rix_scaedu

“So, Cadet Gens,” began the service psychologist, “I’m here to help you deal with any anxiety or guilt you might be feeling after the events on the Malice of Maldeumer.”

“I’m not feeling any,” replied Parthi straightforwardly.

“You are confirmed as having killed a number of people during the unauthorised intrusion,” pointed out the psychologist, “and it’s quite natural for you to be feeling unsettled after that, Pallas. I may I call you that, mayn’t I?” The young psychologist gave her a sympathetic smile.

“I would prefer you don’t. My preferred use name is Parthi and I would prefer it if you didn’t use the script you’re apparently running off.” Parthi bared her teeth in an aggressive grin.

“Oh?” The psychologist looked taken aback.

“I am perfectly well aware that I definitely killed two men on the Malice and that I may have killed four. I am also perfectly well aware that each of them was trying to put a burst of three rounds in my chest and maybe follow it up with another burst to my head.” Parthi added, “I feel no guilt or anxiety arising out of my actions as a result. If that’s all you have, then I have a class I could be attending.”

“Cadet Gens,” the psychologist was indignant, “you haven’t let me complete my assessment yet. You’re supposed to co-operate!”

“I’m not going to co-operate by pretending to things I don’t feel, just to make you happy by matching your expectations or a script,” retorted Parthi. “If you can’t work with that, then let’s have a chat with your supervisor.”

“You can’t do that!” The psychologist’s indignation was growing.

“You haven’t convinced me that my care is in competent hands,” answered back Parthi. “Given that you didn’t bother reading my notes carefully enough to get my use name right, why should I spend any more time talking to you?”

The psychologist gawped at her.

“I will give you a line for your lessons learnt question though,” when Parthi said that, the psychologist looked down at her checklist involuntarily. “Never attack an engineer in their workshop, not when they know you’re coming and have had time to think about it, not necessarily in that order. Lieutenant Commander Gliffens’ solution was effective and slightly spectacular.”

Lieutenant Chantana Chisidori was the Gunnery Officer for Gunnery Station Four, except for the purposes of the Academy training exercise which had given his duty station and a third of his gunnery team to a first year cadet. He had talked to those of his men who’d been assigned to her command and the worst he’d heard of her had come from Tabanta whose reported comment had been, “I’d call her a tight-arsed bitch, except she knows her stuff.” More than one of them had expressed doubts that she was, as alleged, a newly minted first year cadet. From what he’d heard, Chisidori wasn’t sure what to think except that Petty Officer Lok had assured him that after the exercise they should welcome onto their gunnery team any of the several newly minted ASes that had been assigned to Cadet Gens’ command.

The current situation was outside his experience though. Not only had they gone straight from being in an exercise to genuine battle stations but there was apparently already an enemy boarding party aboard the ship cutting its way into his gunnery station. His current assignment, as apparently local sensors were down, was to reconnoitre from a safe distance, otherwise known as the closest corner he could get to, and relay information about the enemy makeup and armament so that the Marines making their way up from their station on the lower decks didn’t walk blindly into a fire trap. Unlike, he had to swallow hard before he reported his first findings in, the crewmembers who’d been in the vicinity of the airlock closest to Gunnery Station Four.

“Bridge, this is Lieutenant Chisidori. We’ve found evidence of a plasma burst at Airlock Six.” He waited half a second for his team to confirm what he thought. “Four crew fatalities, two with close range headshots.”

“Lieutenant Chisidori, this is the Bridge. Roger that. Proceed with caution.”

“Aye, sir.” As if he wasn’t going to proceed with caution. Heart in his mouth he motioned his team on, taking point because he’d most recently of all of them done the anti-boarding module.

Fortunately he knew which corner was the last one before Gunnery Station 4 and although he found war kit clunky to wear unlike, say Petty Officer Sabat who’d serve on frontline ships the entire war, he could use the useful attachments including the one that let him see around corners without exposing himself. What he saw would have made him swear if he hadn’t had to report it in. Because their helmets were almost touching he heard Petty Officer Sabat expressing both their feelings inside his helmet with the comms off. He found himself almost whispering, although it shouldn’t have been necessary, “Bridge, this is Lieutenant Chisidori. Gunnery Station Four’s outer blast doors have been just been breached. The intruders are a three man team without armour markings who appear to be in a Kizmat infiltration and data extraction configuration. Their combat engineer is clearing their entrance now.”

