Tales from the Service: Homecoming on Metzali

2953-12-10 – Tales from the Service: Homecoming on Metzali

Feast season is upon us once again. We are no strangers to celebrating this most hallowed time of year on a war footing, obviously, but this year, this Cosmic Background embed team is celebrating it farther than ever from our homes and our loved ones. While we wouldn’t miss this experience for all the worlds in the Reach, it is still a difficult time of year to be a war correspondent. 

It is no less difficult of course for us than it is for the many hundreds of thousands of military spacers and ground forces personnel here on the Seventh Fleet front. Most of the veterans of the fleet have not been home for five years, and a few were already near the end of a tour when war broke out. These, unfortunately, haven’t been home for longer – some eight to ten years. 

Admiral Abarca wanted us to tell all of you out there that he’s trying to fast-track a wave of personnel rotations before the end of the year, so some who’ve been serving for the longest will be going home soon, some to academy tours, some to rear area duty and postings in the fleet formations not on a war footing, and some, if they choose, are going home, their tours of duty complete. While they won’t be getting home before Emmanuel Feast, most of those who are being rotated should be getting the news by that date. 

Though it was almost unheralded due to the fact that the attack was of small scale and barely opposed, Fifth Fleet and associated FVDA formations retook the minor outpost on Metzali in the closing days of November. Incarnation forces landed on the world without warning or opposition in 2950, and their forces deported all the civilians who didn’t disappear into the hills to their other holdings on the Coreward Frontier. Fortunately, estimates are that more than two thirds of the small population successfully evaded capture, owing to the relative youth of the colony and the small size of the occuation force. We recieved one account from a trooper who participated in this rather uneventful liberation. 

Arthur Klimek sat on the steps of the central colony administration building, his rail carbine across his knees. It was good to be home. 

Arthur had been a clerk in that very building before the war. He’d often sat on those very steps on pleasant days, eating his lunch, chatting with the other low-grade admin personnel and watching the trickle of Metzali colonists going into and out of the building, registering births and deaths, updating land holdings records, recording construction submitting survey data, and so on. Life had been good in those days; his salary was good enough even as a young professional just starting out to pay for a row-house in the spaceport town, an aircar, and a prefab cabin on fifty acres in the hills. Land on a new colony was cheap, especially when it was land that had been found to contain no particularly valuable minerals, and he’d hoped to find someone looking to settle down and have kids in a few years. 

Then the war had come, and FVDA recruiters had set up their booth in front of those very steps, showing holos of what had happened to Adimari Valis and other worlds that had fallen to Incarnation attack. They’d promised recruits a chance to make a difference, and to come home – if they survived – with stories to tell their grandchildren. Arthur, and many of the other young clerks working for central administration, had signed up. 

Metzali had been conquered while Arthur and his unit were still in training. It had been an afterthought on the newsfeeds; the world was small, inconsequential, its population largely taken to the hills or evacuated offworld in the face of a small occupation force. There were bigger crises then, and such tragedies were simply too numerous and too small for the public to worry about. 

That had been three years ago. Now, Arthur was home, albeit still in uniform, now a senior sergeant. He was the only native of Metzali in his battalion, and so had been called upon to help with the pre-drop briefing. They’d expected a sharp but brief fight with the garrison, but none had materialized; the spaceport they captured was a ghost town, its infrastructure partially and shallowly adapted as an Incarnation base. The detritus of a hastily abandoned occupation lay everywhere, but there was no sign of serious fighting. 

“How’s it feel to be home, Sarge?” 

Arthur looked up to see one of his newest squadmates, Private Vandek, picking his way across the littered plaza from the squad’s temporary shelter, an abandoned cafe. 

“It’s like a bad dream, Vandek.” Arthur gestured up to the building behind him. “Can you believe I used to work at a desk in there?” 

“You? At a desk, sir?” Vandek chuckled. “I can’t picture it.” 

Arthur smiled sadly. Three years in uniform and fighting on four different worlds had changed him far more than his world had been changed by the vandalism of its occupiers. “I suppose not. Did new orders come down?” 

“Just a minute ago.” Vandek hooked a thumb back toward the storefront where the rest of the squad was waiting. “There’s a transport on the way to pick us up. Word is there’s a fair bit of shooting down at the southeast end of town. Someone in the eight-five-one finally found where the bastards are holed up.” 

