A Spaceman

Chapter 37--Kiss the Girl

TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT, ATTEMPTED RAPE, AND OVERT VIOLENCE DEPICTED

Well we all got our pilot letters. That was very enjoyable, a nice crisp packet explaining our future training and how lucky we are and all that shit. I'm very enthusiastic about spending the next few years in yet more training for the wonderful Space Forces. Since I've not spent enough of my life training to be a Spaceman. No, I shouldn't be this down; it's mostly rooming with Darla that has me in a funk, she doesn't talk and she doesn't do her bit to clean up the room.

Also, Titus was the only one of us excited, Darla is still depressed over her boyfriend trying to murder mine. Quentin quiet as always, I'm in my mood, and Titus is thrilled like a child on Christmas morning if a child is in a family and gets presents and not some stupid care package from the government---but I don't think Titus ever got that excited about Christmas presents because I'm sure that his presents didn't give him to billion ruble machinery to amuse himself with to his little heart's content.

Also the packet told us that we would have a pilot's induction ceremony in six days, which would be our appointment to flight officer school, which our families would be invited to, to which Darla and I were just like 'hooray, we've not got any', and Titus was really excited about a ceremony all about him, and Quentin was worried about his mum affording the train fare and getting off work. So yes, our feelings were mixed. We were all generally happy about getting flight suits and dress whites with our pilot insignia sewn on, a nice little ship and some stars around out it; that pleased Titus to no end and I confess I liked it was well. We are to get fitted for the dress whites this week.

About this week, however, it told us that we would not starting training till after the next ceremony, which meant that we are to spend this week doing nothing. well, not nothing, cleaning our dorms and the training buildings in general, awaiting the arrival of our instructors who will escort us to Milton SFB (yay, Darla and I only grew up next to there at the Academy) where we will begin our space training. That last bit was exciting, because it explained out that we would get an individual mentor to teach us to fly. The first bit, however, was something like intellectual homicide to Titus Card.

Now, none of us liked the busy work of just cleaning. I could find some pleasure in it, in that it was sort of therapeutic to wander about polishing things and spraying them with good smelling cleaner and thinking my own thoughts. Titus, however, was apparently not so easily amused, rather than doing such menial tasks as a child apparently he tended to get other people to do them and he knew he couldn't actually do that so pretty soon---pretty soon being by the end of the first hour, he is stark raving mad.

Granted, he did have it worse than the rest of us. The general consensus of the MTIs was that if given access to cleaning supplies he would attempt to build a nuclear warhead just to prove he could---this was actually supposed by Thorn, and when Titus protested on the grounds that if he did he might not get to learn how to fly a ship, the rest agreed that his needing to add a caveat as to why he wouldn't made him inherently less trustworthy with chemicals---and since he was so upset about not getting any chemicals they didn't give him any access to anything he could use as a weapon, so basically he ended up with exactly three paper towels for the entire day. Yeah. Not a good situation.

To explain a bit more. When we were asked to clean the main conference and auditoriums, we were given lay outs of how the furniture was to be set up. But these lay outs don't take everything into account. Everything being Titus Card.

"DO YOU THINK WHAT YOU ARE DOING IS FUNNY??"

"More than a little."

"What did he do?" I ask, following Leavitt into one of the flight rooms, where Titus is lying on a table grinding his hands onto his head. Leavitt really isn't having a good day either.