt soothed and refreshed by the tranquility of the night.
“It's been quite the day hasn't it, Lieutenant?”
The comment took her by surprise, causing her to jump slightly, before she recognized the distinct timbre of Captain Nagumo's voice over her shoulder. Turning to the source of the sound, she snapped to attention, standing ramrod-straight with her right hand saluting -- fingers together, middle finger touching the edge of her eyebrow. Nagumo returned the salute with an embarrassed wave of his hand. “Save it for the admirals, Beth.” He grumbled. “After eight years under my command, I think you would have learned how much I can't stand all that pomp and circumstance.” Ostrowski lowered the salute with just the faintest upturned traces of a smile on her face.
“Of course, sir,” she answered with a hint of humor. “-and yes, it's been quite the day. I just finished up the report on Cadet Walker's accident. I was about to send it out.”
“Just finished it?” Nagumo asked. “What took so long? The accident was hours ago.”
Ostrowski nodded. “Oh, I know. I was waiting for the medical report from the doctor here at base camp. It took him four hours to get around to filing the paperwork.” Nagumo rolled his eyes at the unsurprising lack of urgency from the medical division. “They were doctors not paper-pushers, after all,” Beth added sarcastically.
“They're going to be janitors if they keep holding up my people's reports,” Nagumo grumbled. “So, how is the young Mister Walker? A broken arm, I assume?” Ostrowski nodded.
”Yes sir. He must have been pretty unlucky when he landed,” she said. “He managed to break both the radius and the ulna bones in his forearm. The docs say getting both is somewhat rare, but it happens. Apparently, because it's both, it will require some microsurgery to get the bones aligned correctly before they can put him in a soft-cast. Either way, he's definitely out for tomorrow and probably a few months before he can resume his PT regimen.”
Nagumo grimaced at the report. 'Walker will take the news hard,' he thought. 'He's a competitor, being held out of PT and field exercises will be a challenge to him.'
“Have you chosen a replacement for him?” the captain asked with a distant look in his eye.
“Well, Fitzpatrick from Third squad is next in the order,” Ostrowski answered. “But I was leaning toward giving Nolte a shot at company commander. His leadership scores were better than Fitz' were. Not to mention, Nolte aced his tactical training program. He's probably the better choice for tomorrow's exercise. I figured if he does adequately during the 'Crucible' he can keep the chair warm until Walker comes back from his injury.”
“That will leave Second squad without a squad leader,” Nagumo observed. “Who did you have in mind to replace him?” he added pointedly. Ostrowski shrugged.
“I was leaning toward Ariah Richards,” she answered cautiously as she began to piece together Nagumo's intentions. “Her scores thus far have been above-average across the board, unlike the other members of the squad. She's a bit weak in athletics, but her academics have been exemplary. The rest of them, well,” she paused and fidgeted uncomfortably. “The rest of the company calls them 'Red Squad,' because of their scores.” Both of them caught the reference. On the wall of the company's common room - a combination study hall and family room - was a large board showing the aggregate scores for each squad. Under each course was a number: green was an above-average score, black indicated an average performance, while red was used to designate an unsatisfactory performance. Thus far, on Romeo Company's board, most the numbers in Second Squad's row were red.
“- I could move von Ortmann up to squad leader,” Ostrowski continued. “Her scores have been good enough as well, although her athletic performance has been sub-par. Except --”
“Except,” Nagumo said, finishing her sentence. “It would look bad for morale if we promote the cadet who caused Walker’s injury. I know he was rough on her to begin with, but promoting her would only exacerbate the rumors that she hurt him on purpose.” Ostrowski nodded in agreement. “What about Cadet Carmichael,” the captain asked, stroking the day-old stubble on his chin. “Have you given any thought to giving him command of Second squad?”
Ostrowski cringed inwardly. “No sir,” she responded candidly. “His performance, especially in the academics portion, has been abysmal.”
“I saw him this afternoon during the road march,” Nagumo continued. He either had not heard Ostrowski answer, or did not care. The lieutenant was certain it was the second possibility. “Did you happen to see it,” he asked. Ostrowski shook her head. “No, of course not, you were having to tend to Walker's injury. Either way, it was an impressive performance. The squad seemed to respond to his leadership, despite his scores. He might be worth considering for the position.”