“I figured they hadn’t gone far.” Arthur stood up, hefting his carbine. 851th independent battalion, one of their sister units, was responsible for clearing most of the southern outskirts; if the bulk of the occupiers were concentrated in one area, it could be a real fight. “We'd better not keep them waiting, then.” 

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Tales from the Service: A Personnel Maneuver

2953-11-26 – Tales from the Service: A Personnel Maneuver 

The silence in Captain Sven Danielssen’s duty office dragged on for some seconds after the lieutenant’s departure. For his part, Sven sifted through the files on the desk’s holo-display, as if searching for a form that he would need for what came next. He had no intention of ever finding that form, of course, but the two spacers didn’t know that. 

“Are we really getting transferred, Captain?” Halloran finally asked, his voice trembling. The poor spacer looked really terrified, though Sven didn’t see why. It wasn’t like a transfer was a death sentence. He was terrified enough, at least, to forget himself and speak to someone several ranks up the chain of command without being spoken to. 

For his part, the second spacer – Sung – nudged his fellow and shook his head curtly, evidently remembering protocol better. 

“That’s Lieutenant Ahmetov’s recommendation.” Sven shrugged. “But spacer, we’re out on a patrol. You’re not going anywhere for at least a month, and you’ll get plenty of notice to pack your things before you're transferred off the ship.” 

Halloran shook his head. “Is there some... form of appeal, sir? I like this ship. This crew.” 

Sven arched one eyebrow. “I suppose if you have something you’d like to add to the lieutenant’s report about the incident, that might alter things.” Sven, as the skipper, of course had to approve any transfer request, and his approval was all but guaranteed to be decisive with the Replacement Bureau. These green spacers were unlikely to know this, however. 

“Sir? Add to...” Halloran frowned and looked down at his boots. 

“No, sir.” Sung saluted. “I’m sure Lieutenant Ahmetov’s report is exhaustive.” 

“That’s sort of the problem.” Halloran muttered. 

Sven fixed the spacer with one of his signature wilting glares. “Pardon?” 

“That’s, ah, the bulk of the problem, sir.” Halloran looked up. “If the lieutenant writes his reports like he dresses us down, he'll find no shortage of things to color our dossiers with. It’s going to make it hard for me to land another field posting.” He hesitated, then continued. “You see, it’s, well. This will be my third transfer in less than a year.” 

“Ah.” Sven nodded. He knew only too well how, even if nothing else made it into a spacer’s personnel file, three transfers in a short span would mark him as a liability. This wasn’t precisely fair, of course, but since a skipper couldn’t usually see the full personnel file of a spacer he was being offered as a replacement, such arbitrary metrics were important. No combat commander wanted to take a risk on a potential liability. Sometimes the Bureau wouldn’t even send them out anymore; they’d relegate such spacers to duty on logistics haulers or depot stations. 

“Neither of us did anything to earn that second transfer, Captain.” Sung shook his head sadly. “The XO was just making room to try to get his nephew aboard.” 

“What about this one?” Sven leaned back in his chair.  

“Well...” Sung glanced at his compatriot. “We don’t think so. But the lieutenant is correct. We weren’t at our post in time at the start of the second shift drill.” 

“It was my fault, not Sung’s.” Halloran shook his head. “I, ah. When the alarm sounded, I jumped, and I dropped my datapad into the maintenance panel we’d been working on when the alarm sounded. Sung should have gone ahead without me, but he stayed to help me fish it out.” 

“That seems like a relatively minor infraction.” Sven turned to Sung. “But the report I read indicates a string of incidents leading up to this one.” 

“Well.” Sung swallowed. “We were also the lowest scoring gun crew team in three of the four drills prior. Not by much, you understand. Ten percent or so. If I may be so frank, sir, I think he was looking for any reason to write us up because of that.” 

Sven knew that ten percent was indeed a large value to be worse than the other gunners, but given that the pair were the most inexperienced members of the entire crew, it was a perfectly reasonable value. What they needed was better mentorship and more practice, not a transfer. “He assigned you together as a team?” 

“He said he didn’t want to break up any of the veteran teams, sir.” Sung nodded. 

Sven hid his displeasure. It did no good to show the ratings any dissention in their chain of command. Still, Ahmetov had gone too far this time. “Do you think you could meet his standards if you had more practice?” 

“Er.” Sung looked over at his companion, who shook his head. “N-no. I think the lieutenant has already made up his mind about us.” 

