Kobol's Legacies - Battlestar Avalon

Already, flight school felt like a dream. Rosie had escaped with her sanity mostly intact, or at least she thought she had, but her assignment to Avalon had been surreal at best. It seemed a pretty short interval between her standing on this flight deck praying to the gods that Captain Simmons didn't bitch slap her down to galley-duty and watching open-mouthed as that weirdo West let go the biggest round of insubordination she'd heard since Day One at the Academy. It hadn't seemed like a bad idea to talk to a cute, slightly unhinged, and possibly dangerous guy.

That was before fate had laughed in her face and her assignment to Avalon had been put into her hands. Even after a week on duty aboard the battlestar, everything still felt just plain weird.

She and her ECO were running through their pre-flights now, still on-world at the Aerilon Fleet Academy (where she'd spent all too much of the past four years) with their decidedly strange cargo of the Colonies' Surgeon General, whose business on Avalon Rosie couldn't really cipher. Not that it mattered. From dreams of heroics to taxi driver in just a week. She had to admit she'd expected her excitement to last a little bit longer.

"Tower, Raptor three-one-niner requesting clearance," said her ECO into his headset. He was around eight years Rosie's senior, he'd gone to officer training school, the whole nine yards. He had experience on her that was almost embarrassing, but as long as they were in the raptor, she was the boss. That too was surreal.

"Are you comfortable, Dr. Zoticus?" Rosie asked the Surgeon General, more to fill the silence than anything else.

"Quite, thank you," he replied, fidgeting slightly in the manner of someone unused to sitting in a raptor.

"Raptor three-one-niner, you are cleared for take off," said her headset.

"Thanks," said her ECO.

"You ready to go, Doc?" Rosie called over her shoulder, even as she spun up the engines. Dr. Zoticus responded with a weak nod.

"Alrighty, Cupcake, let's hit it," said ECO with a wicked sort of grin. Rosie hoped she'd get to fly with him again, he seemed like a pretty good guy. And with that, she juiced the engines and they took off in earnest, leaving Aerilon's green and simple features shrinking quickly behind them.

Cole whistled a soft, melancholy tune to himself as the dim lighting of the deck seemed to do little more than throw the shadows of stationary Vipers across the flight deck. He leaned lightly on the mop in his hands, absently waving it back and forth across the deck as he let his gaze drift from ship to ship. A small smile crept onto his face, marked by a touch of sadness and punctuated by a soft chuckle.

"Nice going, Hero." He muttered to himself. "From blazin' smugglers to swabbin' decks."

He let out a second sigh, this one with a touch of anger. He paused in his stroke and then grabbed the mop and tossed it across the deck where it landed next to a plastic bucket half-filled with gray water. He reached into his pants pocket and retrieved a cigarette with his teeth. He fumbled for his lighter and a few moments later, he blew a relaxing breath of smoke towards the ceiling high above. He let out a cynical laugh to himself, "Wonder if I'll ever see a jock smock again?"

He leaned against the bulkhead and crossed his arms. A moment later, his eyes closed and he let himself enjoy memories of his time behind the stick.