NaNoWriMo novel: Stormfront (revised)

Chapter 1: The Gathering Clouds
'This is what I dreamed about doing growing up?'
Cadet Brison remembered that day vividly. The concrete was burning his hands as he did push-ups, his entire basic training class in the same predicament around the grinder. The afternoon summer sun beating down on them and the reflected heat pounding them the concrete below.
'This is my fault,' he reminded myself. Not that he had to, the drill instructors are reminding everybody of the same thing from the shaded balcony where they are directing the punishment. Cadet Brison could feel the anger from my fellow cadets focusing on him, and all he could do was accept it as his due.
“Say 'Thank you, Cadet Brison for failing your test today.'” Chief Driscol calls out to the company. Only a few of his fellow cadets followed the instruction. Cadet Brison didn't know if he should feel grateful that not everyone was willing to throw him to the wolves or if he was disappointed because all that was going to do would be to keep the entire company out there longer.
As the Chief exhorts the rest of the company to thank the cadet for the various miseries that are going to be visited upon them for the rest of the afternoon, Cadet Brison heard a sonic boom and a scream of engines overhead. He glanced up and saw a fighter screaming back into the atmosphere, vapor streaming off the fuselage as it braked for a landing at the base. The cadet smiles - 'That is what I dreamed about growing up.' The afternoon on the grinder doing penance with his company was just a step along the way.
The cadet could feel the blisters starting to form on his palms and refocused on the situation he was in, wondering how long they had been out here. He couldn't recall the last few thank you messages the Chief has been calling out, but he does hear what the Chief says next, and cringed.
“Cadet Brison has decided to purposely let this company down and you are all going to pay for it. You can thank him every day for the extra drills you will be getting for the next week. Thank him for the blisters and sore muscles you will have.”
“Don't listen to him!”
Surprised, Cadet Brison turned his head and saw Cadet Walker standing up and glaring at the Chief. He was certainly the last person Brison would have expected to stand up for him seeing as how there had been virtually no interaction between the two since they had arrived, and especially considering the amount of pain and trouble he would get from it.
“You have beaten into our heads the need for teamwork. You have had us on our faces on this grinder when we falter in that, and now you have us out here to demand that we turn on one of our own company? Screw that, 'sir,' we are a team, we have been one for months now – you are not able to change that with any amount of afternoon beatings!” When he was finished, Walker remained standing, staring defiantly up at the Chief.
Brison was impressed at Walkers' defiance but knew from experience that it was pointless. He start to shake his head and noticed that other cadets were standing up, then felt someone take his arm and pull him up.
“You may not be my Section Leader anymore,” Cadet Wilston tells Brison, “but I still think of you as my Section Leader. None of us are going to let this go on anymore.”
Brison shook his head as he looked at her. “It really is my fault that we are out here. I failed that test on purpose and everyone knows that. The Chief has every right to be angry – that stunt of mine dropped the company to third...”
She didn't reply, just turned her attention to the instructors above them and stood at attention. Confused by the reaction of his class mates, Cadet Brison did the same.
Chief Driscol is leaning on the railing, looking at each of them in turn, glaring. He stopped when he got to Brison and nodded his head slightly. The Chief suddenly stood up straight, smiled and claped his hands together with a sharp crack that echoed through the barracks courtyard.
“It's about time you pulled together as a team. As Cadet Wilston points out, I have been trying to beat the concept of teamwork into your heads over the last few months.” Driscol stood surveying the company with a sad smile on his face, his inherent authority lending several feet to his short stature, and placed his hands behind his back. Driscol seeminged unconsciously assume parade rest – though Brison was sure that it was he had done for show as the company followed suit automatically. “You all will be done with this training in three weeks and will go to your first commands. Teamwork here is required to pass tests, run the physicals, and to make it through the training. Out there you will need it to survive. You won't have months to decide to work as a team, you will need to figure out how to do so within weeks!”
When he finished Petty Officer Waugh stepped up. “Company, atten-hut!” The entire company snapped to attention at the same moment, the crisp slap of their shoes coming together on the pavement answered his command. “Fall out. Dress blues inspection at 1600.” It was 1550. The entire company raced to the barracks stairwell entrance in a mad dash to get changed and pop tall beside their racks.