“Lieutenant Chisidori, this is the Bridge. Roger that. Continue to observe. Do not attempt to engage the enemy at this time.”

“Aye, sir.” Chisidori knew very well that only Petty Officer Sabat in his hastily appointed reconnoitring team had a weapon that could do any good against the armour the enemy was wearing. He had to wonder if the entire war had felt like this, or only those early panicked days following the Kizmat surprise attack when nothing they had seemed to work against the enemy.

There was weapons fire from the gunnery station and the enemy combat engineer was bringing his weapon up to bear while his clearance man was swinging into position to take out the defenders. Chisidori didn’t want to keep looking but he didn’t dare look away, not in front of his men and because the Marines coming up behind him would need everything he could tell them. The defenders would be wearing war kit like his which frankly wasn’t a match for the sort of armour the intruders were wearing and although whoever was in the outer chamber should be armed with a 58, the vulnerable area on the enemy’s armour was so small-.

The combat engineer went down, his weapon dropping from his gloved hand as he fell. The clearance specialist fired once, twice, then collapsed as well, the shattered faceplate of his helmet visible on the screen of the equipment that let Chisidori see around corners. The data collector was returning fire, taking shots to the head but nothing to the faceplate until suddenly, in the small gap between his bursts, a figure in war kit stepped into view and fired a 58 held in an extended hand at shoulder height straight into his face.

“Bridge, this is Lieutenant Chisidori. The intruders are down, repeat, the intruders are down.” Chisidori couldn’t quite believe it. He knew it was theoretically possible but theory wasn’t always translatable into reality.

“Lieutenant Chisidori, this is the Bridge. Rodger that. Approach Gunnery Station Four with caution. We’ve told Cadet Gens and her team that you’re coming but let’s avoid misunderstandings.”

“Aye, sir.” Chisidori stepped out from behind his corner, hands in the air followed by Petty Officer Sabat and the rest of his team. He heard the click from his comm set as they were switched to another communications channel but he spoke so that he would be heard without using the comm set. “Cadet Gens, I’m Lieutenant Chisidori and this is my team. We’re on your side, don’t shoot.”

The female figure, the one who’d stepped forward and shot the data collector he realised, holstered her weapon, took two more weapons off the fallen body she was kneeling beside and saluted. “Sir.” She then went straight to comms and he heard her say, “Bridge, this is Gens. The intruders are confirmed dead, disarmed and have no signs of self-destruct activation. Lieutenant Chisidori has arrived.” She paused for half a breath and then went on, “Sir, if I may, if the intruders are following standard Kizmat doctrine then they’ll have killer teams moving on the power plant and life support. Sir, life support is on this deck and I’m six decks closer than the Marines. Do you wish me to conduct a delaying action at life support?”

Chisidori was surprised to hear Captain Niblitz’ voice come back over the comm channel. “That’s consistent with our degrading internal sensor data. Chisidiori, you have Gunnery Station Four. Gens, you and your fire team to life support, now!”

Gens’, “Aye, sir!” wasn’t finished before she, Cruz and Tabanta were gone, sprinting towards life support.

This was written thanks to Anonymous, lilfluff and the number five. It follows on from The Cadet: Part 15.

“Thank you for seeing us privately, sir.” The chief engineer of the Malice of Maldeumer was certain that neither his captain nor his first officer would want this conversation to take place publicly on the bridge.

“Chief, you suggested that it was urgent and that it was a security issue. I trust your judgement. What’s the problem?” Captain Niblitz smiled at the two engineers on the other side of the conference table in his office.

“I assigned Lieutenant Commander Yoganda here,” the chief engineer indicated his subordinate, “to investigating the incident involving Cadet Kremerskorn. The brief I gave him specified finding out both what happened to the cadet and why nothing was reported to engineering by our internal sensors. Yoganda found this.”

At a gesture from his chief, Lieutenant Commander Yoganda put an evidence bag containing an object on the table. “Sir, this is an anti-personnel device much used by enemy forces during the war. It was wired into the circuit array Cadet Kremerskorn repaired and we believe it was triggered when he tested his repair.” The two engineers exchanged looks and Yoganda went on, “We believe that if Cadet Kremerskorn had been any closer to the device when it detonated, then he would have been killed instead of concussed. We also believe that detonation was intended to have been controlled from the airlock in that section. Not only had the engineering sensors that should have alerted us to the plasma burst been compromised but the sensors monitoring the airlock had also been compromised.”

