Kevin Clayton: The Big Change

It was christmas and we were standing in line aboard the Bericold. The pilots of our wing and numerous other navy personnel where listening to a speech by Queen Catherine. The Queen herself was positioned on an elevated portion of the flight deck while we were lined up on the main flight deck facing left towards the flight deck door. The reason we were facing the front of the ship was, according to the queen, to symbolize and motivate us on our path towards our goal. The speech had lasted a good thirty minutes until now and there was no end in sight. It had addressed our justification for the invasion of Lyria and our steadfast resolve to see it through.

“It’s more like a status thing, if you ask me.”
“What kind of status are we gaining by invading a country, with no reason at all?” Liara put emphasis on that last part. “This is just medieval.”
“That’s just it. Catherine wants to play along with the big boys. Invading a country is bad way of being a responsible member of the international community but it’s good in the sense of being all ‘Empire’. That’s what she wants. I think.” I explained.
“Maybe we are going to grab more of the west after this one. That’s what I think.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The speech went on. There was huge support among our people for this invasion. Many thought it would be a good thing to do, something which showed we were powerful; something which we were entitled to.
“How long is this speech going to take?” A pilot from my wing who was standing behind me asked.
“As long as it takes,” Liara replied.
Despite what the Queen might let on in her speech, the main reason to invade this planet was because Catherine thought it would be a good idea. Our relations with the Lyria government, or actually governments, had always been a good one. There were some disputes over trade, crime and all the other disputes which you normally have with countries you’re bordering, nothing serious. One day Catherine just woke up and decided to invade it. Many more appreciable justifications were of course given. Among them the aforementioned disputes, supposed suffering of the Lyria populace under their current government. A thing to note here is the fact all governments on Lyria were in fact democracies. I was sure there was mismanagement and corruption in some but nothing which under normal circumstances justifies an all out invasion, but here we were.
“I think it’s all pretty cool by the way,” the pilot behind us said, “without someone like Catherine we would never do this crazy stuff.”
“We’re going to invade an innocent country.” Liara said only a little annoyed. “That’s not cool at all. It’s cold.”
“Good one,” I said.
“Thanks.”
Two rows in front of me a captain turned his head around and looked back at us. “The squadron leader wants you to shut the fuck up back there.”

I nodded back to the captain.
The speech went on for another half hour before we were finally released. I stretched my arms and bend my legs. Many around me were doing the same.
“Everybody wait here for a while. We can’t all get of this deck the same time. No need to start pushing with all the marines,” our squadron leader said
While our formation broke up into small groups an waited, Jake, one of the cargo masters in our squadron, joined me and Liara together with Lucas. Lucas was a sergeant from the marine unit which we were supposed to be dropping.
“Corporal Jake, are you properly motivated to rise to the call your country has given you?” I asked. It was an actual quote from the speech.
“Absolutely, Lieutenant,” Jake said with an obvious fake enthusiasm.
“Excellent.” Liara said. “Keep it up corporal.”
“I don’t mind kicking some Lyria ass,” Lucas intervened.
“Yes, let’s conquer these people. Let’s subdue them so they will life under the exact same rule we are living under,” Liara said with a smile.
“It’s kind of interesting if you think about it,” I added more benign.
“I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” Liara said. She sounded conflicted, like she’d been from the start of this operation.
“Believe it. It’ll make you feel better.”
“You’re right,” Liara admitted.
“For the Queen,” I joked to lift her mood a little.
Lucas turned to me, “You’re unpatriotic.” He sounded really serious.
“Right. Forget what I said, Lucas.”
“No I won’t; You’re basically royalty yourself.”
“So?” Liara asked. I thought it was an excellent question but I also realized I didn’t need this discussion. You had to be careful with these marines around.
“You’re right,” I said to Lucas. “I don’t know why I’m complaining.”
“Do you know why? I’ll tell you,” Lucas responded angry, “Because you’re a hippy. This whole navy is.”
“Whatever,” Liara sighed.
“Just see it this way,” I explained jestingly, “If we weren’t, we wouldn’t accept a mere sergeant striking such a tone to an officer.”
“You’re not my officer!” Lucas said in disdain.
“You’re right again, Lucas. Let’s just leave it be.”
“My men are relying on you. If you’re not fully committed to your duty, you’re putting our lives at risk,” Lucas said.
It sounded a bit over dramatic to me, but I wasn’t a marine.
“I’m actually looking forward to this,” I assured him, “If we’re gonna do it, I might as well make it work.” I meant it. I might not agree with the reasons, but this didn’t make it any less exciting.
“Invasion!” Jake shouted softly as to endorse my sentiment.
The sergeant didn’t seem to appreciate our angle here and he looked away to the side.
“Don’t worry too much sergeant, you’ll be fine.”

