Candidate School. It’ll give you a head start during the selection process for OCS, and while attending it. The intermediate and advanced Instructor courses aren’t so useful for that purpose, but if you’re selected for a commission and pass OCS, you may not be in enlisted ranks long enough to take them anyway.”
“ Sir, understood, Sir. This recruit will do as you suggest, Sir.”
“ Then I wish you the best of luck.”
~ ~ ~
The announcement that evening that Alonzo Mendez would be the platoon’s Honor Graduate, and that their unit had been confirmed as the Honor Platoon for the course, was greeted with cheers. However, the loudest celebrations came when PO Kilrain produced a bottle of clear liquid and a lighter from his pocket. “No one’s going to fail now, so there’s a little ceremony performed by all platoons at the end of Boot Camp. How would you like to burn your white armbands?”
The entire platoon yelped in joyful unison, “Sir, yes, SIR!”
“ Right. We’ll do that in a fire bucket.”
Of the eighty members of the platoon at the start of Boot Camp, twenty–three had used their armbands; eight others had been dismissed as unsuitable for Fleet service in one way or another; and three recruits had gone to the hospital, to restart Boot Camp with a subsequent training cycle after their injuries had healed. The forty–six survivors gathered around the fire bucket in a happy, jostling mob, reaching into their pockets for the hated armbands. Their immolation would celebrate their imminent triumph.
~ ~ ~
Steve stood rigidly at attention before Captain Mainyard as the Adjutant read his promotion orders, her voice echoing through the public address system. The Captain took the single chevron of Spacer Second Class rank from a cushion held by an aide and pressed it firmly, point upward, onto the hook–and–loop patch on his left sleeve.
“Congratulations, Spacer Maxwell.” He shook his hand.
“ Thank you, Sir.” Steve stepped back, saluted, turned, and marched across the dais and down the steps to rejoin his platoon. He heard muttered whispers of congratulation from his fellow recruits — no, fellow Spacers and Marines now, he mentally reminded himself — as he took his position in the front rank.
He cast his mind back over the past two and a half years. He’d gone from being a penniless hanger–on aboard an Elevator terminal, searching desperately for a break that would give him a fresh start, to being a qualified merchant spacer and pilot, to being a brand–newly–qualified military spacer. He was on his way to earning a citizenship that would offer him the opportunity to rise as high as his talents could take him, without the stifling hand of bureaucracy keeping him down. On the downside, he’d gone from being an orphan, to having the best surrogate father he could ever imagine, to losing him. He didn’t know if anything or anyone would ever be able to fill the yawning, painful gap in his soul left by Vince Cardle’s death.
Well, I guess I’ll find out in due course, he thought to himself. I’m in the best place to take on pirates wherever I find them. That’ll be my memorial to you, Vince. I’ll do my best to make all of them pay for killing you. I hope you’ll know about that, wherever you are now. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to tell you about it. I hope so, anyway.
Decontam
April–July 2840, Galactic Standard Calendar
Steve walked through the airlock, stepping to one side to clear the way for those following him. He turned to face the ship’s crest above the Commonwealth flag on the rear wall of the docking bay, came to attention and saluted smartly, then examined the outsize painting curiously. It portrayed an attractive, buxom young woman stepping down barefoot from a rock, clad from the neck down in a flowing ankle–length dress. Her right hand and arm were raised, carrying a pitcher, and in her left hand she bore a goblet. Her hair was tied back in a
“ Sir, understood, Sir. This recruit will do as you suggest, Sir.”
“ Then I wish you the best of luck.”
~ ~ ~
The announcement that evening that Alonzo Mendez would be the platoon’s Honor Graduate, and that their unit had been confirmed as the Honor Platoon for the course, was greeted with cheers. However, the loudest celebrations came when PO Kilrain produced a bottle of clear liquid and a lighter from his pocket. “No one’s going to fail now, so there’s a little ceremony performed by all platoons at the end of Boot Camp. How would you like to burn your white armbands?”
The entire platoon yelped in joyful unison, “Sir, yes, SIR!”
“ Right. We’ll do that in a fire bucket.”
Of the eighty members of the platoon at the start of Boot Camp, twenty–three had used their armbands; eight others had been dismissed as unsuitable for Fleet service in one way or another; and three recruits had gone to the hospital, to restart Boot Camp with a subsequent training cycle after their injuries had healed. The forty–six survivors gathered around the fire bucket in a happy, jostling mob, reaching into their pockets for the hated armbands. Their immolation would celebrate their imminent triumph.
~ ~ ~
Steve stood rigidly at attention before Captain Mainyard as the Adjutant read his promotion orders, her voice echoing through the public address system. The Captain took the single chevron of Spacer Second Class rank from a cushion held by an aide and pressed it firmly, point upward, onto the hook–and–loop patch on his left sleeve.
“Congratulations, Spacer Maxwell.” He shook his hand.
“ Thank you, Sir.” Steve stepped back, saluted, turned, and marched across the dais and down the steps to rejoin his platoon. He heard muttered whispers of congratulation from his fellow recruits — no, fellow Spacers and Marines now, he mentally reminded himself — as he took his position in the front rank.
He cast his mind back over the past two and a half years. He’d gone from being a penniless hanger–on aboard an Elevator terminal, searching desperately for a break that would give him a fresh start, to being a qualified merchant spacer and pilot, to being a brand–newly–qualified military spacer. He was on his way to earning a citizenship that would offer him the opportunity to rise as high as his talents could take him, without the stifling hand of bureaucracy keeping him down. On the downside, he’d gone from being an orphan, to having the best surrogate father he could ever imagine, to losing him. He didn’t know if anything or anyone would ever be able to fill the yawning, painful gap in his soul left by Vince Cardle’s death.
Well, I guess I’ll find out in due course, he thought to himself. I’m in the best place to take on pirates wherever I find them. That’ll be my memorial to you, Vince. I’ll do my best to make all of them pay for killing you. I hope you’ll know about that, wherever you are now. Perhaps one day I’ll be able to tell you about it. I hope so, anyway.
Decontam
April–July 2840, Galactic Standard Calendar
Steve walked through the airlock, stepping to one side to clear the way for those following him. He turned to face the ship’s crest above the Commonwealth flag on the rear wall of the docking bay, came to attention and saluted smartly, then examined the outsize painting curiously. It portrayed an attractive, buxom young woman stepping down barefoot from a rock, clad from the neck down in a flowing ankle–length dress. Her right hand and arm were raised, carrying a pitcher, and in her left hand she bore a goblet. Her hair was tied back in a
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