Nic awoke to commotion in the barracks. It’s always something, he thought to himself. Two male voices—no, three—shouting something in an unconvincing, fake-hushed tone. Then laughter. He stood up from his bottom bunk, checking once on a sleeping Perri in the bunk above, before leaving in search of the commotion.
In passing, he noticed that Jarek and Max were both out of their bunks as well.
“What’s going on?” asked a familiar voice. Nic rounded a corner to another block of bunks and saw Eli standing there in his sleep uniform. In the dim light, he glanced up at Nic before returning his attention to someone in a bottom bunk.
“Sshhh,” said another voice, followed by incoherent giggling. A closer look revealed the culprits: Jarek, Maqsud, and Korbin from Team Ivory were all sitting up on a bottom bunk, passing a bottle of wine between them.
From Kullervo, Nic realized. They’re not supposed to be drinking that here!
“Guys,” he whispered, and they looked up at him with strangely innocent, childlike eyes, drunken smiles slowly forming on their faces. “You need to stash this stuff now and go back to sleep, before someone—”
“Before someone what?” said another voice, a hair above a whisper, just enough vocal vibration for Nic to recognize the speaker. Welch. The lieutenant stood there with his arms folded, glaring at the five of them. “You five, come with me this instant. Do not make another sound.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jarek solemnly, before clasping a hand over his mouth.
We are screwed, Nic thought. Bringing contraband into the barracks is an idiotic move! I don’t know what they could have possibly been thinking—or whose idea it was! He was instantly suspicious of the Team Ivory member. That’s not something Jarek or Max would do on their own.
Lieutenant Welch led them out to the broad corridor leading to the main deck. “RTIFIS,” he said in a low voice, “seal the doors.”
Eli began, “Sir—”
“Did I address you by name or number, soldier?!” Welch screamed. He stormed up and pressed his forehead against the forehead of the Ivory squad leader, glaring eye to eye. “Did I say a goddamn thing to you, soldier?” Silence. “I asked you a question! Did I request your input?”
“Sir, no, sir,” Eli answered stoically. Nic could tell he’d had experience with this kind of intimidation over the past year—they both did. It was harsher than anything they’d been subjected to during the Wargame era, but, like everything else, it just took practice. Eli stared straight ahead, focusing on nothing. Adjusted the tension in his shoulders.
“And you!” Lieutenant Welch yelled. Now it was Nic’s turn. “Don’t think I didn’t see you in that group!”
“Sir,” said Nic, “I was trying to break it up—”
“You all take a Hex spike through the eardrums or what?!” Welch pressed his forehead against Nic’s now, the stale mint of old stimulant gum on his breath. “I did not ask you a question, soldier! You are not an officer of the Galactic Defense Force! You do not have authority here! You have operational command during missions to ensure your squad follows orders effectively, and that is it! As far as the GDF is concerned, you’re another soldier just like anyone else!” He took a step back, glowering, a pronounced vein on his forehead. “And it looks like you couldn’t even do your own jobs, could you?”
Eli hazarded an interjection. “Sir, with all due respect, it was off-duty—”
“Off-duty?!” Welch blared. “On a Priority Three mission? No such thing! And I don’t give a good goddamn if it’s on the clock, in the mess hall, after lights out, or during goddamn story time in the reading room—contraband is contraband! Matter of fact, you and Siegfried both drop and give me fifty this instant!”
Nic dropped to the floor immediately, hands spaced shoulder-width apart, back straight—anything less than perfect form earned him more punishment, he knew from experience. One... two... three... He counted silently in his head as he pushed himself up from the floor at exactly the right pace; too slow was slacking, and too fast was being flippant with the punishment. Doing it just right was much harder than the exercise itself, but he managed to finish without another reprimand, standing up straight and awaiting his next directive.
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He didn’t dare look at the others, although he could see them out of the corner of his eye. They appeared scared sober.
“Now,” said Welch, satisfied with the squad leaders, “you three boozehounds can drop and give me one hundred! And you better do it before this timer goes off, or you get a hundred more!” The lieutenant activated his holowatch, displaying a holographic timer counting down from two minutes. “Straighten that back, Hakim, or you start over! That’s more like it...”
Welch paced back and forth, supervising their punishment, and Jarek was the only one to squeak by with a hundred pushups in one minute and fifty-five seconds. Nic imagined their intoxication didn’t help. Jarek collapsed face-first on the floor before scrambling back to his feet, standing up straight and panting.