Ostrowski blanched at the thought. “Sir,” she asked formally. “Are you instructing me to give Cadet Carmichael command of Second Squad?” Nagumo responded with a wise grin and clasped Ostrowski on her shoulder.
“No, my old friend, I'm not ordering you to do any such thing. I'm merely suggesting that I would be very interested in seeing what Mister Carmichael can do with a squad under his charge,” he paused and squeezed her shoulder as he looked directly into the lieutenant's eyes, “Very interested, indeed.” He let go of her shoulder, and turned to continuing his rounds through the base camp. “Good night, Lieutenant, I'll let you head out and brief Rome Company on the situation.” Nagumo said as he strolled away. “I'm sure you'll make the correct decision and I look forward to seeing what Romeo Company can do in the 'Crucible.'”
Ostrowski managed a feeble 'yes sir,' at the captain's retreating figure. 'Well,' she thought bitterly, as she made her own way towards the pool 'I guess that answers that question. Worst case scenario, he's squad leader until Walker comes back from his injury. But, odds are, he'll screw up well before that.' The thought of Carmichael somehow fumbling his responsibility as squad leader warmed her slightly as she requisitioned a ground car from the base camp's motor pool. 'I just have to wait long enough, and he'll do the rest.'
Starting the engine of the ground car, Ostrowski suddenly realized that while she knew where Romeo company was bivouacking for the night, she did not know the way to their campsite. “Sergeant,” she called out to the motor pool chief. “Do you happen to have a map of the area here?” The grizzled enlisted man nodded, handed her a map of the exercise area and watched as Ostrowski pulled out from the base camp, the taillights of her ground car recede into the woods.
“Hey McMasters,” the sergeant hollered to a nearby private, up to his waist under the hood of an armored personnel carrier. “Do you know what the most dangerous thing in Starfleet is?” He waited a second. “Give up? A lieutenant with a map!” McMasters looked up from the oily engine compartment with a quizzical expression on his face. “Listen son,” the sergeant continued. “Lieutenants are the last people you should ever trust to get you anywhere. It's not they are stupid. It's just they are inexperienced and in charge. I tell ya,” he said, his voice reverberating off the parked vehicles. “You just remember one thing as long as you are in this here fleet: You can't spell 'lost' with the “Lt.”
(As I said on Ad Astra) Woo hoo! I called it! Go, JJ!
I'm laughing at the Lieutenants being the most dangerous things in Starfleet. It's kind of true. All that power, and no experience making them wiser ...
I also loved the "I'm a doctor, not a ..." line, even though (or maybe especially) because it was slightly reworded and being told second-hand. Good stuff.
"Pet the cute little snapping turtle ..." so true and funny. The fine art of covering your ass must be incredibly difficult for an organization like Starfleet. I'm trying to imagine the stacks and stacks of waivers these people must sign before attending the Academy. "I understand that SF is going to try its best to kill me. If SF succeeds, or fails and merely injures me, I promise not to sue." Is that about the gist of it?
Great chapter with a lot of little funny lines, while moving the story along. Let's see what JJ does with this ...
I'm laughing at the Lieutenants being the most dangerous things in Starfleet. It's kind of true. All that power, and no experience making them wiser ...
I also loved the "I'm a doctor, not a ..." line, even though (or maybe especially) because it was slightly reworded and being told second-hand. Good stuff.
"Pet the cute little snapping turtle ..." so true and funny. The fine art of covering your ass must be incredibly difficult for an organization like Starfleet. I'm trying to imagine the stacks and stacks of waivers these people must sign before attending the Academy. "I understand that SF is going to try its best to kill me. If SF succeeds, or fails and merely injures me, I promise not to sue." Is that about the gist of it?
Great chapter with a lot of little funny lines, while moving the story along. Let's see what JJ does with this ...
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Chapter 29: Night of Battle
Not all who wander are lost" or so the old saying goes. But J.J. Carmichael and 2nd Squad are about to discover that there is something worse than lieutenant with a map:
A cadet with a compass.