As Cadet Brison entered the building Wilston come up behind him. “Brison,” he says. The cadet turned to look at him, neither of them slowing down as they went up the stairs. “What were you thinking? You didn't seriously think anyone would believe you just had a bad day on the test, did you?”
Brison pursed his lips and turned his attention back to the stairs. “At the time it seemed plausible.” It hadn't, really, but he had managed to convince himself that it could be believed. He hadn't thought to consider the fact that he had never missed more than two questions on any of the previous tests. “I figured I could use the couple days I had just spent in the Zoo as an excuse. The test on top of the rest should have been enough to hold me back a week and get out of this fucking company.”
They entered the barracks floor, everyone that had been ahead of them were already at their bunks changing out of their dungarees and into their dress uniforms. As Wilston split off to go to his rack he glared at the other cadet. “You can't be that stupid, can you? They're not going to let you out of this company. You are going to go too far for them to let someone else say you graduated from their class.”
Cadet Brison stopped and looked after him. That thought had never crossed his mind – Driscol and Waugh rode his ass hard the entire time he had been here. Brison had assumed they would jump at the chance to dump him on another company. Confused, he finally made it to his bunk and changed as fast as he could into his blues.
He wasn't fast enough to avoid further attention from the company commanders. As he snapped to attention at the foot of his rack, Driscol and Waugh were standing at the front of the room, their seemingly permanent scowls passing over each of them. Waugh starts down the isle toward the cadet, Driscol, as always, doing the talking.
“Cadet Brison, why am I not surprised to see that you were the last one ready for inspection?” None of the rest of the company has the nerve to point out that there were still a couple stragglers finishing up the details of their uniform down the row a bit. “Haven't you caused enough trouble? I would think that after all the shit you caused over the last week you would make every attempt to become invisible!”
It was all Cadet Brison could do to stop a snort of derision. 'As if that could ever happen,' he thinks, 'I have made myself too well known to ever be invisible in this class.'
Petty Officer Waugh was standing in front of him by then, though Brison was careful to keep his eyes focused on a point on the opposite wall. Chief Driscol was looking at him as well, directing the entire force of attention on the mentally squirming cadet.
“You stood in my barracks and told me to my face that you would not do push-ups because you didn't agree with my reason? You insult me by thinking your opinion is equal to mine? You stood in my office, where I was graciously not beating the shit out of you for it – and was, in fact, giving you a chance to redeem yourself – and essentially tell me to fuck off? I strip you of your Section and again refrain from knocking the crap out of you, ordering you back to your rack to take part in the physical training, and you still you refuse? You get arrested and sent to the Zoo, you face Captain's Mast, come back to my company, and throw a test? Are you intentionally trying to fuck with me and this company, cadet?”
Petty Officer Waugh was glaring up at him. Somehow this short, intense oriental man could make anyone feel as if he were looking down at them. As Chief Driscol pauses, Waugh speaks quietly. “Drop”
I immediately drop into the up push-up position. I hear the Chief coming closer now, continuing his tongue lashing.
“I am beginning to think that you are purposely trying to fuck with my career, Brison. Down.” The cadet lowered himself to within a couple inches of the floor and held himself there, waiting. “Everything you do reflects on me. This little stunt today dropped the company from first place to third. Up.” Brison pushed himself back up and held, his face red and ears burning from embarrassment. “You will re-take this test and pass it this time. Do you know how much ass-kissing I had to do to get this for you. Down. And make no mistake, I am doing this as a favor to you. Up. I am offering you one final chance to redeem yourself. Down. If you fuck this up, you are mine for a very long time, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” he manages to grunt out, the strain of holding himself inches from the floor causing him to shake all over.
“Good. Stand at attention and get ready for inspection.” Chief Driscol moved off as Brison get to his feet and snapped to attention. Waugh looked at the cadet for another moment, then shook his head and followed the Chief back to the gallery at the front of the room.
Fuming, Brison berated himself for his lifelong dream, the burning desire to fly a fighter craft. He couldn't help but think 'If I hadn't pursued this so single mindedly, I would have been spared this humiliation.' Even through his anger, he couldn't convince himself that he could have done that.
Cadet Wilston watched as Cadet Brison got back to his feet. She hated seeing her former Section Leader treated this way. She knew that the company commanders had singled him out early on for his performance. She was grateful once again that she wasn't ambitious or smart enough to attract their attention. She knew also that she was lucky to still be here – if it hadn't been for Cadet Brison helping her with her drills and studies, she would have failed out over a month ago.