“Ninety for Hakim—too slow—and Jacobs with seventy-five, not even close!” Welch restarted his timer. “Again!”
Nic couldn’t decide between contempt and sympathy for his squadmates. They’d done something stupid, but overall harmless, and he feared that these pushups were far from the end of the sentence Welch had in store for them.
On the second attempt, Maqsud did a hundred pushups in a minute and thirty-one seconds. “Hakim, clear,” Welch snapped without a trace of congratulation in his voice. “Eighty... eighty-one... Move it or lose it, Jacobs! Eighty-two! You wanna try a third time or what? Eighty-three!”
Come on, man, Nic cheered him on silently. Just get this over with so we can move on. I don’t want to be up all night.
A droplet of sweat dripped from Korbin’s forehead. On the eighty-fourth pushup, he grumbled something, groaning. Then he retched and something splashed against the floor. Everyone near him took a step back in disgust. Then Korbin started crying softly.
“There it is,” said Welch. “Got it outta your system, soldier? Good. Now you can clean it up. Then you three wait here and don’t move a damn muscle until I get back. Is that crystal clear?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” all three of them replied with varying degrees of alertness.
“Siegfried, Pierce, my office. Now!”
***
Lieutenant Welch’s office was a cramped room tucked away in the corner of a hallway on the second floor. He popped another piece of stimulant gum between his teeth, sitting at his desk and typing away at holokeys projected on the terraplastic surface. “Sit,” he said gruffly, and the two squad leaders obeyed. He sighed, typing some more on the projected keys made of hologram light, before looking up at them. “Do you know why this is a serious offense?”
Nic spoke up. “Yes, because soldiers brought contraband into the common—”
“No,” Welch cut him off. “No, Siegfried. I didn’t ask if it was a serious offense. I asked why.” He stared at them sternly over the bridge of his nose. “This incident is going in all three of their psych files. GDF keeps tabs on this sort of behavior. Behavior outside the norm can be dangerous to the mission, dangerous to ourselves, and dangerous to others. What you do on your shore leave or in private transit is between you and the law. But on a Beta-Class Carrier?” He shook his head. “You’re GDF property until the mission’s over. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Nic and Eli answered in unison.
“Are there any behavioral changes you two have noticed that I should be aware of? And before you answer, be aware that this is going on the record.”
“Sir, can you specify what you mean by behavioral changes?” Eli asked.
“Depressive mood, irritability, mood swings, habitual alcohol consumption—anything like that ring a bell?”
“No, sir,” Nic answered resolutely. He remembered from Team Scarlet’s student profiles, which he accessed as a Wargame squad leader, that Max had a history of some mental health problems, but Nic was no stranger to that. It was nothing that hindered Max’s performance—he was still his same old self. Jarek, on the other hand, was perfectly well-adjusted. Nic was confident this kind of behavior wouldn’t become a pattern.
“No, sir,” Eli echoed him. “Absolutely not.”
“And the crying?” Welch probed. “What do you suppose that was about? Don’t often see that before a mission.”
Nic’s mind flashed back to Danny; he felt a pang of regret.
“Korbin is a passionate soldier,” said Eli, “a model husband and father, and an asset to the Galactic Defense Force. He had an unfortunate lapse in judgment tonight. He was probably embarrassed. Ashamed.”
Welch finished his report and deactivated the holokeys. The room went dim again. “I hope it goes without saying that you two will not let this happen again, or there will be much more serious consequences—for you and your squads. Is that crystal goddamn clear to the both of you?”
“Yes, sir,” they answered at once, and Nic added, “Thank you, sir.”
“Oh, don’t thank me yet,” Welch chuckled. “I’m just layin’ some ground rules. You thought that was it?” Now he laughed heartily. “Hope you boys got a good night’s sleep last night. It’ll have to last ya until tomorrow night. You two are on sweeping duty.”
“Sir, like, with a broom?” Eli asked.
“No, like, with a mop. Yes, with a broom! The old-fashioned way! Need me to write the instructions on the handle?”
“No, sir.”
“Good! You’ll find them in the supply closet on Basement Level. I want every room on Level One swept into a dustpan!” He stood suddenly from his desk and they knew to do the same. “And if you got a problem with that, you can take bathroom duty like your subordinates, and I’ll make ‘em do more push-ups until they hurl again. Or can you gentlemen handle one night of sweeping?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” they replied.
Nic and Eli shared a look. Well, thought Nic, I wanted someone to hang out with, but not like this.