The sergeant at the motor pool was wrong, Ostrowski thought as she drove through the woods.
As any instructor would quickly point out, there was one thing in Starfleet even more dangerous than a lieutenant with a map, and that was a cadet with a compass. After all, no matter how inexperienced the average lieutenant was, the average cadet was even worse. Granted, there were the occasional mustangs, cadets that used to be enlisted crewmen, but most were fresh out of high school, and still struggling to come to grips with doing their own laundry and feeding themselves. 'Put them in charge and stand back,' Ostrowski thought as the ground car bounced along the bumpy dirt road. 'There are always bound to be fuck-ups.'
At that instant, J.J. Carmichael was providing a textbook demonstration of that point. Second squad was lost - completely lost - somewhere in the woods in the middle of the night. It had been a simple exercise; go from point A to point B, where the squads of Romeo Company would meet up for the night. The trick of land navigation was to keep it simple, the instructors always said.
“Find yourself on the map,” J.J. said, repeating their admonishments to himself. “Figure out the compass direction to your destination, and just walk. Walk on that bearing, deviating not an inch in either direction, until you literally run into the destination.” The idea was simple, and in daylight, navigation was easy enough. But, at night, the trees seemed to close in and the darkness became so complete that Carmichael could not even see his hand in front of his face. From where J.J. stood, surrounded by tall conifers in the middle of nowhere, Point B seemed damned unattainable.
The ten cadets trailing behind him only added to J.J.’s dilemma and made him curse the situation. Had von Ortmann not landed on the company commander earlier that day, then 2nd Squad’s commander, Cadet Nolte, would not have been called away for a meeting with Ostrowski back at base camp, and he would have been leading the squad through the dark forest. ‘He also wouldn’t be completely lost right now,’ J.J. thought, attention wander yet again. ‘Stay focused,’ he chided himself. ‘Not paying attention is how you got yourself lost to begin with.’
“We’re lost aren’t we?” a voice asked from alongside J.J. He turned, straining to make out Seth’s face in the blackness. A glimpse of white –the whites of his friend’s eyes-- came from the shadowed face as Seth glanced down at the compass one of J.J.’s hands and the dimly-lit datapad in the other.
“We’re not lost,” Carmichael replied under his breath. “You all know exactly where you are. Remember what the instructors said? As long as you keep your eyes on the cadet in front of you, you aren’t lost.”
“What about you?” Seth asked as J.J. stared at the compass again.
“Me?” Carmichael grumbled back. “I’m not lost. I just have no fucking clue where I am.”
“I know.” Seth whispered. “You’re holding the map upside down.”
J. J. looked down at the datapad in disbelief. Seth was right, he realized as he squinted to see the faint arrow that marked north on the map aimed at the ground. In all his concern over identifying the landmarks and figuring out his course, he had never checked the orientation of the map itself. For the first time that night, Carmichael was grateful of the darkness that enshrouded the squad. At least it hid the redness spreading across his face. He rotated the map in his hand, this time making sure the north arrow pointed skyward as Seth retreated back into line behind him.
In the darkness, each cadet was supposed to follow the glowing green strips on the helmet of the cadet ahead of them in line. It was a simple enough instruction, but the little green strips were notoriously fickle. They were designed to be hard to see so as not to make easy targets for snipers. Blinking at the wrong moment could cause the ghostly light from the strip in front of a cadet to disappear into the black void.
So it was no surprise that once 2nd squad was finally moving in the right direction that somebody in Carmichael’s squad lost track of the cadet in front of them. When that happened, the cadet panicked and strayed off course, throwing the next person in line off course as well, who then lost the person behind him and so on and so forth. Where just seconds before there had been ten cadets marching all in a line there were now little clusters of twos and threes, standing around nervously in the dark – and one inexperienced cadet charged with getting them all to the company’s campsite who was firing off a string of obscenities that would make even the most-grizzled sergeant grin with satisfaction.
