The Stars Down Under (2 page)

Further sleep eluded him. He played Izim for a while but got killed multiple times. Just before dawn he pulled on some gym clothes. He opened the top drawer of his dresser and palmed a small dilly bag. Inside were two carved totems of geckos. One had been a gift, and the other had been his mother's.

For the first time in months he tied the bag around his waist and felt its comforting weight.

Outside, the air was hot and dawn was just lightening the sky. The faux-brick homes were a bit affluent for his tastes, but Jodenny's rank had its privileges and he supposed he'd have to get used to them. At the end of the street was a steep wooded hill dotted with senior-officer homes. He jogged up it, the dilly bag bouncing against his skin. The exertion left him winded but the view at the top was worth it.

“Good morning, Kimberley,” he said.

The rising sun sent yellow light streaking over Fortune's capital city. Myell could see the Parliament buildings, the graceful expanse of the Harbor Bridge, and a wide, disorienting expanse of silver-blue ocean. He hated the ocean. In the center of the city stood the Team Space pyramid, blue and clean and beautiful, the hub of its interplanetary operations.

The birds had woken up, kookaburras and doves mostly, and over their song he heard the unmistakable sound of an approaching security flit. Myell kept his gaze on the city and his hands in plain sight on the railing.

“Good morning, sir,” a woman's voice said behind him. “Routine security check. Everything all right up here?”

Slowly he turned. “Good morning, officers. Everything's fine.”

The woman was a brunette with the insignia of a regular tech. Her nametag read
M. CHIN
. Her partner, Apprentice Mate H. Saro, was smaller and slimmer, and had the coiled tenseness of a dog with something to prove.

“Do you live here, sir?” RT Chin asked.

“Chief Myell. I just moved in. Twenty-four hundred Eucalyptus Street,” he said.

“Chiefs don't live in officer housing,” Saro said.

Myell pushed down a flare of annoyance. He reached carefully into his pocket and handed over his identification card. Chin retreated with it to the flit. Saro rested one hand on the mazer in his belt and tried to look fierce.

“Are there regulations against people taking a morning walk?” Myell asked him.

“Most people don't walk around when it's still dark out.”

“Sun's up,” Myell pointed out.

Saro glared at him. “And they have the common sense to exercise in the gym.”

“Fresh air's better for you.”

Chin returned. “Sorry, Chief. You're all clear. People get nervous when they look out their windows and see a strange face, that's all. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

“But he's not—” Saro started.

“Shut up, Hal.” Chin nodded briskly at Myell. “Can we give you a lift home, Chief?”

“No. I'll walk.”

Saro gave him one last suspicious look before the security flit drove off. Myell started downhill. He imagined eyes watching him from every window. An hour later, after forcing down breakfast and checking his uniform for the tiniest flaws, he joined the morning crowd at the monorail station. He hung back against the railing so he wouldn't sprain his elbow offering salutes. A few curious glances came his way, but no one spoke to him or challenged his right to be there.

He didn't flaunt his Silver Star, but a lieutenant with bloodshot eyes said, “Earn that the hard way?”

“Is there any other way, sir?” Myell asked.

The lieutenant squinted at Myell's deployment patches. “That's the
Aral Sea'
s emblem. You help beat off those terrorists at Baiame?”

“Something like that.”

The lieutenant raised his coffee cup in salute, then turned away as a train pulled in.

Kimberley's public transportation system was a hub-and-spoke design. At Green Point Myell transferred to another train and rode several stops with civilians, students, and other military personnel until they reached Water Street. Supply School was easy to find. It occupied a pierside base wedged between shipping companies and freighter lines. The flags of Fortune, the Seven Sisters, and Team Space flapped overhead, bright in the sunshine. The air smelled like fuel and vile salt water.

“Second building to the right, Chief,” a gate guard told Myell. “They'll help you over there.”

Once Myell was inside the steel and glass building, a receptionist took him past cubicles where RTs and civilian staff were busy socializing. The enlisted men saw Myell and got to work. The civilians were slower about it. Large vids on the walls displayed student status, lists of instructor assignments, and announcements for Saturday's graduation ceremony. The name of the Supply School commander, Captain Kuvik, was prominently displayed everywhere.

