Marcinko Time 15:05 Bridge

“Yeager Tower, requesting permission to push off and depart,” Caleb said into the open communications link.

John couldn’t help but smile hearing those words from his seat. Lieutenant Page noticed that, but she couldn’t fault the cadet for his excitement. They were the first of the three Junior class ships to be declared ready to depart.

“CNS Marcinko, request to depart granted. Docking clamps and umbilical are being retracted. Hold position until pushback clearance,” a controller on the station said over the coms.

“How are you liking coms, Caleb?” John asked.

“I prefer navigation, sir.”

“I would think we’re going to have a solid understanding of where everyone works best shortly,” John smiled, “Wei, confirm with engineering that power is available to the engines.”

“Aye sir,” Wei looked down at her workstation and engineering had responded to her inquiry, “Engineering confirmed engines are in the green.”

“CNS Marcinko, pushback is cleared. Request minimum thrust until you reach the yellow zone. Contact Yeager Control on one-two-niner point eight.”

“One-two-niner point eight Yeager Control,” Caleb looked over at Wei.

“Lacey, minimum thrust if you will,” John ordered.

“Engaging minimum thrust, estimated time to the yellow zone is fifteen minutes.”

“Caleb, open internal coms to the ship, exclude the berths though,” John smiled as Caleb gave him a thumbs up, “This is acting Captain Lief, we are shoving off from Yeager station. We expect to begin the main burn in fifteen minutes. Our orders are to do a slow four-day burn to Mars. Once there we will receive our patrol orders in the belt. Godspeed to all of us.”

The next fifteen minutes may have been the slowest moving minutes in John’s life. He tried to distract himself by doing some paperwork, but there was precious little left since he did most of it waiting for his shift to start. John had to remind the bridge crew to focus, they got a little too comfortable with where they were

“Captain, we’re transitioning to the yellow zone,” Lacey said as she switched her screen to engine control.

“Follow our flight plan and step the engines up to a thousand kilometers per second,” John smiled as he gave the order.

“Aye aye, sir.”

The background hum of the ship grew louder as the energy output of the core increased. There was a mild force everyone felt as the ship accelerated forward. They were truly underway now.

“CNS Marcinko, transition to Exfil Delta nav point via heading three-three-zero,” a Yeager Control agent said over coms.

Caleb responded, “Roger Yeager Control, transition to Exfil Delta via heading three-three-zero.”

“CNS Marcinko, please expedite the transition. Greenlight is given to reach your approved flight plan’s traveling speed.”

“Expediting transition. Marcinko out.”

“You heard the controller, Lacey. Punch it,” John mimicked firing a gun with one hand.

The ship surged forth accelerating to its prescribed traveling speed of thirty-five hundred kilometers a second. The mood on the bridge grew a little lighter as the stress of working in a controlled space was behind them. John let them continue until their shift was about halfway through.

At that point, the bridge crew ran three different drills. The last drill they did was a ship-wide drill that simulated an attack. When the drill was done John provided feedback for the bridge crew. He asked the other departments to submit their observations and feedback given.

John’s last act while on duty was sending Kristin and Joeng about what drills to run. Also, that there’d be ship-wide drills every shift that all on-duty members were required to do. They would do this at a minimum until they reached Mars.

2 Days Later, 12:15 Officer’s Conference Room

“What do you need cadet?” asked Lieutenant Page.

“Ma’am do you five minutes to spare. I have something to show you and then a question to ask you,” John couldn’t stop grinning.

“Ok, where are we going?”

“Secondary storage. The same room you sent me to clean up.”

John walked out of the door and headed to the room. It took less than a minute to walk there. He pressed his hand over the control and opened the door. Page was surprised to see an empty room.

“Why is this room empty?”

“I asked the chefs to use all the foodstuffs exclusively from here, the last few things were brought out of storage during the last meal service.”

“Why?” Page was both surprised and annoyed with the answer.

“CNS Naval Regulation 34.a.ii, Ship sub-section indicates that all ships should have a rec-room so its inhabitants can use during their off time. The keyword here is off-time.”

“We have one already, it’s the mess.”

“The mess isn’t a recognized rec-room. Not anymore anyway. When the ship was commissioned, we were under war, so creature comforts weren’t a big factor. Now though every single ship has a dedicated room for recreation. This ship is in violation of that,” John waived her over to the terminal on the wall, “But as you can see here, we can convert this room for that use during our deployment.”

“Interesting interpretation of the rules. Even if I approved it the Navy isn’t going to approve buying all this stuff.”

John couldn’t contain his impish grin, “No need, we can make everything here. Except for the monitor, we’d be moving one or two of them from the mess hall.”

“How would you control who would have access to this room?”

“Access would be denied if you were on duty, scheduled to drill, scheduled to take classes, behind in classes or were sent to the sin-bin for an incident. Pretty sure you would also have the rights to blacklist anyone on the ship too.”

“How long would it take to get operational?”

“During our off time? Probably three or four days. We could get it done in a shift or two if I could divert some resources.”