The same open mindedness which had brought the Royal Navy its high level of performance, was at the root of a divide between its members and the monarchy. The Royal Navy used to be the pride of our military, but after the declaration of war with Lyria desertion in the Navy was immense compared to other branches and defection to the Lyria defence force wasn’t a rarity, but I wasn’t planning to do either. I didn’t have any deep issues with participating in this campaign even though at times I thought it was ill conceived. Besides, I had a nice career in front of me in the Navy, while desertion would give me no prospects at all.

Only a few hours later someone knocked on the door of my officer quarters. My room was a small two by two room with a bed and a desk. It was luxurious compared to the cramped racks some enlisted had to sleep on in this ship. In recent years the navy has been moving away from the massed racks in favour of one or two-man rooms for enlisted personnel as well, but this ship had been built long before this change in policy. I opened the door. A Navy corporal was standing in front of it.
“Luitenant Clayton, you have to report in with the wing commander immediately,” he said. “What’s this about?”
“I do not know, sir.”
“Where’s the wing commander right now?”
“In the main planning room, sir. I’m to escort you there.”
“The main?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well.”
I stood up and followed the corporal through the ship. It was a long walk. The corporal didn’t say anything until we reached the elevator which would take us up to the bridge, the AIC and the main planning room.
“Good luck, sir,” he said as I stepped into the elevator. Apparently he wasn’t coming.
“Thank you corporal,” I said relaxed. Maybe there was some change to the original attack plan. I pressed the button for the bridge and the doors closed.

When the doors opened moments later I had arrived at the ships operational centre. This was the first time I had been here since I had gotten a tour around the ship more than a year back. Other people were constantly arriving and leaving the hallway in the numerous elevators which surrounded it. Together with a number of other Navy personnel, which had just arrived as well, I walked through the big door which gave access to the main planning room. We were greeted by a Lieutenant holding a list, who seemed to be ticking of the names of everybody who was now entering the planning room.
“Name,” The lieutenant ordered when it was my turn.
“Lieutenant Clayton, Lieutenant,” I complied terse.
“Go stand over there,” The lieutenant said after he had made a mark on his list.
He gestured in the direction of a formation of men, which was now forming up. I walked up to the formation. Everybody lined up here was Navy personnel, but other than that there was no commonality among them. There were pilots, soldiers and crewmen, enlisted and officers. I stepped in line in front of the formation. We waited. Everybody else in the room seemed to be ignoring us. Most of us were out of place here. The room was filled with high ranking Navy and Marine officers and their staff. They seemed to be in important discussions and were standing around a number of four big rectangular tables and huge monitors lining all the walls. Two of the tables had a huge sphere shaped display mounted on top of them. Both were depicting the Lyria worldmap with various bright symbols, lines and arrows overlaid upon it. In the next ten minutes some more Navy personnel, who were ordered to join the formation as well, walked in. After a Major, who had walked in last, had joined our ranks, the Lieutenant holding the list walked of to a table in the far side of the room. He returned together with no one less than the Admiral Willis, commander of the fleet. He was followed by some staff officers.