Fortunately, this was not the first time a cadet had gotten lost in the woods. In J.J. Carmichael’s Starfleet, there was a plan for every contingency, especially this one. Carmichael, still spouting a litany of swears behind him like a train, gathered everyone together in sight and began walking a series of expanding concentric circles. Every few yards they would run into another wayward cadet and gather them up. Before too long, they happened across the last missing member of the squad. He had followed the old parental adage to hug a tree if you are ever lost, and was leaning against a thick redwood, fast asleep, when the rest of the reformed squad arrived to reclaim their last lost sheep.
They shouted his name, causing him to awake with a jolt and causing his rifle to fall from his arms. He went to catch his weapon, but the young cadet slipped on the wet ground and quickly was sprawled in front of his squad members, his rifle lay in the wet mud next to him. It would have been comical -- watching the cadet flail his arms and legs like an upturned beetle in an attempt to roll over – had the squad not already been exhausted from the day’s challenges and a long march in the night. But now, as a pair of reluctant hands reached out, helping the now muddy and embarrassed cadet back to his feet, the collective mind of the squad only had one thought on its mind: sleep.
Finally reassembled, with all its assigned cadets present and accounted for, and for the time being not lost, the squad trudged back into a column behind Carmichael and headed toward the company’s patrol base for a quick meal and a little sorely needed shut-eye.
* * *
Bivouacking was not unlike the times his family had gone camping in the Adirondacks, Seth McClusky noted with a fleeting twinge of home-sickness, but there were a few key differences. Namely, experienced campers would have never gone anywhere so poorly-equipped, he thought as he checked that the rest of 2nd Squad was appropriately bedded down for the night. Normally, this was the squad leader’s job, but J.J. had been called down the company command post to discuss strategy for tomorrow’s exercise. That left Seth to fill the void of making sure the cadets had their equipment and to set up the security perimeter for the squad.
Every cadet had a rucksack full of socks, T-shirts and toiletries. In one of their rucksack’s bigger pockets they carried bulky, moth-eaten sleeping bags, while tied under the top flap was what Starfleet quartermasters called a “Mat, Sleeping.” The mat was an anemic foam pad intended to provide a buffer between the hard earth and the all-too-thin sleeping bag. All of this equipment was antiquated by civilian standards, Seth observed with disdain. It was heavy, unwieldy, not at all water-resistant, and completely useless in anything but temperate weather. It was however, low-cost and made by the lowest bidder, a prime consideration to the politicians in the United Earth parliament. Of course, it went without saying that the politicians never slept in the sleeping bags or atop a “Mat, Sleeping.”
“Hey, no one ever promised Starfleet would be comfortable,” Seth muttered to himself as he untied his mat from the top of his rucksack. Despite his concern for the condition of his camping gear, after days of pretend combat and hours of wandering half-lost through the creepy moonlit woods, Seth was exhausted and he settled into his olive-drab sleeping bag atop his Mat, Sleeping. He checked that his rifle’s safety was on, and cradled the cold metal of the pulse rifle like it was a teddy bear. With one last wistful look at Ariah Richards, sleeping peacefully in her bag nearby, he dosed off to dreams of guns, maps, heavy rucksacks, square women in dark blue jumpsuits and bad food.
It was a topic that he was all too familiar with. The ubiquitous Meals Ready to Eat, Starfleet’s pre-packaged combat rations, were full of fatty, artificial interpretations of regional and ethnic cuisines from all across the planet. The rations came vacuum sealed in nearly impenetrable bags containing additional little impenetrable plastic bags. In each of the little bags was a food item: spaghetti, maybe, or potatoes with cheese, or a brownie. Ideally, cadets would use the included chemical heater and a little water from their canteens to heat the flavorless food, before dousing it with the small included bottle of pepper sauce to make the dish palatable.
Unfortunately, the promise of a hot meal often went unfulfilled. The cadets tended to eat the MRE’s on the go, which did not leave much time for finesse, or heating. Tonight, while wandering through the woods, Seth had resorted to slicing open the less-offensive items and poured the bland meal right into his mouth. Like the other cadets, he kept the little chemical heater and planned on crumbling the chemical reagent into a plastic bottle and filling it with water. The chemical reaction would explode the bottle like a plastic water grenade. The cadets called the improvised explosive device an MRE bomb, and in Seth’s opinion it was by far the best thing to come out of the Meal Ready to Eat. In his dreams, Seth imagined throwing MRE bombs at the instructors and doubling over with laughter as they danced around the exploding bottles.