Captain Niblitz’ face and voice were hard, “Someone sabotaged my ship to let a raiding party on board. Who did it and when?”

“They were good enough at covering their tracks that we can’t tell, sir,” confessed the Chief Engineer. “It could have been done several years ago while the ship was alongside for maintenance and repair, it could have been done in the past few days and it could have been done anywhere in between. There may be a kernel of deleted information in the logs somewhere but we two don’t have the skills to find it and we didn’t want to brief anyone else in on this before we spoke to you, sir.”

“Have you taken any further actions?” The first officer was as alert as the captain.

“I’ve had Lieutenant Commander Yoganda start checking all circuit arrays of the relevant type for similar items,” explained the Chief Engineer. “So far he’s cleared this deck and C deck. He can do every airlock on the ship himself, if you wish.”

“However that will take three days sir, assuming I stop to eat and sleep.” Yoganda’s voice was wry. “Should we read anyone else into this and, if so, who?”

At 0323 the ship’s impact alarms sounded, followed immediately by the call to battle stations. It was dark and dusty in the junior ratings’ bunkroom as the suddenly woken crew members pulled on their clothing and scrambled for the door. As they emerged coughing and spluttering into the corridor two Petty Officers wearing umpire’s brassards were putting stickers on them; red for dead, blue for incapacitated, and a lurid, neon green for actually needing to go to sick bay in real life. As the seconds passed, more of the emerging ratings were tagged with stickers until, less than three minutes after the alarm had sounded, everyone was receiving a red sticker. When AS Hastro emerged, dragging an unconscious roommate, one of the referees went to tag him with a red sticker while the second tagged the near-boy he was dragging with a green sticker and began a first aid assessment. When the umpire realised what Hastro was wearing, he yanked on his air hose connection. The hose stayed in place and the sticker didn’t leave the umpire’s hand.

“Good job. Get to your battle station, AS,” ordered the umpire, “and we’ll get him to sick bay.”

“Yes, Petty Officer.” AS Hastro threw a salute and ran in the direction of where he was supposed to be.

Later that day.

“The initial scenario didn’t run to plan.” The speaker was an older man, a middle ranking officer from the Academy. The awards and honours on the upper left breast of his uniform suggested that his entire career had been spent in training and that he had never, despite the recent war, seen combat. “Gunnery Station Four had a full crew complement – Cadet Gens wasn’t stressed at all. From these firing rates they didn’t even lose the loading system.”

“I have to disagree,” the ship’s weapons officer spoke up. “Cadet Gens has already submitted her post action report with supporting data logs. Gunnery Station Four’s loading system did go down and they manhandled the actuators into place. There is a tiny blip in their firing rate at the changeover point, but it looks like she had a plan in place to deal with the breakdown. She must have read the gunnery station logs in her briefing pack.”

“But how did she get her hands on war kit for herself and her gun crew?” The Academy officer was speaking again. “The quartermaster had strict instructions that war kit was not to be handed out. The scenarios we’re running do not require it, this exercise has never used it and our budget won’t cover it.”

“Current doctrine,” said the weapons officer pointedly, “requires all gunnery crews in a live fire exercise to wear war kit as a safety measure. Presumably Cadet Gens read all of her background material.”

“As to how she got it,” chimed in the ship’s first officer, “she threatened to bring the matter to me if her requisition was unfulfilled and she didn’t receive a formal rejection from the quartermaster’s staff. Very neat. I think I like your Cadet Gens, sight unseen. Now, while we’re on the subject of safety, smoke bombs. The ones you used have been withdrawn from service.”

“Yes, we were lucky to secure a supply when they were being withdrawn,” the Academy officer smiled. “The replacements don’t have the same characteristics at all.”

“Two things about that,” said the first officer. “Firstly, after this morning’s scenario half the ship’s air filters have had to be replaced. The chief engineer asks that you don’t do it again. If you do, he won’t be able to guarantee air quality and we’ll need to return to port. Secondly, AS Akono, the rating who was dragged unconscious from his bunkroom.”