“I mean, spacer, if you had the opportunity to practice for a few weeks, could you consistently score within two or three percent of the other gun crews?” 

This time it was Halloran who answered. “I don’t see any reason why not. It’ll take some time, and some pointers from the other gunners.” 

Sven nodded. “Then I will suspend this transfer request for one week.” Melirose Diver wouldn’t have any way to transmit signals back to Sagittarius Gate for that long anyway, but they didn’t need to know that. “Consider yourselves on punishment duty. Until further notice, you are off the department duty rotation. You have no duties except the gunnery-sims for the next week. I’ll see if Ahmetov can spare a veteran gun team to come down and see what they can do to help you out.” 

“T-thank you, sir!” Halloran saluted. 

“But.” Sven held up one hand. “If those performance scores don’t improve by at least two or three percent, I am going to approve Ahmetov’s recommendation. And if there’s any action in that time, you’re both on damage support duties. Stay away from the gunnery stations.”  

“We understand.” Sung nodded. “We’ll get started right away.” 

Not every captain or every ship has the luxury of bringing up the marginal performers to the high degree of excellence which is important in combat. It seems Melirose Diver was not expecting much action when it took aboard the replacements its gunnery chief so disliked, but if the ship was expecting to go into combat the next shift, I think Captain Danielssen might have treated them very differently. Not everyone has the head to be a good gunner for any of the weapon systems aboard a ship of war, and those who simply can't get it right away are unlikely to grasp it over time.

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Tales from the Service: A Personnel Matter

2953-11-19 – Tales from the Service: A Personnel Matter 

Replacing spacers and officers on veteran crews has always been a tricky prospect. No navy has ever been able to solve the problem completely; any system that tries to do a full psych-match for each replacement inevitably neglects sending any replacements to the most experienced and thus most culturally unique crews, and any system that focuses on filling rosters first inevitably places new personnel on crews they are not well suited to join. 

Thankfully, recruitment has ensured that the number of personnel available for both replacments and filling out the crews of new vessels is more than adequate in both the Fifth Fleet and the Seventh Fleet, so the easy patch for the problem is for skippers to send back poor fitting personnel and replace them again. This, unfortunately, leads to certain crews always cycling five or ten percent of their complement without ever really initiating any of the newcomers to the community. It also ensures that a certain percentage of replacement spacers who have been cycled in and out of warship crews several times and thus, often through no fault of their own, have personnel files that make skippers unwilling to take a chance on them, thus increasing the chance they’re cycled back again the next time. 

These spacers, though eager to do their part, are perennially drifting from ship to ship, outpost to outpost, without even the dignity of a rear-echelon posting. 

Captain Sven Danielssen massaged his temples and closed the report he’d been reading on his desk holo-display. The smart thing to do was to approve the attached transfer request from his gunnery chief and not ask too many more questions. The pair of ratings had after all only been aboard for about three weeks, like most of the crew replacements Melirose Diver had taken on after the bad hit she had taken at Elmore’s End. It would be no surprise to anyone that some percentage of them – largely green spacer recruits from the Core Worlds – had proven a bad cultural fit for the veteran crew of a blooded Seventh Fleet light cruiser. 

Of course, as one of the older cruiser captains in the Seventh and still commanding the same light cruiser he’d had at the war’s outbreak, Sven knew he was rarely accused of doing the smart thing. The mauling his Diver had suffered recently was largely due to his own command decisions, and he had been over the names of the thirty-four spacers maimed and fifteen killed in that action many times since. The smart thing to do was always to stay out of unnecessary trouble, but he had a bad habit of inserting himself into it. 

After a few seconds’ consideration, Sven tapped his comms earpiece. “Lieutenant Ahmetov, I’ve just finished your report on the incident of yesterday, second shift. Bring the two ratings you named up here to my office.” 

The response was, as usual of the precise, hard-driving gunnery chief, immediate. “Aye, Skipper. We’ll be there in five.” 

Sven sidelined the channel and shook his head. No doubt, since it was now nearing the end of the first shift of the next day, the pair was already awake and grudgingly preparing for whatever punishment duty Ahmetov had assigned them to until he could get them off the ship. Had he made this request at another time, the gunnery chief would have relished the opportunity to barge into each one’s bunkroom and shake them out of bed unprepared for a meeting with the captain. Anyone who Lieutenant Ahmetov judged competent was treated extremely gently by their chief, but he was a terror to anyone who he thought incapable of performing to an acceptable level. 

