Stellar Navy

Chapter 01: Here Be Dragons

-You got to be f... kidding me!

The old insufferable excuse of an Admiral raised an eyebrow. But I was ok. He didn't quite catch the swallowed curse word and, despite the fact that he didn't like me, he probably expected this type of reaction.

After six weeks since I've arrived in this backwater system (and by the way, calling it "system" is generous, one tiny blue star with two bodies smaller than Europa barely qualifying as planets and the rest... just lots of rocks) I was finally being given command. Of a disciplinary crew! Yes, you heard me, A DISCIPLINARY CREW!

And the worst part: there was nothing I could do about it. And the "Methuselah" bastard knew he had me.

You see, despite my age I've earned my commission from the highest naval authority. I won't bother you with too many details, it's basically a new program to put fresh top graduates in the captain's chair. They don't put you in the front lines, or on strategically important positions, they don't assign you to brand new spaceships nothing high stakes.

BUT they do give you command. Customarily a crew of both old experienced retired officers -willing to teach- and young graduates -willing to learn- on decommissioned old ship that still has a few years before it's turned into scrap. And they assigned you some escort or patrol routes that they know they are safe, usually deep inside our borders. You know the type of missions, boring stuff that is required by some overcautious regulation to have a military presence but not really needing one. But hey, it's command. And for a young person is amazing.

The truth is that the Stellar Navy is no different than any other military organization in one regard: they are desperate to attract fresh blood. And what better way to do so than promising the best of the graduates their own command.

And to really understand the genius of this program you need to consider the historical and economical context.

Everybody complains about young people these days. They have no discipline, no respect for the elders, no sense of patriotism, don't care about tradition anymore, they don't go to church, and the most important, they are not motivated. Not even by money. Because these previous generations grew up in the age of space expansion, so they did not need mortgages to claim an empty planet or a minerally rich asteroid. They had been given materials and stimuluses by government to build, to expand, to tame the final frontier. And they did it with a fervor akin to greed. So now, after everything has been built, every Lagrange space filled up, all the livable spots occupied, all the minerals mines spoken for, they cannot possible comprehend how young people these days are not satisfied with 90% of their wages going to rent or bank credits, bills or taxes. It's the old boomers versus millennials all over again, except this time the background is not a diminishing forest, a dirty ocean or a polluted city, but the cold, dark, irradiated void.

But the Stellar Navy understood a simple truth: young people these days may not be motivated by patriotism but they do thirst after responsibility. But not the old fashion type, the grotesque ideology meant only to make people loyal to the companies they work for. The new generation wants to have an impact, a real one, to truly matter, to make the worlds better places. You see it everywhere, in the small gestures. Recycling, collecting worn clothes and old toys for orphanages, giving shoes to homeless people in the winter. Uploading a video explaining how to assemble an air scrubber, or how politics works so you can vote better, or simple things like playing a computer game so you don't buy something you don't like. Or which telescope is more suited for the stargazer in you. They discovered that responsibility, in order to resist for more than a few days and not to be killed by the "bare minimum is more than enough" syndrome, must come from passion.

And Stellar Navy needs exactly this type of people. People who are willing to push through the heavy mud of today without the promise of big money, villas or golden plated automobiles. People who really believe in a bright future, like the one from the Star trek stories, a future that had been postponed year after year after year by the greed, laziness or incompetence of those who hoard power and resources.