“Men. Let me give it to you straight; The Queen has received reports telling you have displayed disloyal behaviour of the gravest kind. On the basis of these reports the Queen has ordered me to have you all transferred to the Royal Marines as punitive action.”
“I’ve asked the Queen to have these cases examined by a committee, but she has instead ordered me to see to this personally.”
“I’ve also been ordered to personally condemn your actions in the strongest tones and I would therefore like to remind each and every one of you, there will be no tolerance of disloyalty in the Royal Navy.”
“Now listen up. Even during your assignment to the Marines, I will expect you to perform your duties with the same level of professionalism which would be expected of you in the Navy.”
“Sir, Aye, Sir,” we yelled in unity.
“Hereby each and every one of you is dishonourably discharged from the Royal Navy and drafted into the Royal Marines. Is this understood?”
“Sir, Yes, Sir,”
“Your respective commanders have already been briefed on the situation and they will meet you in the officer’s mess. Keep your head down men. Dismissed.”
And that was it.

The admiral turned around and returned to his table in the back of the planning room. Even though we were dismissed, everybody was still standing at the spot. We were all trying to make sense of what just happened. It took a while before the first men broke ranks. I followed the first few out of the room.
Right outside a soldier, who had walked out first halted and turned around.
“Where is the officer mess?” He asked.
“Just follow me,” a voice behind me said. It was the Major who had walked in last.
He walked to the nearest open elevator and the rest of us followed. I had spotted two other officers in the formation but he was the highest ranking of the group. After everybody had entered, I pressed the button for deck twenty three.
“Just out of curiosity,” a crewman asked the rest as the elevator started its decent, “What did you do?”
There was a long silence.
“I might have expressed my reservation about the justification of the current campaign,” one of the other officers in the elevator said carefully.
“I called the Queen a crazy bitch,” a soldier responded.
We all laughed. I didn’t think it should be all that funny, but at the moment I didn’t seem to mind as much as I thought I should. Maybe it had to sink in, I told myself. I mean here I was; kicked out of the Navy, my career destroyed and not knowing what’s going to happen, besides the fact I would be joining the Marines. This couldn’t get any worse.
The doors opened and we all got off on the square in front of the officer’s mess. I immediately spotted my wing commander. She was waiting outside of the mess with a great number of other officers I had never seen. She was about thirty, or so I guessed. We knew she had connections. She was slender, good looking with long black hair.

“Colonel,” I said after she walked up to me.
“Lieutenant Clayton, what did you do?” She asked immediately.
“I don’t know, ma’am,” I said, “According to the admiral we displayed disloyal behaviour.”
“And do you, Lieutenant Clayton, have any idea what the admiral might have been referring to?” She asked threatening.
“Ehm. I have had discussions with my peers about this war.”
“And?”
“And in these discussions I might have dropped a critical comment or two” “And I also might have made some sneering remarks about the Queen.”
“Well, it’s all fine with me, but a marine sergeant reported you,” She explained.
“Who?”
“Sergeant Lucas. He’s part of the unit we’re dropping.”
I thought about this. This surprised me the most. The only time I could remember myself talking about the war or the Queen in his presence, was a few hours ago and I didn’t recall saying something really nasty.
We had had serious discussions about the topic in the squadron, but I always tried to avoid the actual complaining. I had succumbed to it on occasion of course, more for the fun it, and only because Liara kind of dragged me in. I often believed she had a lot more serious issues with this war than she let on, but it didn’t matter now.
“What exactly did you say Kevin?” The Colonel asked.
“I don’t remember, nothing to bad.”
“According to Sergeant Lucas, you said this war was bad because if we won, more people would have to live under the rule of the monarchy and you also made fun of the Queen on several occasions. Is that true?”
It was hard to remember exactly.
“Something like that, though not in so many words.”
“Great thinking Clayton,” she said sarcastic. “There’s nothing I can do right now. You’ll have to gather your gear and report in with Marine PO. You’re not allowed to contact your unit, or any other Royal Navy unit for that matter.”
“Yes ma’am. Permission to speak freely?”
“Go ahead.”
“How long is this going to take?”
“As I said, there’s nothing I, or anybody else, can do about this at the moment. I’ll risk being assigned with the illustrious Marines myself.”
“Can they just do this?”
“The short answer: yes they can. From what I heard you are certainly not the only one. For now, this is it.”
I took a deep breath. Things were certainly sinking in.
“I’m sorry, Kevin.” She showed some empathy while she said it.
“Thank you, ma’am.”
There was an awkward silence.
“So Lieutenant, gather your gear, report in with Marine PO.”
“Roger that.”
We parted and I headed back to my quarters to get my gear.

