The Stars Down Under Read Free

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.
    â€œSo 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.”
    â€œNice, is it?”
    â€œBest you can do for enlisted housing around here.”
    â€œIs 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.
    â€œChief 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.
    â€œSend 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.
    â€œSergeant Etedgy show you around?” Kuvik asked.
    â€œYes, sir.” The chair was hard under Myell, and a little low to the floor. “It’s an impressive complex.”
    â€œThe 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.”
    â€œI 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.
    â€œI 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