5th of January 2205 - UFE Lunar Base Delta - The Moon

The lunar landscape looked peaceful through the reinforced glass of launch terminal E, a couple of scorch marks betraying it hadn’t always been that way. My dark blue uniform was barely visible in the reflection, apart from the golden stripes on my epaulettes and the emblem of the federation on my beret.

“U-uhm… Commander, could I ask you something?”

“Hmm?” I turned around. I hadn’t really expected anyone here this early before launch. Before me stood a woman in her early twenties, if not younger, clearly only just out of officer training. One thick golden bar and a star. “Is something wrong, Ensign?”

“Oh sh… Commander Davis. Sorry, I didn’t know it was you, ma’am!” She immediately saluted me and didn’t move a millimeter.

“At ease Ensign,” I softly smiled to put her at ease. “First of all, what’s your name?”

She hesitantly dropped her salute, “Uh...uh... Y-Yuki Yuigahama, ma’am.”

“So, Ensign Yuigahama, what was your question?”

“Uh, right… I just got off the transport, and I was looking for UFS Antananana…. uh…” She was clearly still nervous, which was actually quite cute.

“You mean Antananarivo?”

She nodded.

“They are launching from terminal B.” I motioned her to come closer, which she immediately did. “It’s on the other side of the station, you can see it from over here.” I took her by the shoulder and pointed to the far left. You could only barely see it from this angle, though.

“Oh! Right, thank you, ma’am.”

“Did no one on your transport say where you should go?”

“They were all assigned to a different ship, ma’am.”

“Aren’t they supposed to bring you here with the rest of your crew?”

“Some Lieutenant just pushed me on, he wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“That is definitely not supposed to happen. Do you remember his name?”

Ensign Yuigahama shook her head. “No, it all went so fast I didn’t manage to see his name tag…”

I sighed. “Well, let’s hope stuff like that won’t delay my launch because I’m going to be pretty annoyed at that.”

“I hope so for you too, ma’am.” She slowly backed away from me, turned around, turned back, then turned around again. “And thank you for the help, ma’am.” She gave me a quick salute before she hesitantly turned around one more time.

“Is there something you still want to ask, Ensign?”

She turned back to me, I could see a bit of fear in her eyes. “No… u-uh… well… maybe…”

“Out with it, Ensign Yuigahama.” I said in a friendly tone. Although I already knew what question she was going to ask.

“I-I was wondering if you fought here…”

There we go. 95% of questions I get always end up at the Unification War. That honestly wasn’t that surprising, as I did earn my stars in the war, making me one of the youngest commanding officers in the history of the United Federation Navy. Since heroes are good for propaganda, they made sure to capitalize on that. I eventually got used to the questions, but things had happened in the war that I’d rather not remember.

I still nodded, though. “Right over that ridgeline over there.” I turned around and pointed at one of the more scorched ridges in the distance. “If you take off from terminal B, you should still be able to see where the trenches were.”

“I heard it was a hellish fight.”

“Most of the fights were, but it stings a bit more when you are fighting over space rocks.” We were fighting over quite a bit more than that, but that’s definitely how it felt to us soldiers on the ground. It was one of the first major battles of the war, and incidentally also one of the bloodiest. Getting even a scratch in the vacuum of space isn’t the best for your survival chances. Luckily the Battle of Luna concluded the war in space, not that that lessened any of the fighting on earth though. “We lost a lot of good people…”

Ensign Yuigahama nodded solemnly. “Thank you for taking your time for me, Commander.”

“No problem.”

“I guess I should go now.” She saluted me and attempted to walk away.

I stopped her just before she could go, giving her that ‘dear-in-the-headlights’ look again. “Before you leave, I’ll give you one tip. The foodbot in cafeteria C is slightly bugged and gives way more toppings on pizza than the other ones. Just in case you’re interested in that.”

She couldn’t hold back a giggle and saluted me again. “Thanks, Commander, I’ll be sure to remember that.”

Now I saluted her back and sent her on her way.

Being alone again in the massive launch terminal, I decided to take a look at the ship that’d be my home for the next couple of years. It was docked at the far end of the terminal, I could already see her through the windows due to her fairly big size, especially compared to the other ships that would launch from this site. The admiralty had planned way bigger ships than this, but those wouldn’t be suited for the kind of mission we were being sent on because they lacked the ability to enter and take-off from the atmosphere. That being said, she wasn’t the most aerodynamic ship ever with her angular shapes. Launching shuttles from orbit would be our go-to way to get to the planets’ surface, but we still had the option to land and take-off with the entire frigate if we really needed to. The handbook strongly advised against that though, as it would leave us exceptionally vulnerable to whatever we could encounter in outer space.