As I was packing my back, I was amused at the irony of joining the branch which reported me being punishment, in the eyes of the Queen.
Disbelief; it was the only thing explaining my relative calm under all this. In the back of my mind I could already feel reality starting to catch up with me. This was unfair, I had lost my whole career, I could get killed in the coming battle. I realised it wouldn’t take long before this peace would be gone and the consequences of all this would be knocking at my door. I sat down on my bed and looked around the room, checking if I hadn’t forgotten anything, but I didn’t and was ready to go to my fresh new assignment. I picked up my duffel bag, put the sling over my shoulder and left the room. I had left the door wide open and my mattress beside the bed so someone would notice this room was vacant. Otherwise this room could be left unused for months.

I headed for the Marine PO. The marines were the most untrained, unprofessional and ill equipped force we had to offer. A majority were conscripts and the so called volunteers were often unemployed with a pressing recommendation to sign up, blurring the line between the two. Anyone interested in a military career, and who had some competence, would join the army or the Navy.

A moustached marine sitting behind one of the counters in the Marine PO signalled be forward after I had been waiting behind a white line for several minutes.
“Name?”
Only two counters were occupied and there had been no one else waiting but me.
“Luietenant Clayton. Kevin.”
“Could you spell that?”
“Charlie, Lima, Alpha, Yellow, Tango, Oscar, November. I’m reassigned to the marines.”
“Got you,” the man said without looking up from his screen.
He entered some more data, before he stood up and walked to the back. I wondered how they would handle this. Would we be expected to participate in the upcoming invasion? Less than a week of training would seem like short notice even for marine standards. Most Navy personnel spend more time on the firing range then the average marine, but I was sure there was a little more to it than that.
“You’ve got to fill in some papers.” The man said after he finally returned and handed me a pile of papers. “There are pens in the lobby.” He pointed to a number of chairs surrounding a table.
One other guy in a Navy uniform was already sitting there, filling in similar paperwork.
“Good afternoon!” I said while I sat down across from him.
“Hello, sir.”
“You decided to join as well.”
“I sure did.”
“Excellent.”
“Dear god,” the guy sighed.
“What did you do?” I asked just to start a conversation.
“I would love to know. Nobody told me.”
I didn’t recognize him from the group in the planning room earlier today. The patch on his uniform made it clear he was a soldier.
“This morning I was told, we were being reassigned for disloyalty. I said some critical things about the war and the queen.” I explained to fill him in.
“I did that.” He said immediately.
“Well there you go.”
“Thank you, sir,” He said with a smile. “How many are they kicking?”
“I don’t know. I was in a group of about twenty, thirty.”
“Who got kicked?” He asked.
“Yes. You weren’t?” I asked.
“I’m kicked alright, but I’m the only one from my platoon. At least I think.”
“Oh, me too.” I explained to him, “The group I was with were people from all different units. We had to report to the admiral, who told us we were reassigned.”
“What did he say?” The guy asked curious.
“He explained we had been disloyal and we would be reassigned to the marines because of it, nothing more. He said the Queen had received reports about us and had ordered him to do so.”