Admiring the way the other man stood rigidly at attention even when obviously angry, she remembered seeing that same look right before he had refused to train a couple weeks ago. Standing stiffly at his full hight of just under six foot, the veins standing out on his neck and his face flushed red all the way up into his buzz-cut hair, he flat refused to drop when Driscol and Waugh dressed down the company for a dirty barracks.
Both drill instructors had rounded on him when he was the only one standing, berating him for disobedience. Brison remained respectful as he stated he felt that the company was being unfairly punished as the barracks had been, in his opinion, spotless when they left for breakfast.
It was this force of character that made her realize that given half a chance, she would follow this man in anything he commanded. Even as the company commanders tried to break him, then had him arrested, she placed absolute trust in Cadet Brison.
She knew, too, that the majority of the company felt this way as well.
Over the week, the company paid on their faces for Brison's error in judgment. They bonded more during that week of pain than they had since they had arrived. Brison retook and passed the test he had previously intentionally failed and the company regained their standing as the top ranked in the division. Other than the newfound comradeship, the week passed mostly unremarked. One day blends into the next when they consist of marching, drilling, exercise, and basic military instruction. It also helped to distract them from the monotony to think about the upcoming week - the second to last week of training was work week.
Common lore had it that this was the week where cadets get to spend a week learning a bit about their real world job. Everyone talked about that as it is was the truth, but nobody really believed it. Most accepted that more than likely they would get stuck doing what the drill instructors decided they should do – after all, they conceded to themselves privately, there really isn't a rating devoted to kitchen scullery duty.
So it was that while the barracks resounded with groans of dismay as the cadets read their packets and realized they would be doing drudge work, cadet Brison gave a small grunt of surprise when he discovered that his assignment directed him to report to the flight line at the base across the bay.
It took a moment for the realization that the drill instructors didn't send him to a dark hole in the ground. By the time he refocused the barracks was in the midst of emptying. Brison took a few minutes to pack his laundry bag with dungarees and clothes for the week and went down the stairs to the street to found a base shuttle waiting. He stepped into the bus and the doors closed behind him as it left the curb, continuing on to it's programmed destination. Brison looked around to see how many other pilots there were aboard and saw only Cadet Walker sitting in the back bench, the rest of the bus was empty.
Cadet Walker looked at Brison speculatively and nodded in response to the other man's quizzical look. “Not who you expected to see on this bus, am I?”
Brison Grinned ruefully and shrugged, moving to the back to sit with Walker. As he did, Brison looked at Walker appraisingly because he was right – he was not the sort of man that would generally be pegged for a pilot. He stood about six foot, for starters, a bit tall for a fighter jock. When he had first arrived at basic training he was quite heavyset, though the constant workouts they had gone through over the past few months took care of that, trimming him down a lot. A little too fast for his body to catch up, it appeared, as his skin sagged a little around the cheeks, arms, and belly. Walker had intelligent eyes and always seemed a step ahead of most of the rest of the company, though his test scores were never in the top percentile. As he thought about that, Brison began to think that in that Walker was smarter than himself, as this seemed to have kept Walker out of the forefront of the drill instructors' attention.
'If I had followed his example, my test failure of last week would have gone over mostly unremarked.' Brison thought. 'But,' he conceded to himself as he sat down next to Cadet Walker, 'that is a philosophy I would never be able to take as my own. For better or worse, I am driven to be the best in whatever I do.'
Out loud he commented “Honestly, no. I never pictured you as one. What is your secret? How did you manage to go through this entire time meeting the requirements for the flight program and maintain your relative anonymity in the company?”
Walker looked at Brison and smiled as if he knew what he was about to say was so obvious he shouldn't have to say it. Looking Brison straight in the eyes he says “Self confidence.”
Confused, Brison wrinkled his brow and look right back at Walker and asked “How so?”
Brison could tell that Walker was amused, though he couldn't figure out why. Cadet Walkers' smile gets slightly bigger as he turns his head back to the front of the bus and explains “I know what I am capable of. I know where I am going and how I am going to get there. I don't need to set myself up as a superstar performer in order to give myself an ego boost.”