A voice saying Seth’s name for the second time interrupted his revenge-laden dreams. He felt a hand touch his shoulder, waking him with a start.
Wake up, damn it.” Seth opened his eyes to see a cadet crouched over him. His breath froze in frosty clouds when he exhaled. “It’s your turn to pull security,” the cadet whispered, trying to avoid waking the other sleeping squad members.
Seth groaned and rolled over. Shifting disturbed the fragile cocoon of warmth his body and the second-rate sleeping bag had conspired to create. The cold night air seeped in. Groggy, Seth climbed out of his bag with his rifle in hand. The other cadet barely hesitated and in seconds he was burrowing deep into his own sleeping bag, sighing with relief.
For the next hour, Seth stood guard, providing the only security for the squad. The job was simple. He was supposed to walk the perimeter, investigate suspicious activity, and challenge anyone who approached. If the intruder was friendly, they would know the prearranged password. If they did not know the password, the intruder was a bad guy and Seth would either take them prisoner, or, if he didn’t feel like dealing with prisoners, just open fire with his rifle and see what happens. In the biting cold night air, Seth did not feel like dealing with prisoners. He thumbed the safety off on his rifle and peered out into the darkness.
Challenges and passwords were one way that Starfleet had its fun.
Cadet Nolte had thought up tonight’s challenge: “Game and the correct password: “cock.” The challenge was both a reference to the mascot of the University of South Carolina back in his home state, and a reason for the cadets of 2nd squad to chuckle at the double entendre.
Seth never got the chance to make some poor sleepwalking cadet holler “Cock!” at the top of his lungs. His hour on security patrol passed peacefully, just him, the nocturnal creatures of the California woods, and the gentle snores and farts of sleeping cadets as he stood under the restless canopy of trees, gazing at the stars, the moon and twinkling lights of shuttles and spacecraft as they passed overhead.
Not all who wander are lost" or so the old saying goes. But J.J. Carmichael and 2nd Squad are about to discover that there is something worse than lieutenant with a map:
A cadet with a compass.
The sergeant at the motor pool was wrong, Ostrowski thought as she drove through the woods.
As any instructor would quickly point out, there was one thing in Starfleet even more dangerous than a lieutenant with a map, and that was a cadet with a compass. After all, no matter how inexperienced the average lieutenant was, the average cadet was even worse. Granted, there were the occasional mustangs, cadets that used to be enlisted crewmen, but most were fresh out of high school, and still struggling to come to grips with doing their own laundry and feeding themselves. 'Put them in charge and stand back,' Ostrowski thought as the ground car bounced along the bumpy dirt road. 'There are always bound to be fuck-ups.'
At that instant, J.J. Carmichael was providing a textbook demonstration of that point. Second squad was lost - completely lost - somewhere in the woods in the middle of the night. It had been a simple exercise; go from point A to point B, where the squads of Romeo Company would meet up for the night. The trick of land navigation was to keep it simple, the instructors always said.
“Find yourself on the map,” J.J. said, repeating their admonishments to himself. “Figure out the compass direction to your destination, and just walk. Walk on that bearing, deviating not an inch in either direction, until you literally run into the destination.” The idea was simple, and in daylight, navigation was easy enough. But, at night, the trees seemed to close in and the darkness became so complete that Carmichael could not even see his hand in front of his face. From where J.J. stood, surrounded by tall conifers in the middle of nowhere, Point B seemed damned unattainable.
The ten cadets trailing behind him only added to J.J.’s dilemma and made him curse the situation. Had von Ortmann not landed on the company commander earlier that day, then 2nd Squad’s commander, Cadet Nolte, would not have been called away for a meeting with Ostrowski back at base camp, and he would have been leading the squad through the dark forest. ‘He also wouldn’t be completely lost right now,’ J.J. thought, attention wander yet again. ‘Stay focused,’ he chided himself. ‘Not paying attention is how you got yourself lost to begin with.’
