Chapter 2 Certifications

I was put in a bunk room on the transport ship with three young women and two men.  They were all from Persia VI.  Two of the young girls were drafted to the pilot school for gunships, which were basically heavy fighters.  The two young men were both going to comms school, responsible for radar stations and the navigation of starships.  The last woman, Gwen, was going to engineering school for life support systems like me.  She had medium-tone skin and golden brown eyes.  She looked like a mix of Indian and Arabian descent from ancient Earth.

I was mostly Dutch and Italian, with a great-grandfather who was Indian.  It had been 5200 years since humanity burst into the stars, but genealogy still played a prominent role in society as countries colonized entire systems in an attempt to keep their nationality intact.  In the last three thousand years, the lines began to blur more and more.  

The Union populace, for instance, was mostly descended from Indian, Dutch, Arabian, Russian, and Korean ancestry.  Those nations had settled the core worlds that made up the Union today.  After centuries of wars amongst themselves, they had unified under one flag.  It only took a few hundred years before the corporations controlled most of the Union.

I decided to invest some effort into getting to know Gwen.  I was a shy introvert, and the extent of interaction outside my family was through video discussion during classes and our monthly visit to the nearest city on Persia VI.  Gwen was not shy.  She loved to talk, and even though I found her fairly attractive, the verbosity of her speech made me retreat into my mental turtle shell.  

I just tuned her mostly out but engaged her enough to keep a possible friendship going.  Gwen was in the cafeteria on the transport every meal, talking to dozens of people and trying to drag me along.  She was great at information gathering, and I thought she should go into UID instead of life support systems.  The UID was the government’s intelligence network.

Gwen found out the transport was bringing almost five thousand students to the Naval Academy, and there were four sections on the massive transport.  They were the Marines, techs and pilots, officers, and non-military.  This info allowed me to find my brother in marine country and spend some time with him.  He had already formed his own click in the Marine group.  He had much better social skills than me and was more adaptable in groups.

We were headed to the outer system two days after stopping at a water moon that grew algae made into nutrient bars on its orbiting stations.  The ship had 4,910 recruits officially.  We had 33 days ahead of us in transitional subspace space as our transport didn’t have very good drives, and I found out it was over a hundred years old.  We would be making one stop to refuel and service our subspace drives along the trip.

I will say for the most part, we were left alone so far, and there was a lot of sex going on.  The group was mostly between 15 and 20 years old, so it should have been expected.  We got our personal computers.  It is a computer embedded in your left arm, fused around the bone.  It had a holographic display 35 centimeters wide by 20 centimeters high.  It had voice recognition and a holographic keyboard as well.  They were called PerComs for short.

I was in the first group to receive the device, and lying in my bed, I explored the unlocked menus.  It took a few minutes, but my heart sank when I found my credit account.  It listed a debt of 24,459 credits.  Apparently, I was being charged for meals, housing, transport, and the PerCom that was just installed by the corporation transporting us.  That amount was more than my parents made in a single year.

Looking at the itemized billing, I found we were being charged a premium for each item.  I searched the Union Net for average prices, and we were charged 70 to 80% over those prices.  When I talked to an officer a few hours later, he explained it to me.  The ship, computer, and meals were contracted out.  The debt I was accruing would be paid to the corporation for their services in getting me to the Naval Academy.  

I would also have to pay interest while at the Academy, and then my wages would be garnished when I started working in the fleet until I paid the amount in full.  I was speechless, angry, frustrated, and helpless.  He said the good thing is I would not accrue more debt at the Academy, just the interest, a modest 11% annual rate.

My PerCom also allowed me free access to the Union Net and all courses, even advanced courses.  I found my citizen profile blank; all my certifications were not there.  I did a quick search and found I would need to pass the naval equivalent to have my certifications noted and take an exam every five years to maintain certifications.

I didn’t share this info with others, they could figure it out on their own and were probably happier not knowing.  I found a VR setup on the transport that cost credits to use.  It was 50 credits for an 8-hour session.  This was good because I checked, and it had all the practical certification examsI needed.  So I could take the written portion on my PerCom and the practical in VR to regain all my basic engineering certifications.  That was my focus for the entire trip.  I needed to reference and study the naval code differences.  There were sections for the more advanced tech in military ships than I had already learned, and it didn’t take me long to absorb them.  I had a near-perfect memory when I focused.

I knew I was adding to my debt, but if I understood the Navy regulations correctly, I should be able to take a year off of my Academy time.  I should also earn a grade 3 engineer rank at the Academy, which made 40,000 credits annually…well, 24,000 after Union taxes.  If I was thrifty, this should let me pay off my debts in two years or so.  Well, at least I had a plan.

We broke out of subspace for three days in the middle of the trip to refuel and for maintenance to be completed.  Long extended trips in subspace caused some people to get sick.  It was not known what caused it, but it was dreadful for some people.  One of my roommates who had been enrolled in the Comms program got really sick nine days into the trip.  It meant he would probably never serve on a starship.

It only took me 23 days into our trip to finish regaining the basic life support certifications, which would give me an instant engineering Grade 1.  There were just five engineering grades.  Grade 1 was a basic grade, someone who could do prescribed work, general maintenance, and light repairs.  Grade 2 could do diagnostics and repairs unsupervised.  Grade 3 could manage and supervise a team of lesser engineers.  Grade 4 was recognized as being able to do a tear-down and rebuild.  Grade 5 required 20,000 hours as a grade 4 and was generally the lead engineer on a combat ship.  Grade 4 was a little out of reach at the Academy, requiring physical rebuilds of dozens of actual systems to prove competency.

I even had time to regain my language certifications as it was just a written and verbal examination that took four hours each.  Not that this mattered now with my PerCom that had a universal translator built into it.

I was still happy that my profile now listed my languages and my certifications.  Once I enrolled in the Academy, I would also have, Life Support Engineer, Grade 1, under my profile.  I looked at the other engineering concentrations.  Propulsion, FTL, Missile/Torpedo Systems, Heavy Weapons, Computer Interface, Navigation, Sensors, and Communications.  So many specialties.  I knew I would have 10 hours a day of coursework, so I might be able to get a Grade 1 certification in two or three more specializations if I completed the tree of courses.

What did I want…or better yet, what would be best to earn me more income?  I dropped weapons systems immediately…I didn’t want to be on a ship that would see combat if I could help it.  Propulsion made sense…Sensors made sense…and my third focus?  Computer Interface was working with ship AI and computers and had quite a bit of knowledge, so I should look for something that overlapped better.  Navigation…tied to sensors…both I was weak in.  So, it came down to FTL or Communications.  I should choose communications since FTL drives require so much knowledge.  However, an FTL engineer was the highest-paid engineering position in the fleet.

I began looking up the list of certifications required to plan a path to all these specialties.  The sensors had 11 certifications, and 5 looked rather easy and overlapped much of my current knowledge.  Propulsion had 29 certifications, well 19, but then 2 more for each ship class, atmosphere fighter, space fighter, shuttle/transport, corvette, and capital ship.  FTL had just 7 certifications, but each contained so much information that the practical exam required a near-perfect score to pass.

During the remainder of the trip, I spent my time getting 3 certifications in the easy sensor areas I was already familiar with.