Free Of Treasons Born by J. L. Doty Page B

limited external gravity control, which allowed for independent maneuvering if it was ejected from the gunboat. York didn’t want to think about that.
    He also had some fun doing a few runs in the gunboat pilot simulator, though Cochran told him it would be some time before he got a chance to put that to use.
    The shuttles weren’t shuttles , they were gunboats, and Dauntless had three of them, named One , Two, and Three . Each had four gun turrets, and the gunboat’s system didn’t carefully allocate targets to a particular gunner. It just flagged them in his display as green for friendlies and red for foe. “If it’s red,” Cochran told him, “and you got a shot, you take it.”
    Cochran turned York over to Corporal Mike Bristow, and Bristow kept York quite busy. If he wasn’t parade marching up and down Hangar Deck to Bristow’s shouted commands, he was lifting weights or pumping calisthenics with some of the marines, or running simulations in a gunboat turret, or practicing weightless maneuvers in a vac suit. They taught him how to use a grav rifle and sidearm, and he spent an hour on the firing range every fourth watch rotation.
    One day, after running York up and down the deck for an hour, Bristow let him take a break. York sat down on the deck near a group of marines running maintenance checks on their combat armor. “Them pod gunners give you the talk about the lowest of the low?” Bristow asked.
    â€œYa,” York said. “Nothing lower than a pod gunner.”
    Bristow shouted at one of the marines working on the armor. “Hey, Cath. Is it true, nothing lower than a pod gunner?”
    A small woman with short, blond hair looked up from working on the armor and grinned. “Not true at all. There’s us marines.” York thought she was rather pretty.
    Allship blared, Down-transition in ten minutes and counting.
    The marines all agreed that they were lower than any pod gunner, and they appeared to take pride in that. It was an odd sort of camaraderie.
    Bristow said, “Ain’t nobody lower than you, Cath.”
    She returned fire. “At least I don’t have a limp dick like you, Bristow.”
    Down-transition in one minute and counting.
    â€œYou could make it not limp,” he said. “’Course you couldn’t handle it.”
    â€œProbably because it’s so small I couldn’t find it.”
    As allship started the final countdown to transition, York wondered if the two of them would come to blows. But the other marines were grinning, and York got the idea they had this conversation quite regularly.
    Down-transition.
    York felt that little tickle in the back of his spine, and he shivered.
    Bristow frowned at him and said, “What was that, Ballin?”
    â€œTransition,” York said. “It gives me a weird feeling.”
    The marines stopped what they were doing and looked at him oddly. Cath frowned and said, “You feel transition?”
    â€œYa,” York said. “Don’t you?”
    The silence grew uncomfortable, then Bristow said, “Ah, he’s full of shit.”
    Cath quizzed York about the sensation he felt, and when he described it they all agreed he was full of shit, though apparently no one held that against him. York was relieved when Shernov marched out of his office and their attention turned away from him.
    â€œTwo boats,” Shernov said. “Squads one and two, light combat harness. Milk run, going to evacuate some sort of spook team from the embassy.”
    He looked at York and said, “Ballin, today you get your cherry popped. You’re riding side turret.”
    York jumped to his feet, wasn’t sure if he was supposed to scramble or not. But everyone else sat or stood without moving.
    Shernov said, “Calm down, Ballin. We’re still outside of heliopause.”
    At York’s blank look, Shernov gave him a quick lesson in interstellar navigation. A