Ashes in the Water

Shea Graham's first assignment sends her to Space Station: Atlantis hours after her guaduation from boot camp.

SHEA GRAHAM was fresh out of boot camp.  Her original intent was Strategic Advancement and Recon under the MIC program.  When she received her first orders to report to the Atlantis, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing.  The Atlantis Military Base was stationed within uncharted space.  Many soldiers request to be assigned there but only top qualified soldiers are approved, let alone given orders.  Needless to say, she was about as excited as she was nervous.

The railed transport she was on took her through what looked like the bowels of Atlantis.  As it moved closer to its destination, Graham became more and more anxious.  No one in the military knows what goes on in Atlantis, not even Generals or War Marshalls.  All that was known was no soldier sent to Atlantis has been known to leave it alive.  Or at the very least, anyone who’s gone to Atlantis has never returned.  All known existence of any given soldier seems to stop with their reassignment to Atlantis.  These thoughts made her think of think of her own reassignment.

She wasn’t given the opportunity to pack any of her gear, save for her side arm.  She wasn’t even allowed time to contact her family.  She pulled her PDA from her pocket and loaded an image of her husband, Daniel.  The picture of the two of them together reminded her of their last day together just before she was shipped out for her MIT.  But her memories were cut short when the transport stopped at its destination.   She put away her PDA and proceeded toward the door and onto the platform where another female soldier stood waiting for her arrival.

“Private First Class Graham reporting for duty, Ma’am,” she said while saluting.

“First lesson you need to learn, Private, is how to salute properly.  Your right hand touches your heart, not your brow,” replied the soldier.

“Ah, my apologies, Ma’am-“

“Kill the formalities, Graham; it’s your first time here.  You’re not expected to learn everything within your first few minutes.”  Graham corrected her salute and the other soldier returned the favor.  “You’re a quick learner.  That’s good, there’s a lot we do differently here.  For example…well, no need for explanations.  I think you’d do better to see for yourself.  I’m Major Holland, and I’ll be escorting you to your new assignment.”

Graham followed the Major though the winding corridors of the space station.  For all its hype, she thought, it wasn’t much to look at from the inside.  Yet, for all its blandness, the different security doors and odd turns made Atlantis seem like a maze within space.  When Graham was in the space carrier en route to Atlantis, she didn’t remember seeing any sort of docking bays.  It was almost as if the transport flew nonstop into Atlantis itself.  “Ma’am, where exactly are we?”

“Not sure, Private Graham, this place moves around quite a bit.  We could end up in the middle of the Naven System, or somewhere orbiting one of the moons around Planet Del-Cron.  There’s no telling where we’ll be positioned next.”

“The space station can move, Ma’am?” Graham responded with a sense of shock in her voice.

Holland laughed a little then said, “You don’t know much about Atlantis, do you?  Oh, that’s right!  You’re fresh out of boot camp.  Well, in that case, here’s a brief history of the Atlantis Space Station.  Atlantis used to be one of the biggest colonies in space some time back before The Galactic Conquest of the Shadow Knights.   It was hijacked and everyone on board was murdered.  To this day no one knows why.  They just found the ship floating aimlessly in space with no power.  There’s still speculation as to whether or not there were any survivors.  When the ship was found the only thing missing was an EEV.

“Anyway, without the ship’s logs to explain what had happened, the Federation had no choice but to commandeer the vessel.   Their original intensions were to outfit it with weapons and use it as a battleship, but it just didn’t move fast enough, nor was the haul integrity hard enough to support weapons.  Some top level engineers were brought onboard to survey the ship and come up with ideas to make it combat ready.  The end result is what we’re standing in now.  The Atlantis has the most advanced cloaking device seen this side of the universe, making it invisible to any radar and even the naked eye.  And in order to keep its location a secret it changes location at random.”

“At random, Ma’am?  You mean there’s no one piloting-“

“Afraid not, Private,” The Major interrupted, “I’m honestly not sure how this place knows where it’s going.  Be it an AI or a preset list of coordinates, no one really knows how this place is navigated.”

“Ma’am, what about the engineers, wouldn’t they know?” Graham asked.

“Funny you should mention that, no one knows what happened to the engineers either.  It’s possible they died but of what I’m not sure.  There is rumor, but mostly hearsay and nothing concrete.  Oh, and you don’t have call me Ma’am all the time, it makes me feel like your grandmother.”

“Again, my apologies…uh…”

“Holland will do.”  Holland opened one last security door where they met up with another soldier.           “This is First Lieutenant Krieger; he’s the man in charge of your assigned squad.”  Krieger saluted Holland and she returned.  Afterwards, Graham saluted the Lieutenant.  Holland then turned to Krieger and said, “I’ll let you two get to know each other.  Try not to be too hard on her, Lieutenant.”  Holland winked at Krieger then proceeded onward down the corridor.

Graham hadn’t noticed before, distracted by her surroundings and Holland’s melodic tone of voice.  Her hair was a tar black color and her skin appeared to be paler than usual.  The way Holland walked about appeared as if she wasn’t just walking across the floor, but more so as if she was gliding on thin air.  Holland’s overall physique gave the appearance of someone who worked extremely hard to keep a “womanly figure”.  Graham knew of no female soldier that didn’t develop some sort of muscular body after boot camp, but the Major looked more like a model than she did a soldier.

“Private First Class Shea Joanna Graham.  I’ve been hearing a lot about you from your former drill instructors,” Krieger spoke.  The man with short brunette hair and rough exterior spoke with a tone that said he was the type who thrives on combat.  “You have some very interesting scores here from your former Drill Instructors.  It seems they think the world of you, Graham.”

“Honestly, Sir, it really didn’t seem that way to me,” Graham responded.

“For most recruits in boot camp it doesn’t.  DI’s are usually harder on those who excel.  They don’t want them thinking just because they’re on top that they own the world,” Krieger explained.

“It’s not that, Sir, I could honestly feel a sense of hatred from them.”  Graham recalled a few instances where she had to deal with the DI’s bad side.  Making her sweat in a mud field while her platoon mates slept as well as the extra duties she was given during times when the others were performing simple tasks.  “It was as if they all resented my presence there.  Even my own squad hated me for being at their side-”

“Well think no more of it, it’s all in the past now,” Krieger interrupted, “You’ve been reassigned to our squad and we never leave a soldier behind.  Come on, we’ve wasted enough time dredging up old memories.  We’ve a simulation set up for you.  Under orders from Capt. Ryker you are to begin your training immediately.”

Author's Note

i know my grammer isn't 100%, any critique would be a great help! Also, let me know if you have any problems understanding the subject matter. i promise to post info on any of the acronyms if you've any questions regarding them...

x a n

Reviews

[Amund Schofield]

"Oh, that right! " When holland says that, it should be, "Oh, that's right!"


I also think that the ship's history was told too soon, and too non-chalantly. But over all I think you have a pretty good premis for a story.