The problem, as always, was that Ahmetov, though he possessed a near-savant level understanding of relativistic gunnery and knew more than most engineers how to get the most out of Melirose Diver’s various weapons, was a poor mentor. He demanded too much out of his subordinates, all the way down to the most junior tech and the greenest gunner, with little interest in training the poor performers. In the peacetime Navy, this was fine; the crew could cycle through under-performing junior ratings every week or so until they had a few that passed his initial muster and were deemed adequate.  

Wartime service, however, had proven this system brittle. The cruiser’s gunnery department had been ten ratings under strength going into Elmore’s End. If Ahmetov kept going as he was, it might be fifteen the next time they got into the thick of a proper fight. How many empty berths would it take before the ship’s ability to defend itself was meaningfully degraded? 

Bad gunners and bad techs, of course, would definitely degrade the ship’s ability to fight. Lieutenant Ahmetov was right about that. The problem was that he didn’t seem to know the difference between moderately capaple and incapable. Anyone who wasn’t already approaching the ninetieth percentile was, in his view, a gross incompetent. 

The office door opened to admit the Lieutenant, leading a pair of young men in the unmarked gray tunics, with only the ship’s insignia and their surnames displayed on each shoulder patch. The pair each snuck a look at Sven, saluted crisply, then folded their hands behind their backs, their eyes firmly fixed on the deck at the foot of his desk. 

Ahmetov saluted, too, his salute as sharp as theirs, if briefer. “Captain, as requested, Spacer Halloran and Spacer Sung.” He gestured to each in turn. “I take it this is about the transfer recommendation?” 

“It is.” Sven steepled his fingers and looked hard at each of the young men. Neither of them could be over twenty T-years old, but they both had the look of lifelong spacers about them. They’d probably been from merchant spacer families before enlisting, as many of the ratings were. “Our current orders will have us out here for at least another month. Do you wish me to reassign them to another department until then?” 

Ahmetov scowled over his shoulder at the pair. “I can find a use for them for a little while, as long as there are no more... incidents.” 

“Understood.” Sven nodded. “I’m sure you have better things to do than this personnel matter, Lieutenant. I’ll take it from here with your spacers.” 

Ahmetov frowned in confusion, but with a little shake of his head, saluted again. “Understood, Captain.” He spun on one heel and exited the office without another look at his under-performing charges. 

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Tales from the Inbox: The Swindler’s Ticket Out

2953-11-12– Tales from the Inbox: The Swindler’s Ticket Out 

Mari Robertson and Eddy Rothbauer watched Albie Schmelling get up from the table and amble across the lounge to where his young friend was waiting. They didn’t need to eavesdrop to know whether he was going to do what was said; the body language of each was sufficient to see whether the big conman was doing what he had to do, to avoid catching the immediate unfriendly attention of both the Gilhedat mission on the Sprawl and the local station administration. 

Idly, Mari wished he’d try his luck, if only so she could see which of the two arms of hated officialdom caught up with him first. That datapack under the bench at Rennecker’s diner was still on her mind, even though she knew it was folly to ever go back to that spot, much less to pick it up. If it turned out that local security was faster than the councillors’ own means of exacting retribution, she might have a slim chance of getting it and getting away clean. 

“Fortunately this one was easy.” Eddy kept his voice low and his eyes on Schmelling. “The next one won’t be.” 

“Got the next gig lined up already, eh?” Mari shrugged. “Would that I could be so lucky.” 

“I wouldn’t call it that.” Eddy shook his head. “Pay’s all right, but I’m going to be running rabbit trails for weeks.” 

Mari saw Schmelling press something into the hands of the girl, who was now staring at him in stunned alarm. “Was that a ring of cred-chits?” 

“Yeah. But there’s no way that’s all the money. Looked like three or four ten-grand chits.” 

“Think he spent the rest already?” 

“Doubt it. Less what those outbound tickets cost he probably has all the rest stashed somewhere until the moment of departure.” 

Mari nodded. She probably would have done something similar; that way, she wasn’t caught with a suspicious pile of hard money on her if the authorities did come sniffing. “That means he has to go get the rest. And one of us has to follow him, while the other stays with the girl.” 

“You stay with her.” Eddy stood up. “She’ll see you as less threatening. Do not let her make any calls.” 

Schmelling was already slinking out of the lounge, and though the girl at first made as if to follow him, she stopped and sat down at an empty table with a bewildered look. Mari sighed and headed over to join her there. 