When I got closer to the windows, a faint smell of smoke caught my attention.

“Also here to look at our beauty, Commander?”

I saw my Gunnery Sergeant laying down on the row of seats facing the window, his arms crossed behind his head. He had an ashtray on the ground next to him, completely disregarding the big ‘no smoking sign’ just a couple of meters next to him against one of the support pillars.

“Gunnery Sergeant Turner.” I nodded. “Didn’t you say you were going to quit?”

“Eh.” He shrugged. “Won’t be able to get any once we are on board, so I thought one wouldn’t hurt.”

“One, huh?” I looked at the ashtray. “One packet, you mean?”

He laughed and stood up from his improvised bed, at which I smiled and offered my hand. Turner gladly took it and shook it happily. “Good to have you, Commander.”

“I’m glad you are coming with us, Gunny.”

Gunnery Sergeant Turner was one of the most hard-ass soldiers I knew. I met him at the Battle of Newfoundland and we’d fought the rest of the war together after that. At the Battle of Iceland he’d refused to get medical aid even though he’d been shot four times. It always was a mystery to me why he hadn’t been promoted above Gunnery Sergeant. Until one day, while getting drunk at the bar, he told me he’d always refused promotions because he liked the sound of Gunnery Sergeant too much. To each their own, I guess.

“When are we launching?” He ran his hand through his short black hair that was turning grey at a couple of points.

“Depends. Normally this time tomorrow, but I still haven’t met the new XO yet.” I looked at my watch. Keeping time in space was always a bit funky.

“Is the old one okay, Paul, wasn’t it?”

“I heard he was okay considering the circumstances.” I nodded.

“Sure is rough having to lose family members like that and becoming the guardian of their children.”

“Mhmm. Wouldn’t want to be in his position.”

“And what do you know about the new one?”

“Not a lot, actually.” I took out my holostick from my pocket, which swiftly expanded into a holographic tablet. “Got excellent marks on the proficiency tests, but somehow she doesn’t have a lot of other things on record. She did get assigned directly to us by the admiralty, so I guess it’s fine.”

“Hope she’s not so stuck up like the LC who commanded us during Iceland.”

“I mean, you did have a hole the size of a golf ball in your gut. So I can kind of understand him.

“Nah, he just really didn’t like me.”

“Well, next time you have a life-threatening injury, tell me I’m going too far by making the medics take you to the medbay.”

“You’d never!”

“Watch me.”

We both started laughing and stared out of the window.

“Think you’ll be able to find what you’re looking for out there?”

“We’ll see. The galaxy is a big place.”

“That’s definitely true, but...”

The ringing of my holostick interrupted the conversation. “Commander Davis, your XO has arrived at the Transport Landing.” One of the station's administrators notified me.

“Thank you, I’ll go and meet her.” I put my stick back and looked at Turner. “You coming to meet our XO, gunny?”

“Might as well.” He quickly gathered the ashtray and made sure his uniform was tidy before we headed off to the central area of the station where the transports from Earth landed.

Even though this place was quite busy since a new transport had just landed, I could spot my XO from the moment we entered the hall because she was the only one standing completely still in the soup of people running around.

When we got closer, she stiffly saluted. Her medium length red hair waved slightly because of the sudden movement. “Commander Lauren Davis, I’m Lieutenant-Commander Luna Moore, reporting for duty on the UFS Roald Amundsen.”

“Nice to meet you, Lieutenant-Commander. Welcome aboard.” I saluted back and smiled.

She dropped her salute without a sign of a smile on her face and walked past me. “I’ll go on to the ship to do some pre-flight inspections.”

“LC, we still have a day…” But she was already on her way.

“Well, that wasn’t very friendly.” Gunny joined me by my side as we watched the LC walk off towards terminal E.

“Maybe she just needs to warm up to us a bit first.” I shrugged.

“I hope so.”

“Anyway, want to go grab some pizza?”

“Cafeteria C?”

“Where else?” I smiled.

Gunny grinned. “Let’s go, I’m buying.”