Cadet Brison was immediately offended. 'This mediocre performer has the gall to insinuate that me performing to the best of my ability is just a pathetic attempt to gain acceptance?' he thinks, then wonders at his reaction. 'Why would react so strongly if what he said didn't have a kernel of truth...' Brooding, he too turn toward the front of the bus and watched the city stream by.
'Do I really see a bit of myself in what he just said,' Brison wonders. Perplexed, he reflects on his motivations. 'Do I really make myself the top performer because I need the approval of others in order to validate my own sense of self-worth?' He concedes that this is possible, or at the very least he can see where it would have started out that way. Every child craves attention, and in that he was no different. Brison went through the standard deviations on this theme – causing fights, theft, disobedience – and got his daily doses of attention. Along with not a few spankings. He got his first taste of positive reinforcement in his primary education when, out of boredom, he excelled in some minor exam. The praise from Brison's instructor and from his parents resulted in such a warm glow inside himself that he decided that he would seek out that feeling whenever possible.
From there it became habit, then second hand. Excelling was no longer an effort for him. In this he can echo Walker – Brison know what he could do and where he was going. The difference between them was that Brison don't have to hide this ability because he knew he would always be capable of it.
Brison look over at Cadet Walker and came to the realization that Walkers' decision to hide his ability did not come from self confidence, but the lack of it. Walker did not under perform because he has nothing to prove, he did so because he was afraid that if he started to be the best, one day he might find that he wasn't. This was an idea that Walker was not comfortable with, so he hid safely in his chosen mediocrity, smug in his conviction that he was better than those that out performed him without ever having to put this conviction to the test.
The two men rode out the rest of the trip wrapped in their personal thoughts, each admiring the city they had only been able to see in the distance from the training compound. They traveled past all too soon, the majestic buildings being replaced with lush greenery as they approached the bay. As they Came around a final hill they both found themselves leaning forward in anticipation, neither having ever seen the base up close.
It comes into view gradually as they round the hill, sprawling next to the water, jungle giving way to buildings giving way to runways and landing pads. They watched as gigantic cargo ships lumbered up from the field and as personnel shuttles came down at a sedate pace. They saw atmospheric trainers circling in the airspace above the runways, a couple true fighters near the hangers undergoing maintenance, and several taking test flights out over the ocean.
“Takes your breath away, doesn't it,” Walker asked without taking his eyes off the scene before them.
“Yes, it does,” Brison responds, nodding unconsciously in agreement. After trying hard but not being able to see the craft on maneuvers out at sea, his eyes latched hungrily on the sleek spacecraft in the maintenance cradles near the hangers. Even with hatches popped open and workers crawling over their skin they were majestic in their deadliness. “I can't wait to get inside one of those babies.”
Walker smiles and nods. “Oh, yeah. I wonder if they will take us up in one?”
“Don't we wish. There isn't a chance in hell they will take us up. Two cadets? No way.”
“Yeah, you're right. We will be seeing enough of the inside of them soon enough, I guess.”
Brison nodded in silent agreement. He supposed that a couple years of flight school qualifies as 'soon enough' after a lifetime of working toward that goal. It took the bus about ten more minutes to reach the level of the base, after which they both lost sight of the objects of their desire. They let out a sigh and leaned back at the same time, glanced at each other, and chuckled slightly at their identical reactions.
A few minutes later the bus pulled up in front of the base main hangar and announced that they were to disembark here. They climbed out and saw a lieutenant that seemed to be waiting for them. They snapped to attention and gave her a crisp salute.
“Cadets Walker and Brison reporting as ordered, Ma'am!”
She casually returned their salutes. “This way, cadets,” she said as she turned and headed through the open hangar doors.
The two cadets followed her into the cavernous building. The center was dominated by a fighter in various stages of disassembly, surrounded by gantries. As they angled across the concrete to the suite of offices along the sides Brison realized just how big the craft really was. He had spent time around atmospheric training craft most of his life and had imagined their space faring cousins to be the same approximate size. He now realized just how wrong I had been – the space fighter was huge.
Easily two hundred feet in diameter, it looked nothing like it's atmospheric counterpart. There were no wings or other control surfaces, nor was there a visible cockpit. There were, however, numerous weapons mounts. It appeared to the cadet as they walked by that the majority of the hull had a weapon system of some type attached.