“Unfortunate,” observed the officer from the Academy, “but he shouldn’t have lingered in the room.”

“He had no choice,” said the first officer quietly and with deadly precision. “He didn’t pass out because of breathing in the smoke; he was knocked unconscious by a smoke bomb detonating in his face. A smoke bomb that was placed, concealed, in his bunk space in violation of safety rules and doctrine. He has a concussion and will be in sick bay for some time yet. If AS Hastro hadn’t done a final pass of the room as the only person present with a respirator, he might well have died before the smoke cleared from the space. The Captain has told me to tell you that, if there is another safety violation of this stupidity by a member of the exercise staff, he will cancel the rest of the exercise as an unacceptable and unnecessary risk to the ship. You may expect to be contacted by the inquiry officer and you will cooperate.” The first officer closed the folder in front of him. “Do you have anything else?”

“No, sir.” The Academy officer was now subdued.

“Excellent.” The first officer smiled. “I, however, do. In line with current Naval protocol, all gunnery crews participating in the exercise will be issued with war kit immediately and they will wear it for the duration of the exercise. That is all, thank you, gentlemen.”

Not too much later that day.

The ship’s weapons officer moved through the wardroom of eating cadets. His first stop was the table of fourth year cadets who were running most of the ship’s Gunnery Stations for the exercise. “A reminder, ladies and gentlemen,” he said without preliminaries, “that your after action reports are due to me almost immediately.”

One of the girls looked up from her data pad. “Almost finished, sir!”

“May I see it?” He held out his hand and she handed him the pad, which he scanned quickly. “You’ve done a great deal of excellent work, Cadet MacGill, but what I need is a dot point summary, not an essay. Write up a dot point frame and attach what you have so far as an appendix. Remember, you might have to write multiple after action reports in one day and this ship has over a dozen Gunnery Stations. Neither of us have time for essays.”

“Yes, sir.” MacGill’s face had dropped.

“Dot points are your friend, MacGill, keep that in mind.” With that, the weapons officer moved on, looking for another table. When he found it he said, “Cadet Gens.”

“Sir?” Parthi looked up and lay down her fork. The rest of the cadets at the table stopped eating too.

“I’m impressed with the turnaround time on your after action report. Keep up the good work.”

“Thank you, sir. I’ll try, sir.” Parthi looked at him warily.

“One small nit-pick, though.” He smiled. “I know what KWOS stands for but it’s not a Navy approved contraction. Don’t use it in future.”

“Thank you sir, I’ll do that, sir.”

“Good. Carry on, Cadet Gens,” and with that he went off to his own wardroom.

“So,” the therapist smiled across the corner of his desk at the young woman who’d come in for her first therapy session, “in your own words, why are you here?”

“My grandparents can’t accept that my parents are dead and want to throw money at private investigators and others of less dubious ilk to find them. They all think I’m being “obstructionist” and they want you to help me become non-obstructionist.”

“And what do you think about that?” The therapist had a reputation for a kindly, paternal professional persona.

“It’s not going to change that I saw them both die on the first day of the war.” Parthi sighed. “My grandparents tell me that I was only eleven and didn’t know what I was seeing but, unfortunately…”

“You have told your grandparents this?” The therapist was making notes as they spoke.

“Yes. I’ve told them that if they want to find Mum and Dad, then they need to find out what the enemy did with the bodies of the people killed on the streets of Safkella when they invaded but my grandmothers insist that they would “know” if my parents were dead.” Parthi smiled wryly. “Apparently their intuition trumps what I saw.”

“There’s no chance that you’ve filled in details over the years to explain why your parents didn’t come back for you after you were separated?”

“I see you’ve been briefed by my grandparents.” The wry smile hadn’t disappeared from Parthi’s face. “No chance at all. I survived, my parents didn’t and my grandparents want to cling to false hope.”

“And you have no need for closure?”

“What’s to close? My parents were killed by enemy soldiers who probably didn’t even see them, but we won the war. It might be nice to have somewhere to go and lay flowers someday, but at best it’s going to be a mass grave site.”

“And at worst?” The pen had stopped moving.

“Well, that depends entirely on what they did with the bodies, doesn’t it?”