The cubicle maze ended in a small office where Moroccan rugs hung on the walls and hand-woven baskets decorated the shelves. A bald sergeant with brown skin rose from his desk, offering a smile and a handshake.

“Bob Etedgy, Chief,” he said. “Welcome back to Supply School.”

“Thanks. In truth, I never came through in the first place.”

“Got all your training in the fleet? Me, too.” Etedgy cleared off a chair for Myell. “Don't let them hear you say it around here, but direct experience is always better than sitting on your ass in a classroom.”

Etedgy had already arranged for Myell's security pass, had requisitioned a parking slot in case he ever wanted to drive in, and had put together a bright red orientation folder emblazoned with the Supply School emblem.

“You'll be meeting with Captain Kuvik at oh-nine-hundred. He meets with every new instructor, nothing to worry about there. Until then I'll take you on the guided tour. Officer training is down the street, in their own building with their own faculty and staff, so we'll skip that. I'll also get you set up with a locker down in the training room. Most of us commute in civilian clothes and change into uniform here—saves on the wear and tear, you know, and it's okay as long as it's before the students arrive. Captain's not keen on us being seen as regular human beings.”

He said it with a smile, but Myell didn't think he was joking.

The classrooms were on the second and third decks of the building. Khaki-clad chiefs were already lecturing, administering tests, or conducting multimedia presentations. The upper decks contained computer labs, a library, and a chapel. The mess hall was in an adjacent building, and beyond it was the gymnasium.

“So where did they stash you and your wife for quarters?” Etedgy asked. “Widen? Sally Bay? My wife and I have been on the waiting list for Lake Lu for a year.”

“Nice, is it?”

“Best you can do for enlisted housing around here.”

“Is that how long you've been here? A year?” Myell asked, and successfully diverted the topic.

Just before oh-nine-hundred they returned to the main building and rode the lift to the fifth deck, which offered marvelous views of the sea traffic heading in and out of port. Myell kept his gaze averted. Captain Kuvik's suite was impeccably furnished and much larger than a shipboard captain's. The walls were vidded with photos of square-shouldered graduating students, all of them ready to march off into the fleet and inflict invoices for every last roll of toilet paper.

Not that Myell thought poorly of his career track. Supply sailors didn't earn the same glory as flight crews and didn't save lives like the medical corps, but someone had to keep food, equipment, uniforms, materials, and weapons moving down the Alcheringa and throughout the Seven Sisters.

“Chief Myell to see the captain,” Etedgy announced.

Captain Kuvik's secretary, a thin man with antique glasses perched on his nose, gave Myell an unfriendly look. He pinged the inner office and repeated Etedgy's words.

“Send him in,” a man replied.

Myell stepped into Kuvik's office. Windows screened out the sunlight. Classical music from pre-Debasement Earth played softly on a hidden radio. Kuvik, an older man with rugged features and white hair, nodded Myell toward a chair. Five rows of ribbons were pinned above his left pocket. Some of them were for enlisted sailors only, meaning he'd worked his way up through the ranks. The office smelled like peppermint.

“Sergeant Etedgy show you around?” Kuvik asked.

“Yes, sir.” The chair was hard under Myell, and a little low to the floor. “It's an impressive complex.”

“The enlisted school graduates three hundred ATs a month, and we teach advanced courses to twice as many RTs and sergeants. Do the job right or don't do it at all, I tell them. I disenroll anyone who doesn't take the job seriously, and I won't have any instructors who think this is a three-year vacation after years of running down the Alcheringa.”

“I don't think of this is a vacation, Captain.”

Kuvik gave no indication of having heard him. “Just because Fleet assigns someone here doesn't mean you get to be in front of one of my classrooms. My instructors are role models for young ATs who need direction and guidance. You don't pass muster, I'll stick you in a basement office and make you count requisitions eight hours a day.”

Myell knew all about being shoved into dead-end, tedious jobs. “I hope I pass muster, sir.”

