Emily’s Personal Journal
I am now the Assistant Tactical Officer on board the New Zealand! A missile cruiser, Gods bless her. I was afraid they would stick me on a battleship, where I would be lost in the mobs of junior lieutenants. A destroyer would have been okay, but a missile cruiser! Very nice. Only one problem: I got a poor write-up on the Supply Station Alamo exercise, which I don’t understand at all. I asked Rudd about it, but all he said is next time I should try harder. Try harder? Heck, I almost annihilated him! Trying to get up the nerve to talk to Captain Grey. Getting madder as I think about it. Laura Salazar, who I had thought screwed up her exercise, got a good write-up and has already been transferred to Second Fleet. Andrew Lord is still here.
I have been in touch with Hiram, who sounds excited but is being very closed mouth about just what he is doing. Still seeing Cookie, but he is pretty much stuck on Atlas and Cookie has been posted to Second Fleet and is back at the space station infrequently. Another ‘Fleet relationship.’ What an unlikely couple! The shy geek and the warrior woman. I hope it works out for them. I envy them a little, I think. I’ve had one or two nice weekend flings while going through advanced training, but it was clear from the start that weekend flings were all they were going to be. One was someone in my training battalion, but I felt like I was having sex with a teenager. The other man was my age, but he was one of the training cadre, so we probably broke a gazillion rules and regulations. He was nervous as a cat. I’m trying not to get depressed about this.
Meanwhile, I am being trained in Tactical on the New Zealand. The skipper is Commander Julie Grey. She is a tiny woman, slender with short grey hair. She is attractive enough in a very severe way. She is pleasant, a bit formal, and can be one ruthless bitch in the training skirmishes we have.
I love it. And to my surprise, I seem to have a knack for it. I still want to be a Fleet Historian, of course, but in the meantime I must confess I am enjoying Tactical. We keep having all of these exercises where they create a tactical situation without telling you what is. You have to figure it out from the political background memos, from reports from other ships in your Battle Group, and from your own sensor reports. You look at all this data — most of it conflicting — and you try to find a pattern. You try to figure out what the enemy is doing. And if you are lucky enough to figure that out, then you have to figure out a way to counter it. It is fascinating, frustrating, stressing and rewarding, all at the same time. Twice now Grey and Alex Rudd have teamed up against me and I have either fought them to a draw or won. ‘Course, I have also been completely buggered about five times.
But I am learning how they think, how they like to move the pieces on the board, and what they don’t seem to pay attention to. We have more exercises coming up and I have some ideas that might just surprise them.