“Do it.”

Page laughed under hear breath as she headed back to the conference room. John headed to the mess to get breakfast. After that he was going to finish compiling his list of what was needed to get this room built out to the agreed specifications.

15:15 Bridge

“Caleb, you have the bridge. I need to run to engineering,” John said as he hopped out of his chair.

“Roger.”

John walked out of the bridge and headed to engineering. On a modern frigate that walk would take maybe ten minutes depending on how many decks you’d traverse. On this older ship it was just a couple minute walk.

“Kevin, I didn’t think you were on duty,” John smiled as he saw his friend at a workstation.

“Technically I’m not, but Sato cut himself so I’m covering him till he shows up.”

“Is he ok?”

“Yeah, freak accident in the mess is all. What’s up?”

John motioned him over to a terminal on the wall near him. He was pulling up the designs of the new rec-room for the ship. Kevin smiled when he saw the design.

“The lieutenant was kind enough to green light this.”

“You asked for permission? Heh, miracles do exist.”

“Smartass. Anyways, how many people can engineering spare?”

Kevin looked up at the wall and thought through the question, “We can spare an officer and one enlisted.”

“I’ll get a couple operations enlisted servicemen and one of the bridge officers. When Sato gets here let him make the decision and contact me on the bridge.”

“Roger.”

John smiled as he turned around and left engineering. There was going to be a proper recreation area for the ship. He laughed in the hallway, John didn’t know what he liked being in command of a ship or being able to play cornhole again.

When John got to the bridge, he sat down in the command chair. He began working on some paperwork. About twenty minutes later Sato called from engineering. John assigned Caleb and a pair of operations enlisted servicemembers to the new mission.

John moved to the navigation station and began piloting the ship. Though that wasn’t as difficult as it sounded, the ship was en-route to Mars and they literally didn’t need to fire the engines for another full day.

In fact, it was unusually quiet for the bridge that shift. Normally they would pass the time by drilling and practicing for different contingencies. But they were a man down so John skipped them for this shift. He continued to work on his paperwork. When that was finished, he reviewed the drill results of the other departments.

The last item that was on John's mind was what the requirements for accessing the new room would be. He needed to send a finalized list to Lieutenant Page before it would be made available to the crew. And this needed to be done sooner than later because there was no way the members of the crew didn’t see two of the large screens taken out of the mess hall. Or that several people weren’t in their assigned positions for the shift either.

John began typing a message.

‘Lieutenant Page, listed below is the message I’d like to share with the crew and my recommendations for access.

The secondary storage room was recently cleared out. Our first deployment is scheduled to be the longest one away from the port and it was necessary to use its space. Each deployment thereafter will be shorter and not need space.

Naval Regulations require ships to have recreational spaces for the crew to use. This ship was designed and built during a war when the regulations for such things didn’t exist or were suppressed for the good of the war. Things aren’t exactly comfortable on this ship, so we are trying to bring back some creature comforts for us to have onboard.

Effective on the secondary storage room will be our new recreational room. The following rules must be followed in order to gain access to the room.

The shift has been completed for the day, access prior to your shift is not allowed. Alcoholic beverages are not allowed. Schoolwork, if applicable, must be up to date and achieving a passing grade. In good standing in your department. Have not abused the privilege of using the room (making a mess, fighting, etc.)

If you have any questions about this, please contact your shift supervisor.’

“Yeah, that should do,” John smiled to himself as he sent the message to the Lieutenant.

“Talking to yourself again sir?” Wei asked.

“All the time,” John said but he was interrupted.

“CNS Marcinko, this is Mars Control, please update your flight heading to Wookie Actual, use vectors three-three-four dot negative eight point five.”

“Copy Mars Control, updating course heading using Wookie Actual, vectors three-three-four dot negative eight point five. CNS Marcinko,” Lacey responded to the traffic controller.

Lacey looked over at John as he entered the new course heading. No one inside the ship felt the course correction but the ship turned roughly thirty degrees to its port, and its bow pointed moderately lower than it had been previously.

“Any reason for the course correction?” Wei asked.

John brought up the navigational map and displayed it on the main screen. He displayed their former flight path. He overlayed the registered traffic with their locations, while they were nowhere near running into another ship there appeared to be a trio of immense Martian freighters near their path. John shrugged when they discovered the presumed reason for their course correction.

“CNS Marcinko, follow on this course until you reach the Rusty Rat checkpoint then continue on your approved flight path,” the same traffic controller said.

“Continue on to Rusty Rat checkpoint, CNS Marcinko.”

“Y’all ever noticed that all traffic controllers speak the same way. Are we sure they are people and not some machine intelligence?” John asked sarcastically.

03:05 Recreational Room

“I was thinking about reaching out to someone on Olympus Minor station to get some secondhand furniture. But as you can see the team did a great job assembling things out of nothing,” John was showing Page the room.

“Your team did well. I updated the rules a bit, but we will make access to it available after your next shift,” Page paused and turned to face John, “That way all shifts will be made aware of it and the rules to access it.”

