Free Troy Rising 3 - The Hot Gate by John Ringo

please.”
    “As long as you’re a guy,” Dana said, nodding at him. “See ya.”
     
    * * *
     
    Dana had been sent a message to report for in-brief the day after her arrival. With nothing better to do the next morning until the brief at 0900 she headed for the gym.
    Thermopylae, like Troy, had more than a dozen “fitness facilities.” Some were designated for specific units, some were designated for general military or general civilian and some were open to everyone.
    Figuring that she might as well figure out the layout of “her” gym, she headed for the one designated for the 143rd.
    The layout turned out to be Apollo fitness facility, one each. It was set up virtually identical to the one she’d been using for the last four years.
    What was a bit different was the users. Women, due to Johannsen’s as much as anything, had become less common in the military. But even in the 142nd there were a few “splits” as Chief Barnett so delicately put it. Five by Dana’s count and she could figure on not usually being the only woman in the gym.
    For just a moment, Dana seriously thought about just turning around and heading back to the BNCOQ. The gym looked like work-out time at San Quentin. It was a mass of Hispanic males, most of them as short as she was, and all of them as tattooed if not more so.
    “Jeeze, I hope I don’t get shivved in the yard,” she muttered, making her way through the press to an open Nautilus machine.
    She set the adjustment higher than it had been and started doing presses.
    “Yo, Chaco, check out the whore,” one of the men called across the room. “She is fine, no?”
    Dana paused in her repetitions for just a moment in shock. It wasn’t so much that it was a sexual reference, just that it was so clear and blatant. Then she realized it had been in Spanish and her plants had automatically translated. She looked at the speaker and concentrated until his name and rank came up in her vision. Spaceman First Class Jose Reyes.
    “You might consider not calling a CM2 a whore, Spaceman,” Dana commed. “Our plants translate everything you say so if you think you were being cute, think again.”
    “Who the hell sent that?” the Spaceman First Class said, angrily, setting his weights back in the rack.
    “I did,” Dana said, loudly enough to cut across the buzz in the room. “And to repeat, plants translate anything around them, especially if there’s a reference to the individual. So I’d be careful about the sexual remarks.”
    “When I want any shit out of you, whore, I’ll tell you,” the SM1 said, waving a hand and smiling broadly. It was in Spanish, again, so he’d clearly not been listening.
    “That does it!” Dana said, rolling to her feet and triggering her recording feature. “You had better lock it up, Spaceman. The first thing you said was an actionable offense. Direct disrespect to an NCO is an Article Ninety-One violation.”
    “Back off, bitch.” The flash pop was CM2 Pedro Benito so she was at least dealing with the same rank. Benito had a large tattoo that ran up onto his neck of what looked like an angel. “That’s my brother, not somebody for you to screw with.”
    “CM, I’m willing to disregard this encounter,” Dana said, taking a deep breath. “But you need to lock down your personnel. One, they need some retraining on plant abilities. Two they need some retraining on basic military respect and courtesy.”
    “When I want your opinion, whore, I’ll ask for it,” the CM2 said, waving a hand at her dismissively.
    “That fracking does it,” Dana said, her jaw flexing. “Leonidas, request immediate message to nearest senior NCO, preferably male, in the area. We have multiple EEOC and Article 91 violations.”
    “Message transmitted,” Leonidas, the Thermopylae AI responded. “Do you need security assistance.”
    “Not at this time,” Dana said as the group started to form around her. She just stood looking at them with her arms crossed.