“I haven't seen this model before.” Brison heard Walker mutter. He glanced at the other cadet, momentarily confused, then looked back at the ship. Brison realized he hadn't seen this configuration before, either, but it hadn't struck him as odd. It seemed to him like a naturally neutral shape for it to be in, then suddenly realized what the disconnect was.
“You did realize that fighters are flexmetal, didn't you?” Brison asked Walker incredulously.
The silence that answered the question was confirmation. Brison looked back at Walker speculatively. He really didn't know the most basic feature of these amazing things. It gave Brison a pleasant, if somewhat guilty, feeling of validation as his previous realization about Walkers' claim of superior self confidence was confirmed.
The lieutenant showed them into a somewhat cluttered office and sat behind the small wood desk at the end. Walker and Brison snapped to attention in front of her desk as she hit a call button in the corner screen. “At ease,” she commented without looking up.
As the cadets relaxed, her office door opened and a chief entered. The casual way the man folded into the single chair against the wall seemed to indicate that he spent a lot of time in this offfice. “I am Lieutenant Pipkin, the flight line division officer,” she introduced herself. “This is my line chief, Dakson. You belong to him for the next week. More than likely, he will have you walking the tarmac looking for FOD, sweeping the hangars, or cleaning the head. You may occasionally get close enough to a fighter to drool over it.” Noticing the cadets' involuntary looks of dismay, she relented somewhat. “I will arrange a day for a pilot to give you a tour of the interior before you leave. Until then, I don't want to see you near any of the craft and if you bother any of the pilots I will have you back to the recruit training center before you can blink. Chief, anything you would like to add?” she asked and looked over at the man.
Dakson was studying the newcomers through squinted eyes, the expression on his long face doubtful. He pursed his lips and jumped up from the chair, heading for the door. “I can find something for them,” he commented without looking back as he headed back out.
The two cadets hurried out after him, wanting to make sure they didn't get lost. After they caught up to him they followed him to the maintenance shop where he set them up with some basic maintenance training sets and advised them he would be back in a couple hours to give guide them around the hangar and show them where they will be working, then he left.
Walker and Brison looked at each other, shrugged, plugged in, and went to sleep.
Chief Dakson strode purposefully across the hangar back to the lieutenant's office. He knocked once and entered, took the few steps to his chair, and folded his tall, lanky frame into the too small seat. “Heard anything about the squadron request, yet?” he asked without preamble.
Lieutenant Pipkin glanced fondly at him, amazed once again at how he could look so comfortable in a chair that was obviously two sizes to small for his hight. She shook her head slightly. “Nothing. They keep telling me there isn't one available, that there is nothing to worry about.” She looked back at the console on her desk and muttered “idiots.”
Dakson smiled at hearing that last word. For all that the whole of known space is in the midst of a shooting cold war, you still couldn't work with bureaucracies. If some one on some central world somewhere feels that an obscure training facility thousands of light years from the “front” was safe, then as far as the brass was concerned, they were safe, and no amount of whining would change that opinion. “Well, let's hope they are right.” he sighed. Looking over at his division officer knee deep in some report or other, he felt momentarily sorry for her and knew he wouldn't trade in his anchors for her bars any day.
“Well, ma'am, I am going to make sure the outside maintenance crews are being productive, then I'll decant those cadets and get them over for some chow. Meeting with the CO at noon?”
He waited just long enough for her to give him a nod of affirmation before he was up and out the door again, his never ending store of energy making it nearly impossible for him to sit in one spot for any length of time.
A couple hours later the chief re-entered the training shop to find the two young men reclined and plugged in. He walked over to the console to check the progress. When he saw that he timed his return perfectly, he nodded to himself and hit the wake up button.
He could see the life visibly come back into them as the system brought them out of the training state it placed them in when the plugged in. The blinked and looked around, catching sight of Dakson at the console after a few moments.
“Sleepy time is over, cadets.” he says by way of greeting. “Lets hit the line then I will drop you off at the commissary for lunch.”
The cadets unplugged and stood, a bit wobbly while as they tried to compartmentalize the new routines that had been uploaded, and again followed Dakson out into the thankfully dim hanger.
As he led the way, Dakson gave them some passdown. “Okay, boys, this hanger is going to be your home for the next week. We have a transient barracks on the top level where you will be bunking. You will report to this office each morning for your days assignment, and more than likely will spend your day in here doing it. About the only sun you will be getting is on your way to and from meals at the commissary on those days we forget to bring your box meals or when we open up to let a fighter fly in or out.