“We’re lost aren’t we?” a voice asked from alongside J.J. He turned, straining to make out Seth’s face in the blackness. A glimpse of white –the whites of his friend’s eyes-- came from the shadowed face as Seth glanced down at the compass one of J.J.’s hands and the dimly-lit datapad in the other.
“We’re not lost,” Carmichael replied under his breath. “You all know exactly where you are. Remember what the instructors said? As long as you keep your eyes on the cadet in front of you, you aren’t lost.”
“What about you?” Seth asked as J.J. stared at the compass again.
“Me?” Carmichael grumbled back. “I’m not lost. I just have no fucking clue where I am.”
“I know.” Seth whispered. “You’re holding the map upside down.”
J. J. looked down at the datapad in disbelief. Seth was right, he realized as he squinted to see the faint arrow that marked north on the map aimed at the ground. In all his concern over identifying the landmarks and figuring out his course, he had never checked the orientation of the map itself. For the first time that night, Carmichael was grateful of the darkness that enshrouded the squad. At least it hid the redness spreading across his face. He rotated the map in his hand, this time making sure the north arrow pointed skyward as Seth retreated back into line behind him.
In the darkness, each cadet was supposed to follow the glowing green strips on the helmet of the cadet ahead of them in line. It was a simple enough instruction, but the little green strips were notoriously fickle. They were designed to be hard to see so as not to make easy targets for snipers. Blinking at the wrong moment could cause the ghostly light from the strip in front of a cadet to disappear into the black void.
So it was no surprise that once 2nd squad was finally moving in the right direction that somebody in Carmichael’s squad lost track of the cadet in front of them. When that happened, the cadet panicked and strayed off course, throwing the next person in line off course as well, who then lost the person behind him and so on and so forth. Where just seconds before there had been ten cadets marching all in a line there were now little clusters of twos and threes, standing around nervously in the dark – and one inexperienced cadet charged with getting them all to the company’s campsite who was firing off a string of obscenities that would make even the most-grizzled sergeant grin with satisfaction.
Fortunately, this was not the first time a cadet had gotten lost in the woods. In J.J. Carmichael’s Starfleet, there was a plan for every contingency, especially this one. Carmichael, still spouting a litany of swears behind him like a train, gathered everyone together in sight and began walking a series of expanding concentric circles. Every few yards they would run into another wayward cadet and gather them up. Before too long, they happened across the last missing member of the squad. He had followed the old parental adage to hug a tree if you are ever lost, and was leaning against a thick redwood, fast asleep, when the rest of the reformed squad arrived to reclaim their last lost sheep.
They shouted his name, causing him to awake with a jolt and causing his rifle to fall from his arms. He went to catch his weapon, but the young cadet slipped on the wet ground and quickly was sprawled in front of his squad members, his rifle lay in the wet mud next to him. It would have been comical -- watching the cadet flail his arms and legs like an upturned beetle in an attempt to roll over – had the squad not already been exhausted from the day’s challenges and a long march in the night. But now, as a pair of reluctant hands reached out, helping the now muddy and embarrassed cadet back to his feet, the collective mind of the squad only had one thought on its mind: sleep.
Finally reassembled, with all its assigned cadets present and accounted for, and for the time being not lost, the squad trudged back into a column behind Carmichael and headed toward the company’s patrol base for a quick meal and a little sorely needed shut-eye.
* * *
Bivouacking was not unlike the times his family had gone camping in the Adirondacks, Seth McClusky noted with a fleeting twinge of home-sickness, but there were a few key differences. Namely, experienced campers would have never gone anywhere so poorly-equipped, he thought as he checked that the rest of 2nd Squad was appropriately bedded down for the night. Normally, this was the squad leader’s job, but J.J. had been called down the company command post to discuss strategy for tomorrow’s exercise. That left Seth to fill the void of making sure the cadets had their equipment and to set up the security perimeter for the squad.