“Not everything he said was a lie.” Mari said as she sat down, thinking this better than an introduction. “Eddy and I really are old business partners of his. Regrettably.” 

The girl started, as if suddenly noticing that she was not alone in the half-full transit lounge. “It was all a lie?” Her voice squeaked with despair, then her face suddenly hardened. “What do you have to do with it?” 

“Nothing. This time.” Mari flicked one of her calling-cards out of a sleeve pocket and spun it across the little table. There was nothing on it but an abstract pattern and a comms code, of course, and no two cards had the same pattern or the same code; it was easier that way. “The Glitters hired us to put it right off the books, before anyone files any official records. When their money is returned and that big oaf is safely off the station, you’re in the clear.” 

The girl picked up the card, looked for a name, then frowned when there wasn’t one. “So that’s it, then? I have to slink home and forget all of this never happened?” 

“Well.” Mari put her elbows on the table and leaned in. “You can do that, sure. But forgetting means being a mark the next time, too. Never forget how he got you to trust him. Because there’s always a next time.” 

The girl squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. “What was he going to do to me?” 

“Nothing too bad.” Mari shook her head. “You were the go-between that prevented him from being found out by the Glitters, mostly. He was going to sweep you away on this liner, have his fun with you while the money lasted, then run off to a new swindle in a few weeks and leave you with nothing but a broken heart.” 

This being the extent of Schmelling’s designs didn’t seem to comfort the girl. She scowled as she pulled a transit pass from her pocket, looked at it for a long moment, then tossed it onto the table with all the disgust Mari expected of someone so recently shorn of a dream. 

Schmelling returned a moment later with a travel bag, approached the table, and, with a shifty look behind himself, dropped it next to the pass. Without a word, he skulked off. 

“Get it all back to the Glitters as soon as you can.” Mari pushed the bag toward the girl. “They’ll be understanding.” 

With a nod, she grabbed it and hurried off, not even noticing Eddy as she darted past him. He watched her for a moment, then sat down at the table, staring at the travel pass.  

“She’ll be all right.” Mari said, after a long silence. “They usually are.” 

“Probably.” Eddy agreed tepidly. 

After another long pause, Mari picked up the pass, staring at it intently. “Suppose you got the other one off Albie, Eddie. Why couldn’t we take their place? Hang that other job you’re dreading and get out of the Sprawl for a while. I’ve got enough money stored away for a few weeks of fun.” And when she got back, the heat would be off on the lifted datapack, and she could replace that stock easily by selling its contents. 

Eddie smirked. “Sounds nice, Mari, but not this time. I’d feel better with Albie off the station, You want to go and haunt his every step, though, you be my guest. And his. I’m sure he’d love that.” 

Mari laughed. “That would be its own kind of fun. But it wouldn’t be a holiday. Come on, Eddie. You know we can bum Albie off on some tramp freighter to nowhere.” 

Eddy met Mari’s eyes for a long moment. “I appreciate it. I really do. But I really should already be looking for that damned lost datapack.” 

Mari did her best to keep her face neutral, as if this was the most boring-sounding task imaginable.  

“Anyway. I’ll send over your cut of this gig in an hour or two.” Eddy arched one eyebrow, then got up and headed for the exit, leaving Mari there alone, holding a transit pass for a liner leaving in two shifts. 

“Hellfire.” Mari whispered, long after he was gone. Eddy knew her too well not to guess something. Obviously, he couldn’t prove anything, but if she took the girl’s place on the liner, or if someone saw her retrieving the datapack, or if it was discovered under that bench, her friend would have a prime suspect. 

Mari shook her head, finally giving the day’s expected windfall up for good. If Eddy was assigned to find it, then it needed to turn up somewhere; hopefully somewhere that didn’t trace back to her. 

That this account was shared with us suggests that Mari was entirely unsuccessful in this effort (as it being published would obviously reveal her involvement to anyone who was present, anonymization notwithstanding). Most likely, though the account ends here, she was not entirely successful in preventing the claws of officaldom from closing around her in some way, and she like her friend is now snared and forced largely to work for the Gilhedat or station authority rather than on her own initiative. 

I am not particularly sympathetic with her plight, or her friend’s. No doubt in her life she’s committed far worse crimes than petty theft and escaped justice for them; being forced to live within the restraints set out by handlers might be unpleasant for her, but it is better for Sprawl society in general that she be kept on a short leash. 

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