Chapter 2 - MoveThe first five seconds after an alarm tell you more about training than the previous five weeks.
Some sailors looked upward.
Some toward exits.
Some toward instructors.
Jake looked at me.
That told me enough.
A voice came over the facility system.
“Emergency. Galley ventilation zone. Evacuate dining spaces through marked exits.”
Not a drill announcement.
No exercise prefix.
Real.
I turned immediately.
“Leave trays. Nearest exit. Walk fast. Do not run.”
Nobody asked who put me in charge.
Not yet.
The yellow-and-black identifier helped.
So did tone.
Several instructors near the far wall began directing their sections.
Smoke appeared above one galley doorway.
Thin at first.
Gray.
Then darker.
A cook shouted from behind the service line.
Ethan moved toward the exit with everyone else.
Jake hesitated beside the chicken leg he had thrown.
“Move,” I told him.
He moved.
Noah stayed.
“Chief, do you need—”
“Exit.”
“But—”
“That is an order.”
He went.
The word Chief traveled through the room faster than smoke.
Jake heard it.
His head turned.
Then an instructor shoved his group toward the door.
I crossed toward the galley.
A civilian food-service employee was helping another worker whose apron sleeve had caught briefly before someone extinguished it.
No active flames on her clothes.
Smoke in the ventilation hood.
Electrical smell.
Grease.
A small fire had started above a warming unit and climbed into the duct.
A petty officer had already hit the local suppression control.
Good.
Another sailor pulled the electrical cutoff.
Better.
I checked the injured worker.
Conscious.
Breathing.
No major burns visible.
“Medical is coming.”
She coughed.
“I’m okay.”
“You are currently too smoky to vote on that.”
She almost laughed.
Then coughed again.
Facility fire crews arrived within minutes.
I backed out when they took control.
That was also training.
Knowing when authority transfers.
Outside, hundreds of trainees stood in organized groups.
Jake was with his division.
Noah several people away.
Ethan beside Jake.
All three stared at me as I exited.
Jake’s face had changed entirely.
A training chief approached.
“Chief Mitchell.”
“Yes?”
“Fire crew has the space.”
“I know.”
He glanced toward the trainee formation.
Then at my sleeve.
“You were supposed to be observing today.”
“I was.”
His eyes moved toward Jake.
“I assume that changed.”
I looked at the recruit.
“No.”
The training chief frowned.
“The fire changed the schedule.”
Then I added:
May you like
“What happened at breakfast will be reported separately.”
Jake swallowed.
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