“Wei already started programming access to the room already. She’ll have it done tomorrow.”

“Good work, I believe you have some homework to get back to.”

“Aye aye ma’am, enjoy the room,” John saluted and walked out of the room.

John walked up to the main study room. When the doors opened, he swore under his breath and headed back toward engineering to use the backup room. The main room was once again full. When he got there, he walked in and sat down at an open desk.

John put on some headphones and began listening to his next lecture at double speed. He began working on the homework before the lecture was done. He was going to finish three lectures before he sought out a drill. John was getting very bored with the lecture.

He began playing with his Navy-issued Casio G-Shock watch. It was not high horology, but he loved the goofy watch. Unlike a normal watch, it was designed for sailors and had an eighteen-hour dial. The bezel around the dial could rotate and it was color-coded to indicate rest, duty, and off times.

After the lessons were done John walked to the forward torpedo room to participate in a drill. They were practicing loading dummy torpedoes during the drill. John could tell that the cadet officers were struggling with the drill. He walked over to one of the enlisted servicemembers and asked for advice. The next time they ran the drill things ran more smoothly.

05:00 Mess Hall

“So, I have to ask. Did you really do what I’ve heard?” Alice had an exasperated look.

John smirked, “What would I have possibly done?”

“Ugh, did you really convert a storage room into a rec room?”

Jessica sat down across from the couple, “So it’s true?”

John nodded then ate a piece of bacon, “Open to everyone in a couple of shifts.”

“How the hell did you pull that off?” Jessica asked.

“Well, it came about because I knew about Navy regs, and I had a hunch the good Lieutenant was starved for entertainment.”

“Hold on for a second, you asked for permission?” Alice looked at John in disbelief.

“Why are you giving me that look?”

“Because you never ask for permission. Like ever,” Jessica stepped in and answered the question.

“Fair point. But yeah, I did ask for permission. And it was granted too. Thank fucking Christ too.”

“Any change in our deployment?” Alice changed the subject.

“Aside from a couple of course corrections nope. We get our vectors out to the belt in a few shifts. Then we’ll spend three and a half weeks patrolling. Likely do a few surprise inspections.”

One Day Later, 03:15 Rec Room

“Andern, I haven’t seen you in like forever,” John waved at his friend.

He walked over and sat in the chair next to the couch, “Right? Our shifts got changed in weapons control.”

“Nice.”

“Where’s the cornhole?”

“The bags are over there on the bookshelf. Kevin said he was going to make the boards at his next shift.”

“Well shit, I was hoping to get a game in,” Andern looked disappointed.

“At least we finally have a place to relax, though the chairs and couches are kinda shit,” John was looking around the room.

“Got a plan for that?”

“Yeah, going to see if we can score some secondhand gear at Olympus Minor station.”

The friends chatted for another forty minutes before Andern left to get some studying in. He didn’t want to, but Andern wanted to keep access to this new room. John stayed behind. He walked over to the bookcase and took a book and began reading it.

John couldn’t help but smile at the new room. The ship was small and felt old. This room would let the crew be themselves and have fun every now and then. John read a couple more chapters of the book then got up and set it back on the shelf. He went to the mess hall to have an early meal. Afterwards, John headed back to his room to finish another lecture before going to bed and get a little extra rest.

17:05 Bridge

“Stand down from red-alert and have the other departments send me their readiness report by the top of the hour,” John ordered.

“Captain, we’re crossing into Martian space,” Caleb said.

Almost on cue Martian Control contacted the ship, “CNS Marcinko, Mars Control, please take the Wookie Path vectors to the belt, increase speed to fifty-five hundred kilometers per second.”

“Mars Control, increasing speed and adjusting course via Wookie Path, CNS Marcinko,” Lacey responded to the controller.

“Caleb, spool up the engines and take us out to the belt.”

“Captain, Mars Command is contacting us,” Lacey said.

“On screen.”

“Good morning cadet. Your orders are being transmitted to you. There are several mining ships that are mining asteroids. You will need to verify that they have the rights to do so, there are several freighters that will be flying near you. It’ll be your call on any ship inspections. Any questions?” the unnamed commander asked.

“No sir.”

“Happy hunting.”

The connection closed, but the orders remained on the screen. John was reviewing them to determine where he wanted to go.

“Can you overlay the time it would take to get to those ships?” John asked.

“Yes, one moment sir,” Wei said as she was entering things into the terminal, “Here we go, the estimated time and course vectors we’d need to take to get there.”

John continued to review the map. He didn’t want to do a freighter interdiction yet. The enlisted were certainly up to it, as was he but the rest of the officers weren’t. The officers were too green for that at this time. John had found his first target though.

“Caleb set a course to the IMS Scaley Bastard. Lacey, please notify Mars Control of our course change.”

John sent a message to Kristin and Joeng about the course change and their orders in general. They would arrive at the mining vessel shortly before 17:00. He asked that the two begin drilling for ship contact and reviewing mining orders and flight plans. It was finally time for this crew to shine, and John desperately wanted them to succeed.