“I guessed it had to be something like that. Any idea what’s going to happen now?”
“I would love to know.”

All the papers seemed to be standard marine application forms. I didn’t bother to read through all of it, I had to sign the stuff anyway. The soldier seemed to be going through every page though. I waited for him to finish.

“Ready?” I asked after he put his last signature down.
The guy took a deep breath
“See this as a challenge,” I told the guy smiling, before standing up.
“Will do,” he said as he slowly stood up as well. “Maybe they’ll put us all in the same unit. That’ll be cool.”
“Who knows.”
We handed our papers to the marine behind the counter.
“Clayton, you’re with F134, report to captain Mirtel, deck four, room 4623. Good you’re with B890, captain Knowles, deck four, room 4431.”
“Thank you, sergeant.”
We both walked out of the PO. “Good luck, sir,” Good said. We had to go in opposite directions.
“I’ll need it.”
“Keep your head down and your guard up, stay in cover, take aim, follow orders. You’ll be fine, sir.”
“I’ll remember.” I said confident, but I certainly didn’t feel it.

The signs on the walls told me I had arrived in deck four, section six. The lower and upper decks in section six through eight were reserved for troop accommodation. The decks in between were all cargo area. This placed the cargo all on level with the flight deck so it could be moved there easily. I knocked on the door of room twenty three. There was no response. I decided it didn’t make much sense for this captain to sit around in his room all day or to expect him to return here anytime soon.
“I’m looking for the F136.” I asked the first marine I ran into in one of the corridors further in the section.
“Don’t know were they are stationed. Try the mess, it’s about dinner time.”
“Ehm, and where’s the mess?”
“Isn’t this supposed to be your ship?” the marine said laughing. “The end of this hallway right, first left, room eighty nine.”
“Thanks.”
“The F’s are all greens, so go easy when you fly them down, okay?” The marine said as I got going. This was just what I needed to hear.

There was a fist fight going on in the mess when I arrived there. The room was cheering although most men were still seated. One of the two participants already had blood dripping from his nose onto the floor.
“What’s going on here marines?!” I asked demanding and with my best officer disposition as I approached the two. They weren’t impressed.
The one with the bloody nose made another swing towards the head of his opponent, who managed to block the blow and countered with a kick to the flank. It connected but lacked any real force. I was about to step in when a woman passed me by and started yelling. “What are you doing?!” She screamed.

Both of them froze for a moment.
“Get in line now!” she yelled. “What’s wrong with you?!”
Both jumped to attention with their arms pressed alongside their bodies.
“What is this about?” she asked bored.
Both men kept looking forward and said nothing.
“Fine, get out of here.”
“Yes, sergeant,” both mumbled.
And that was it. One of the men returned to one of the tables while the one with the bleeding nose walked out of the mess. To my knowledge women weren’t allowed in the Royal Marines and she wasn’t wearing a standard uniform. She turned to me.
“Lieutenant Clayton, you seem to be a little lost.”
“I’m looking for the F136. I have to report in with captain Mirtel.”
“Captain Mirtel is in the officers mess. It could be a while before he returns. I’m the platoon sergeant of second platoon, maybe I can help you.”
“I’m reassigned to the F136.”
“You’re a pilot and you’re reassigned to the F136?”
“Yes, I am.”
She seemed to think about this for a second.
“Why are you reassigned here?”
“I got kicked from the Navy and send here as punishment.” It was the simple truth.
“Really? We got another one of those yesterday. Maybe you know him. I’m Max by the way.”
“Kevin.”
“The captain won’t be back for a couple of hours,” she said as she walked off. “Get yourself something to eat, Kevin.”

I did so. After filling my plate I started walking towards an empty table. I could tell people were looking at me. So would I if I was in there place, I figured. I had nothing personal against marines. A good portion of them probably didn’t want to be here more than I.
After nearly everybody left I dug a book from my duffel bag and started to read to pass the time. This wasn’t how I imagined it all to be.