Every cadet had a rucksack full of socks, T-shirts and toiletries. In one of their rucksack’s bigger pockets they carried bulky, moth-eaten sleeping bags, while tied under the top flap was what Starfleet quartermasters called a “Mat, Sleeping.” The mat was an anemic foam pad intended to provide a buffer between the hard earth and the all-too-thin sleeping bag. All of this equipment was antiquated by civilian standards, Seth observed with disdain. It was heavy, unwieldy, not at all water-resistant, and completely useless in anything but temperate weather. It was however, low-cost and made by the lowest bidder, a prime consideration to the politicians in the United Earth parliament. Of course, it went without saying that the politicians never slept in the sleeping bags or atop a “Mat, Sleeping.”
“Hey, no one ever promised Starfleet would be comfortable,” Seth muttered to himself as he untied his mat from the top of his rucksack. Despite his concern for the condition of his camping gear, after days of pretend combat and hours of wandering half-lost through the creepy moonlit woods, Seth was exhausted and he settled into his olive-drab sleeping bag atop his Mat, Sleeping. He checked that his rifle’s safety was on, and cradled the cold metal of the pulse rifle like it was a teddy bear. With one last wistful look at Ariah Richards, sleeping peacefully in her bag nearby, he dosed off to dreams of guns, maps, heavy rucksacks, square women in dark blue jumpsuits and bad food.
It was a topic that he was all too familiar with. The ubiquitous Meals Ready to Eat, Starfleet’s pre-packaged combat rations, were full of fatty, artificial interpretations of regional and ethnic cuisines from all across the planet. The rations came vacuum sealed in nearly impenetrable bags containing additional little impenetrable plastic bags. In each of the little bags was a food item: spaghetti, maybe, or potatoes with cheese, or a brownie. Ideally, cadets would use the included chemical heater and a little water from their canteens to heat the flavorless food, before dousing it with the small included bottle of pepper sauce to make the dish palatable.
Unfortunately, the promise of a hot meal often went unfulfilled. The cadets tended to eat the MRE’s on the go, which did not leave much time for finesse, or heating. Tonight, while wandering through the woods, Seth had resorted to slicing open the less-offensive items and poured the bland meal right into his mouth. Like the other cadets, he kept the little chemical heater and planned on crumbling the chemical reagent into a plastic bottle and filling it with water. The chemical reaction would explode the bottle like a plastic water grenade. The cadets called the improvised explosive device an MRE bomb, and in Seth’s opinion it was by far the best thing to come out of the Meal Ready to Eat. In his dreams, Seth imagined throwing MRE bombs at the instructors and doubling over with laughter as they danced around the exploding bottles.
A voice saying Seth’s name for the second time interrupted his revenge-laden dreams. He felt a hand touch his shoulder, waking him with a start.
Wake up, damn it.” Seth opened his eyes to see a cadet crouched over him. His breath froze in frosty clouds when he exhaled. “It’s your turn to pull security,” the cadet whispered, trying to avoid waking the other sleeping squad members.
Seth groaned and rolled over. Shifting disturbed the fragile cocoon of warmth his body and the second-rate sleeping bag had conspired to create. The cold night air seeped in. Groggy, Seth climbed out of his bag with his rifle in hand. The other cadet barely hesitated and in seconds he was burrowing deep into his own sleeping bag, sighing with relief.
For the next hour, Seth stood guard, providing the only security for the squad. The job was simple. He was supposed to walk the perimeter, investigate suspicious activity, and challenge anyone who approached. If the intruder was friendly, they would know the prearranged password. If they did not know the password, the intruder was a bad guy and Seth would either take them prisoner, or, if he didn’t feel like dealing with prisoners, just open fire with his rifle and see what happens. In the biting cold night air, Seth did not feel like dealing with prisoners. He thumbed the safety off on his rifle and peered out into the darkness.
Challenges and passwords were one way that Starfleet had its fun.
Cadet Nolte had thought up tonight’s challenge: “Game and the correct password: “cock.” The challenge was both a reference to the mascot of the University of South Carolina back in his home state, and a reason for the cadets of 2nd squad to chuckle at the double entendre.
Seth never got the chance to make some poor sleepwalking cadet holler “Cock!” at the top of his lungs. His hour on security patrol passed peacefully, just him, the nocturnal creatures of the California woods, and the gentle snores and farts of sleeping cadets as he stood under the restless canopy of trees, gazing at the stars, the moon and twinkling lights of shuttles and spacecraft as they passed overhead.
