“Ensign Serrano,” he said, in response to Barin’s formal greeting. “Always glad to have a Serrano aboard.” The twinkle in his gray eyes suggested that he meant it. “I served under your . . . uncle or great-uncle, I suppose. There are too many of you Serranos to keep straight.” Barin had heard that before. And the Escovars, though an old Fleet family, had never had as many on active service at one time as the Serranos. “You’ve had an unusual set of assignments so far, I see. I hope you won’t find us too mundane.”
“By no means, sir,” Barin said. “I’m delighted to be here.”
“Good. We have only three other command-track ensigns at the moment, all with a half-standard year on this ship.” Which meant they already knew things he would have to scramble to learn. “My exec is Lieutenant Commander Dockery. He has all your initial assignments.”
Lieutenant Commander Dockery spent five minutes dissecting Barin’s past career and preparation, pointed out that he was a half year behind his peers, and then sent him on to Master Chief Zuckerman to get his shiptags, data cubes, and other necessities. Barin came out of Dockery’s office wondering if Zuckerman was another step on the “cut the ensigns down to size” production line.
Master Chief Zuckerman nodded when Barin introduced himself. “I served with Admiral Vida Serrano on the Delphine. And you’re her grandson, I understand?” Zuckerman was a big man, heavily built, who looked about forty. Rejuv, of course; no one made master chief by forty.
“That’s right, Chief.”
“Well. How may I help you, sir?” A lifetime’s experience with the breed told Barin that the twinkle in Zuckerman’s eye was genuine . . . for whatever mysterious reasons senior enlisted sometimes decided to like young officers, Zuckerman had decided to like him.
“Commander Dockery told me to acquaint myself with the starboard watch orders—”
“Yes, sir. Right here.” Zuckerman fumbled a cube out of a file. “This has your schematics, your billeting list, your duty stations. Now you can either view it here, or check it out; if you check it out, it’s a level-two security incident, and I’ll require your signature on the paperwork.”
“I’d better check it out,” Barin said. “I’m on duty four shifts from now, and I’m supposed to know it by then.”
“You’ll do fine, sir,” Zuckerman said. He rummaged a bit in a drawer and came up with an array of papers. “Captain likes hardcopy on all checkouts of secured documents, so it really is paperwork.”
Barin signed on the designated line, initialled in the spaces. “When do I have to have it back?”
“Fourteen hundred tomorrow, sir.”
Barin smiled at him. “Thanks, Chief.”
“Good to have you aboard, sir.”
There were worse ways to start ship duty than by having a master chief for a friend; Barin went off to put his duffel in his quarters considerably cheered. He knew Zuckerman would be as critical—perhaps more critical—than another man; he knew he would have to live up to Zuckerman’s standards. But if a master chief took a youngster under his wing, then only a fool would ignore the chance to learn and prosper. It was probably due to his Serrano inheritance—but that worked both ways, and it was pleasant to have it working his way for once.
Young officers in command track were expected to know everything moderately well; ensigns rotated through various systems and sections of the cruiser, learning by doing—or, as often, by making mistakes less critical at their level than later on. The other three ensigns aboard had all started at the bottom—environmental—and completed their two-month rotation there, so Barin expected his first assignment: unaffectionately known as the “shit scrubber special.”
“Your nose is unreliable,” he was told by the environmental tech officer he reported to. “You think it stinks—and it does stink—but your nose gets used to it. Use your badges and readouts, and any time you’re actually opening units, suit up. This stuff is deadly.”
Barin wanted to ask why they weren’t all dead then, but he knew better than to joke with someone like Jig Arendy. It was clear from her expression that she took sewage treatment very seriously, and—he suspected—spent every spare moment reading up on new technology.
She led him through the system he would help maintain, explaining every color-coded pipe, every label, every gauge and dial. Then she turned him over to Scrubber Team 3, and told him to do a practice inspection of the system from intake 14 to outputs 12 to 15. “And you can’t use that old saw about flagpoles,” she warned him. “This is my test team, and they’ll do exactly what—and only what—you tell them.”
Barin heaved an internal sigh, but started in. He remembered almost everything—he forgot to have them turn off the check-valve between primary feed and the intermediate scrubbers—and Arendy gave him a grudging thumbs-up. Then she spent ten minutes with the flow diagrams explaining exactly why that check-valve should be closed during routine inspections.
In a few days, Barin felt he was fitting in well. All four command-track ensigns bunked together; they were pleasant enough, and genuinely glad that someone else had the scrubber duty for the next two months. Meals in the junior wardroom enabled him to meet the other juniors—jigs and lieutenants—who were his immediate superiors. Jig Arendy, he discovered, could talk about something other than sewage; she turned out to be an avid follower of celebrity newsflashes. She and a handful of others discussed celebrities as if they were family members, endlessly poring over their clothes, their love affairs, their amusements. When she found he’d been at Copper Mountain with Brun Meager, she wanted to know all about it. Was she really as beautiful as her pictures? What kind of clothes did she wear? Had there been many newsflash shooters around?
Barin answered what he could, but luckily it did not occur to Arendy that he himself might have been a target of Brun’s attention. When the wardroom discussions of Brun became uncomfortable, he took himself off. He would much rather listen to Zuckerman’s tales of the old days in Delphine, with his grandmother. She’d never told him about the time a missile hung in the tube with a live warhead.
He mentioned that to Petty-light Harcourt, while they were replacing a section of feeder pipe.
“Zuckerman is . . . well, he’s Zuckerman,” the petty-light said.
Barin was surprised at the tone. P-lights knew more than he did, and he’d never met one who didn’t admire a master chief. But Harcourt sounded unsure. He thought of asking more, but decided against it. Whatever it was, a mere ensign shouldn’t be getting involved. If Harcourt had a serious problem, he also had the seniority to feel comfortable taking it to his own commander.
He had come to that decision when Harcourt sighed, an expressive sigh, and went on.
“It’s like this, sir . . . Zuckerman’s got a fine record, and I’m not saying anything against him. But he’s . . . changed, in this last tour. He’s not the man he was. We all know it, and we make allowances.”
But allowance shouldn’t have to be made, not for a master chief. Harcourt was still looking at him, and Barin realized he was expecting a comment.
“Family?” he murmured. It must’ve been the right thing to say, because Harcourt relaxed.
“I wouldn’t bring this up with a junior officer, begging your pardon sir, but you are a Serrano, and . . . well . . . the chief’s always talking about the time he served with a Serrano on Delphine. It’s not anything we—I—can understand. It’s not all the time. Just sometimes he’s . . . it’s like he forgets things. The kind of thing you just don’t forget, not with his years. We—I—have to have someone check his pressure-suit settings, for instance. One emergency drill, he didn’t even have his suit sealed.”