The Green Sea

Posted on Thu Jan 26, 2017 @ 4:19am by Lieutenant Marisa Cheshire & Major James Mattis

Mission: An Orion to Die For
Location: Deck 43 Marine Galley
Timeline: MD 3|| 1450

Marisa had just finished dealing with Intel and by now she had felt she’d done enough to warrant a 15 minute chow time before she got back to work. She was still in awe of the sheer size of the Triumphant, nearly 50 decks and almost 4000 personnel. It became abundantly clear that she had no idea where her squadron ended up.

Eventually she gave up trying to guess from a map she’d called up on a wall mounted computer and tapped her com-badge.

“Alice to Mobius.”

”There is no one on this ship with that name.” the computer responded in it’s emotionless monotone.

Marisa shook her head and rolled her eyes inwardly. This place was so far from K7 she was surprised that she had forgotten “Computer, link the coms alias Alice to my record and the coms alias Mobius to Lieutenant Larry Colbert.”

”Affirmative, operation complete.”

“Alice to Mobius.”

=A=Mobius here,=A= Her wing man responded almost immediately with a happy cadence =A=Hey Alice, they actually have Aquaponics! Fresh Fish!=A=

Marisa gave a warm chuckle. “So I saw on the map. I wasn’t sure it would make it into the final spec.”

=A=God bless the military industrial complex.=A=

“So where did you guys end up?” she asked, trying to move the conversation along as her stomach continued to complain “There’s about 16 places to get chow on this boat.”

=A=Well we were all eager to try out the civilian places, but they’re shut down on account of it being yellow alert. Pilots mess is out too, but luckily the Marine contingent just came back from an op so security directed us to their galley for the time being.=A=

Marisa frowned to herself, interdepartmental issues were generally fairly predicable, the most hostile one that she’d been involved with was between conn officers and the Fighter Corps, but Marines and Pilots could go either way. “Alright, I’m heading down. Just keep our guys in line until I get there, alright?”

=A=Hey, if anything happens I brought your guitar with me so we can do Boots on the Ground. That aught to placate them right? You know, providing that you leave the singing to me.=A= Larry teased.

“Hey, I have the voice of a siren!” Marisa said in feign protest

=A=Either that praise came from a Klingon or they meant it in the alarm sense and not the mermaid sense. Or they meant that your voice kills -.=A= The tongue poking out the wingmans mouth was almost audible.

Marisa shook her head and interrupted “Mobius, Judy Judy. Just keep the squad out of trouble and grab me a platter of what ever fish they have on offer. I’ll be down in a second.” She said with only the slightest hint of exasperation.

Larry chuckled loudly before responding. =A=Keep the squadron out of trouble and grab lead some fish. Mobius out.=A=

As Marisa found another turbolift she started playing with her PADD again, trying to get a better handle of her department. Ever since meeting the captain and accepting her post about two hours ago now it was an itch that demanded scratching. She continued to read it as the lift announced deck 43 and found her way by keeping the direction indicators the computer had set along the walls to help her in her peripheral vision. It was only when she looked up to search for her squad mates. It wasn’t hard to find the red in the sea of green, and it had seemed like they’d holed themselves up next to a door on the far side of the galley. Smart: if things got heated they had an exit she thought as she returned her attention to her PADD and made her way towards the table.

Mattis looked over and took notice of the new arrival in the room. Noting her presence, he continued nursing his whiskey, standing in a dark corner of the room.

Marisa's eyes kept her eyes on the PADD, using her honed peripherals to navigate around the green field, occasionally flicking her eyes up to catch a glance at the foot traffic. Eventually she messed up, getting knocked by the back of a marine who was standing up and found herself tumbling forward gracelessly towards a table that was vacant aside from one man drinking whiskey. The table shuddered as she made a hard landing causing whatever was resting upon it to shake violently.

Quickly setting his drink down, Mattis reached down, holding out his hand, and said, "Are you ok?"

Marisa rolled her eyes, inwardly chastising herself for not paying attention as she took the offered hand with one that was still clad in the same silver and red environmental flight suit she had landed. As she got to her feet she looked up with an appreciative smile that quickly turned to awe as she realised just how big this guy, who was apparently human, was.

She wanted to say thank you and apologise but all that came out of her mouth was a "Jesus Christ, what do they feed you down here!?!"

Laughing a little bit, Mattis said, simply, "Everything".

Marisa backed up apologetically, raising her hands defensively. "Sorry about that, but damn, you are fricking huge." She said, almost immediately eliminating her apology with a second look of awe.

Shaking her head again she shook her wonder, making her best apologetic expression. "I'm being rude. I'm Lieutenant Marisa Cheshire, the Skipper just appointed me as the CAG. I didn't knock over your drink or anything did I?"

"Nice to meet you. and no i didn't spill it", Mattis said looking at the bottle in his hands. "Care to have a drink?"

Marisa shook her head with a inward smirk "No, I just crashed sober, and as far as I'm aware, the ship is still at alert. I don't want to spend my first sortie at a new post grounded for being under the influence. It doesn't make a good impression."

She noted the bottle and frowned at the man. "I don't mean to tell your business, but you should knock it off before your MCO shows up. I assume similar rules apply to you guys."

"I am the MCO, and it is no alcoholic", Matthis said simply.

"Oh, well then." Marisa said with a bit of surprise "I must thank you for putting up with my squad." She said with a polite nod. "I'm sure they all appreciate it." She then returned her attention to her PADD "While I've got you we need to talk Air Support." she scrolled down to an item before looking up at the Major again. "Do you need me to assign a Liaison or do you have people trained in calling for CAS?"

"I am going to need a person, and by the way how good are your people at danger close fire support?"

Marisa shrugged "I've got over a hundred pilots under my command, I can't speak for all of them. But with the 'Angels, we had to be able to hit 3 meter hard points traveling at close to a quarter of Light." She narrowed her eyes and sucked on the side of her cheek with a thoughtful expression. "It's going to be dependent on terrain, weather and what kind of strike you order." She explained with a wide gesture of her gloved arm "I've not dropped a torpedo on a marine yet, lets put it that way."

"Thats good to hear", Mattis said.

"Glad you agree." Marisa said with a smile before pursing her lips thoughtfully. "That's the only thing that was worrying me for the time being, I'll organise an ALO. Anything else you want to ask me? If not, I'm famished and have been in this flight suit for close to a day now."

A smile crossing his face, Mattis asked, "Tell me, what do you think of mid to late 21st century Fighters, because i have something to show you that may be of interest to you".

Marisa's smile widened quite a bit "I absolutely adore them. It was like, the sweet spot between fluid dynamics and computing. Following the turn of the millennia everything went computer controlled, taking the control away from the operators. We've got the same problem now of course." She placed one hand on her hip and moved the other one around as she talked "But, almost everything after the Phantom and before the Raptor, including the eastern block nations was something special."

"Well, if you have time, i would like to show you something I own that's stowed away in Marine Cargo Bay 1".

Marisa bit her lip thoughtfully. There was a good second or two before she let out a sigh. "You know I'd love too, but I've got to get my department squared away and ready to sortie asap. Duty calls and all that." She said with an apologetic shrug.

"I understand", Mattis said impassively.

"Rain check for sure though." she said with a wide smile "Oh, but before I go, I understand you guys would have been the ones taking down Raimus, right?"

"That is correct", Mattis said.

"Well done." Marisa beamed a wide smile "The boys and I owe you a drink, a real one." She added before waving goodbye.