First time
WHO: Jilleen Simmons & James Chase WHERE: Battlestar Altantia WHEN: September Y1993(Backstory)
“Sheba?”
Jilleen was reading an adventure-fantasy novel about a Leonisan heroine who hunts down vampires during the Imperial Age when she heard someone say her call sign. She looked up and found a pilot in his flight suit, looking down at her. She did not recognize him from her air wing aboard Atlantia. He was a grade in rank higher than her, but the use of her call sign was an invitation to be informal.
“Yeah that’s me, how can I help you?” She wondered how he knew her call sign, when she never even set eyes on him before today. He was not half bad looking either, she thought.
“I did plan to punch you in the face,” he said.
“What?” She had to take an extra second to go over what he just said to her. “Is that some kind of pick up line?”
“No,” he looked serious. “It’s before I learned you were female.”
Ah right, I’ll play along, she thought. “Of course, you must be afraid a girl could kick your arse?” Someone must be playing some kind of prank on the nugget. Gods when will this probation end? She noticed both his raptor squadron and fleet patch. “Its quiet understandable since you fly in a raptor.”
He smirked because he liked her sassiness. “Don’t you have a pair?”
“Yes, a pair of tits,” she looked directly into his eyes, not showing weakness. Jilleen was very confident she could take him if needed. She could thank four years of military martial arts training at Gladius Cross. She then quicly looked around the recreation room to see if anybody was laughing in a corner somewhere in on this joke before continuing. “And I get it. I’m still a nugget, but I don’t need this harassment. I don’t know who put you up to this, but ha, ha funny.”
“No one did, but I had two weeks to cool down,” he helped himself to the chair across the table from her. “I just wanted to meet who nearly killed me and my ECO.”
She thought back to two weeks earlier during a training battle. “That was you in the raptor?” she pointed at him. She remembered the close call, but not the part about endangering the crew of the raptor, at least from her perspective inside the cockpit of the viper. “Well, I didn’t kill you.” She shrugged.
“It was close.”
“I’m sorry if I made you wet your pants,” she smirked.
“Are you always this cute?”
She shook her head. “You wanted to punch me in the face earlier, and now you’re telling me I’m cute. You’re a strange man, and I don’t even know your name.”
“James Chase.”
“Jill Simmons, but your probably already knew that” she offered her hand to shake.
“I only knew your call sign,” he shook her hand.
“Are you just visiting?” she let go of his hand.
“Transferred a raptor and now I’m waiting on a ride back to Picon.”
“And I thought you only came see me,” she smiled. They talked for an hour until it was time for him to catch the shuttle back down to Picon. They really seem to connect in that short time.
Before leaving he asked, “How about if I take you out one night when you're planet-side, maybe we can have dinner and catch a show. What do you think?”
“Thank you, but no thanks. I don’t date raptor pilots.” She liked him, but she was not interested in dating. She had a month of serious pilot evaluations ahead of her before the next promotion selections.
“You don’t know what you are missing, Jill.”
“Then you have to impress me a hell of a lot more won’t you.” She waved good bye. It took him over three months to convince her to go out on a date and that was with a group.