“You will have a session or two a day with the pilots, either in the lounge or aboard one of the craft, to familiarize yourselves with the layout and systems. This afternoon I will have Captain Clemmons give you a tour of this beauty here this afternoon.”
By that time the small group had reached the safety perimeter around the craft in the center of the hanger and started to walk around it. Walker and Brison couldn't help but stare up at in naked awe. Even the chief was looking at it with open admiration on his face. The big sphere was sitting in a gantry with all its weapons stripped from their mounts and it still radiated a deadly majesty.
Walker noticed some scarring and scorch marks along her sides, and as they came around further he saw several people high up her curve replacing buckled plating. “Chief, what happened to her?” he couldn't help but ask.
“A tender folded in from the border last week with a full attachment of damaged fighters. Apparently the Pax hit one of our outlying stations and caught a carrier as it was in the process of docking. It was able to get most of it's fighters to fall off before it was gutted by the light carrier and its squadron that skipped in. The base, surviving fighters, and the carrier escorts were able to wipe it out, but all in all it was a win for them. A carrier, a couple hundred fighters, a good portion of the station destroyed, a thousand personnel lost, and several dozen ships and fighters damaged. There was nothing living other on the ship other than itself on their end.”
Brison looked at the chief. “How many did it bring in like this?”
“They brought twenty of them to us for repairs. Another fifty came in as scrap and spare parts. This one will be ready to fly in a couple days and is the last one with major damage. There are two outside needing cosmetic repairs, and those will be done by the end of the day. The last batch we finished repairing is out on test flights and will be hitching back up to the tender in the morning if everything tests out right.”
Brison nodded and looked back at the damaged old girl sitting there. They had seen the others on their way in and it suddenly made sense to him why there were so many present. Something Chief Dakson had said struck the cadet. Brison looked back and asked “The tender folded in?”
Dakson looked at the cadet and grinned. Walking away from the craft knowing that the men would follow he said “Yeah, it was a brand new ship, fresh off the Guild assembly lines. Beautiful ship, it can get anywhere on that new drive in no time at all.”
“Chief,” Walker spoke up. “Wouldn't the Pax be able to trace where it came to have these ships repaired? If it jumped directly from the border, wouldn't it be easy to follow?”
Nodding, the chief replied “That is a concern. The LT has been on the comm chewing some major ass. The brass says the fold space jump is untraceable, but personally I don't trust it. There has to be some factions in the Mining Guild that would be willing to plant traces on anything they sell. How can you truly trust an organization that sells to both sides?” Shrugging, he continues. “Nobody is truly neutral in anything. Don't worry, cadets, we have requested a patrol squadron to skip in for station keeping in the system just in case.”
Concerned but somewhat mollified, the cadets followed the chief outside to make their way to lunch. After the dim of the interior, it took a couple blinks for them to get their lenses to darken enough so they could see normally. Dakson smiled at their reaction, not bothering to adjust his, since the cafeteria was just across the street. He was treated to a replay of the frantic adjustments as they entered the building.
“Just check in with the quartermaster and she will get you going.” he told them. “I have a lunch meeting with the LT, so I will see you back in front of the fighter in an hour.” With that Dakson turned on his heel and left.
In just a few minutes he had made his way back across the street, into the hangar, and met the lieutenant as she was leaving her office. “Ready, ma'am?”
Nodding, she led the way out front where a car was waiting. They climbed in the back and it set off toward the quarterdeck. “Let's see what the old man has for us today,” she grumbles as she settles into the moving vehicle. “He should have some status report for us on our last maintenance budget request at the very least.”
Grunting, ***

Thinking his abrupt departure was kind of strange, Brison made a snide comment to Walker about the type of lunch meeting the chief likely had with the division officer, and got an elbow in his side for the trouble. Irritated, Brison spun around to ask him what the hell that was for when he saw the quartermaster standing behind him. His planned comment fled, the blood drained from his face, and he started sweating under the cold stare of the woman.
“I would expect you to keep your speculations concerning your senior officers and non-coms to yourself, especially when you are somewhere you can be overheard. Follow me, and I suggest you keep you mouth shut.”
Brison managed to stammer out a “yes, ma'am” while suffering a laughing smile from Walker, and followed her to the chow line.