It was almost three quarters of the way through the academic year and the Academy’s biggest annual training exercise was about to begin. All the pieces to make it happen were moving into place. Aboard a Decindalus-class shuttle Parthi Gens and fifty-nine other cadets of various years were being transferred to the Malice of Maldeumer, a ship of the line. The safety briefing was over and Parthi had pulled out the data pad that contained her briefing material for the exercise.

Maide, Parthi’s roommate, was seated next to her and remonstrated quietly, “Parthi, what are you doing?”

“Reading my info material for the exercise, now the embargo’s over.” Parthi highlighted a phrase in the briefing and made a notation on the pad.

“But this is our first trip into space on a military shuttle,” Maide protested. “Aren’t you excited?”

“It’s a stock standard shuttle,” replied Parthi prosaically. “Nothing interesting will happen, may it please the gods of your birth and choice because interesting on a shuttle trip is bad, so I might as well get my reading done.”

“So, what role did you get?” Maide was looking around to see if anyone else was using their data pad.

“Gunnery officer,” Parthi tapped something on the data pad.

“But isn’t that a fourth year course?”

“Yes, but they’re letting me fill the slot anyway.” Parthi gave her roommate a sly grin, “Maide, this exercise is both learning experience and examination combined and the reading time has begun. What do you think you’re doing?”

The train pulled into the station that serviced the Academy with twenty minutes left before curfew. “Finally,” breathed Parthi.

“Well, you two obviously aren’t joining me for a quick hot chocolate and dessert before you report in,” added Merrick. “A pity. There’s this really nice little place just outside the university gates. It’s on your way and everything.”

“Maybe another time,” Danovan said easily. They were off the train now and it was pulling out. “I suspect all the taxis will be gone by the time we clear the station but it’s only a brisk walk to where we’re going.”

All the taxis were indeed gone when they walked out of the confines of railway station. The three of them ignored the gaggle of university students waiting for taxis to return and set off at a brisk pace in the direction of their destinations. Ten minutes down the road, Merrick parted company with them at the university’s gates.

“It’s been good to see you both again,” the smile under the purple lensed glasses was cheerful. “Now I’ll go get some sleep so I can psych out the jocks in the gym tomorrow morning. Don’t shilly-shally you two.” Then he was gone into the night with a cheerful wave.

Five more minutes up the road and they were at the Academy’s entrance gate with two minutes to spare. There was, however, line up to get in with a cluster of cadets off to one side being processed for something by two of the Marine guards. Danovan surveyed the scene and swore under his breath. “I’ll have to leave you here,” he told Parthi. “Time for me to go to work and sort out this game of silly buggers.”

He strode to the head of the line, ignoring the protests of the cadets and Marines he passed and went to the group off to one side. Parthi couldn’t hear what he said but she could see the two processing Marines stiffen to attention and then shepherd their charges in through the gate. Danovan then went to the guards on the gate, showed his pass, got another stiffening to attention from both of them that lasted while he said something that looked sharp and to the point to them, and suddenly the queue through the gate began to flow much faster.

Parthi had been joined at the end of the queue by an officer in civilian clothes whom she didn’t quite recognise but who seemed pleased with the events unfolding at the head of the queue. His voice when he’d answered her polite acknowledgement of, “Sir,” with, “Cadet,” had been familiar too but not enough for her to place the voice. When they passed through the gate, just as the hour was striking, the officer commented to Danovan who was standing there, apparently supervising a shaken looking Marine sergeant, “Well handled, Master Gunnery Sergeant.”

“Thank you, Commandant.”

Parthi cocked an eyebrow at her friend, “Congratulations on the promotion. You might have mentioned it.”

“And spoil a good evening out by making things uncomfortable?” Danovan shrugged. “It didn’t seem worth it. Stay out of trouble, Cadet Gens.”

“Oh, I will, Master Gunnery Sergeant Danovan. I have no wish to be in your punishment book.”

“Very proper,” observed the Commandant. “Cadet Gens, how long have you known our new Master Gunnery Sergeant?”

Parthi turned to him, “Since I was fourteen, sir.”

“Ah, an old friend of the family then?”

“That flavour of relationship, yes sir.”

“Indeed, Cadet?” The commandant spared a glance for Danovan then added, “Carry on, Cadet Gens.”

“Yes, sir!” With that Parthi escaped towards her quarters.