Chapter 10 - Commissioning
It was a closely guarded state secret which of the Twin Monarchs was born 8 seconds before the other, and they had always been careful to present a completely united front of total harmony and unity despite their different choices of interests, personal lives and charitable projects. When it came to Events of State, a whole new set of protocols had been devised to ensure unity through simultaneity, balance and symmetry. Aesthetically and culturally, the birth of the twins in the 2030s had heralded a true renaissance in both British Constitutional Monarchy and in strengthening the Commonwealth nations. As always, staying above politics and policy, the Twin Monarchs came to represent British values and a kind of feeling of the United Kingdom finally stepping forward as a positive force in the world after decades of becoming an ever less important backwater during the great power politics struggles between Mainland Europe, China and the USA. Or so potential officers in the British Space Force were required to believe. The Twin Monarch, King Alexander and King Albert, would of course be witnessing the Commissioning Parade of this new batch of Space Force Officers as usual, but it was an especially important even due to King Alexander's youngest son and one of his cousins, being members of 12 Platoon. Of course, as was tradition, the two Royal cadets were both simply referred to as Cadet Wales and Cadet Rothesay, and were, hopefully, treated just as any other cadet was.
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It was the night before the cadets of 10, 11 and 12 platoon became commissioned officers of Their Majesty's Officer Corps of the United Kingdom Space Force. Kat and her fellow officer cadets already had their regimental, corps and specialist interviews completed, knew what path lay ahead, where they would be deployed, and how long they would be there for. All academic and military skills scores had long since been recorded, tabulated and personalities assessed for PTT suitability (Person-Team-Task). The PTT assessment was possibly the most nerve wracking of all the assessments as there was nothing you could do about it. Cadets often joked that the cadet camp was a 9 month long job interview not a training course, and in most respects they were incorrect. The PTT however was conducted, they were told, by trained psychologists who had access to Alpha-Black level surveillance technology and made their determinations based on anything and everything you did the entire time you were on base.
Some cadets freaked out in their first week upon learning of the Total Surveillance system, or tried to game it. Both tended to burn out in a very short time. Eventually everyone (who didn't quit) got used to and forgot about it. All you could do was trust that the observers were wise enough and experienced enough to understand the nuances of human interaction and not hold an off-colour joke, or a rare temper tantrum against an otherwise good potential leader.
Of course, what the cadets were not told is that this psychological technology was far older and far closer than they realised; the trained psychologists who observed their 9 months of behaviour in totality before making their PTT assessment, were of course their Platoon Training Staff, the various Colour and Staff Sergeants who looked after them day in, day out during their whole period of training.
The Space Force took the psychological sciences very seriously. It might be true that "in space nobody can hear you scream" but humans still try to scream. They had had enough accidents and incidents recorded to prove it. You can't build a space force out of super humans - there just aren't enough of them. The men and women being sent to work, fight, lead, follow, fight and defend in space were still humans. In fact, without society and most of its comforts, the harshness of both the space and military environments tended to reveal the deepest and most human parts of the soul.
Kat and her friends from 11 and 10 Platoon stood around in the corridor of their barracks, ironing shirts, polishing boots in various states of civvy and military dress. By now the cleaning and prep routines were so automatic and routine they had become comforting.
Christina, Tom and Louise were sitting on the floor in loose sportswear playing cards. Kat and Stuart, another 10 Platooner, were sitting bulling their parade boots. By now almost all inter-platoon rivalries had broken down and people as everyone knew which regiment they would be going to. Stuart and Kat were destined for the OPR, Orbital Proximity Regiment. The three card players were going SMC, Survey and Mining Corps. The four cadets down the hallway ironing were destined for "SRE", surveillance and radar engineering roles, and would be attached operational units all across the space force as needed. Kat was pleased. Many were surprised that she had chosen such a high risk regiment. Usually it was the gung-ho, attack first, think second types who went for OPR. It had the kind of prestige and glamour that a bomb disposal squad or an infiltration specialist might have had in centuries past.
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Not much was known about The Object. Since appearing in outer orbit just over a year and half before, all kinds of tests and contact attempts had been made. Every one malfunctioned, died or disappeared. So, the OPR was created. Unlike other parts of the Force, like the Regiment of Orbital Artillery or the Royal Intercontinental Logistics Corps, whose focus was on using space as the 'ultimate high ground' through which power could be projected to anywhere else on Earth, the OPR's role was entirely and specifically to monitor, assess and attempt to interact with The Object. And if things went well, to be a formal guard force with a potential diplomatic/contact role (if theories around alien origins proved to be correct) or if things went poorly, the OPR were to be the first line of both attack and defense against whatever effect, circumstance or process The Object created. With such a broad remit, clearly a result of too much speculation and not enough consideratin, it was not at all clear whether the OPR were a scientific and technical investigation regiment akin to the old Arctic Survey vessels of the Royal Navy, or if they were some kind of special forces first strike force.
After over 19 months now of The Object just hanging in space above the Earth, most people had become quite used to it. Much like the cadets became used to Total Surveillance, or like how the people of the 2020s became used to medical tyranny. In all honesty, Kat was a rarity - most cadets wanted the potential riches that Mining Duty promised, or the military prestige that the nuclear and gamma bomb wielding ground and satellite stations controlled. Most people, it seems, had been awed by The Object for precisely one weekend, and then had gone back to work, switched back on their entertainment screens and continued on with their lives.
That first weekend had been a conspiracy theorist's dream. The doomsday preppers were insisting that all animal life would start to die off due to the reflection from The Object making night times much lighter than our world had been used to for billions of years. Others predicted that the tides would change and this would disrupt everything for ocean going cargo to the natural monthly cycles of every species that lives outside of the subaquatic thermal vents of the mid-Atlantic. Others had predicted gravitic effects inducing new volcanoes to form, or tsunami to engulf half of the world's coastlines. On and on the news had peddled the fear-porn into the minds of a terrified public. But that kind of fear cannot be maintained. People noticed that the various global satellite networks had not been disrupted, nor the ocean tides and currents, nor had the bees lost their magnetic locating systems, nor had volcanoes and Cthulu risen from the deep in the South Pacific. And so life went back to normal for most people.
But a certain few realised that the lack of effect was actually more terrifying. No gravitic effects? At all? This Object was three times the size of the moon about about 5 times closer to Earth and it wasn't disrupting any of our technologic or naturalistic systems?
Was this a technology that proved mass's interaction with space time, causing the effects we call both gravity and time dilation, was some how alterable? Or was this a massless Object? What would it even mean to be a massless Object? Was the Object even, then, of this Universe or was it perhaps not registering in our universe while still somehow being perceptible to us? Was it really white and smooth or was it in fact giving out the equivalent of "no data" caused by sensory overload?
Kat hoped that she could get as close as any human could to The Object. She had moved Heaven and Earth, taken on promises and commitments she wasn't sure she could keep, some which even conflicted with each other. She had declared loyalty to the Twin Monarchs. She had made certain assurances to her family back in Japan. She needed to get to the Dragon's Egg before anyone else did. And the United Kingdom Space Force was the fastest way she knew how.
Kat had considered applying to join the Japanese Space Program, JAXA, but had realised that with Japan still adhering strictly to its pacifist constitution, the only options she had were those in the militaristic powers, and of those, she of course had the greatest chance of success in her other homeland, the UK. She half kicked herself for never taking up those marketing or public speaking roles offered her by the university political organisations. No, as a person without particular connections but with drive and ability, the British military was the best chance she had of getting to the Dragon's Egg before anyone else. And so she was here. Now. About to commission as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Orbital Proximity Regiment. And she couldn't have been happier.