Kuvik's gaze hardened. The music on the radio rose in crescendo. Something by Beethoven, Myell thought. Or maybe not.

“I know you were instrumental in saving your ship after the insurgent attack off Baiame,” Kuvik said. “That Silver Star they gave you proves that. Commander Wildstein on the
Aral Sea
speaks highly of you, and she's damned hard to please. But you also married your supervisor, Lieutenant Scott, which indicates an appalling lack of decorum and brings up serious issues of fraternization.”

“No fraternization charges were filed against Lieutenant
Commander
Scott or myself,” Myell said, making sure Kuvik knew her current rank.

“I'm not interested in whether your former captain had the balls to court-martial you for violating regulations.” Kuvik leaned forward, a muscle pulling in his cheek. “Worse than your playing house with Lieutenant
Commander
Scott is the fact that you've never undergone chief's training.”

Ah,
Myell thought.
The true crux of the problem.
He and Jodenny had discussed the ramifications of his refusal, rehearsed possible scenarios, but he'd sincerely hoped the issue wouldn't arise.

“I was promoted in the field while recovering from my injuries,” Myell said. “Authorized by my captain on behalf of Team Space to wear the insignia and uniform, and receive all the ranks and privileges of a Chief Petty Officer. When we arrived here, seven other sergeants on the
Aral Sea
were also approved for promotion.”

“And those seven sergeants immediately volunteered for chief's training over at Fleet. You refused.”

“Because the training is voluntary, and has been ever since the death of that sergeant on Kookaburra.”

Kuvik wagged a finger. “One mistake shouldn't override hundreds of years of tradition. Initiation marks the transition from sergeant to chief. You don't just put on the uniform. You're expected to be a leader, and being a leader means being accepted as an equal by your peers.”

Myell could already picture that basement office with his name posted by the door.

“That's where we disagree, sir. A leader rises above his peers instead of hovering in the pack with them. Team Space promotes us because of who we are and what we've done, not so we can reinvent ourselves. You can do whatever you like with me, but you're not going to convince me that a month of being humiliated and bullied will make me more fit to wear this uniform.”

Myell realized his voice had risen. He clamped his mouth shut. He'd given the captain enough to hang him with already.

Kuvik leaned back in his chair. The radio fell silent, and a cormorant cried out behind the windows as it swooped down toward the water.

“There are some people from Fleet in my conference room,” Kuvik finally said. “They want to talk to you. Something hush-hush and very important. Any idea what?”

Myell thought instantly of the Rainbow Serpent, and of the jobs he and Jodenny had turned down in a secret underground complex back on Warramala a few months ago.

“No, sir,” he said.

Kuvik rose from his chair. “Go talk to them, Chief. And if they offer you a transfer, you'd better take it. It'll be a better deal than anything you're going to get here.”

CHAPTER
TWO

The outside world was too bright, even with sunglasses shading her eyes. Jodenny Scott resisted the urge to lie down on the sidewalk for twelve hours of sleep and kept walking down Sydney Boulevard. Train, home, bed. Those were her only goals.

She thought about pinging Myell, but he would already be at Supply School meeting his co-workers and getting settled in. The last few weeks hadn't been easy for him. Her part, going off to work every morning, had been simple. He'd had to lease a flit, get them moved into housing, buy furniture they'd never needed before, and organize their personal lives. He had done it all without complaint, and had even arranged for a dozen long-stemmed red roses to be on her desk her first day at Fleet.

She hadn't been able to send him off in style, but maybe she could make his first night home special.

“Jo?” a woman asked from nearby. “Jo Scott?”

Jodenny stopped. Sydney Boulevard was a wide avenue of shops, cafés, and office buildings, an eclectic mixture of old and new architecture. Foot and street traffic were both heavy. A redhead with a baby in a back carrier was standing nearby, her smile wide.

Jodenny asked, “Noreen? Is that you?”

“Yes!” Noreen Cross threw her arms around Jodenny in an exuberant hug. “It's great to see you! You look fabulous!”