model_pilot (model_pilot) wrote in kobols_legacies, @ 2008-01-06 16:28:00 |
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Current location: | Hanger Deck |
Entry tags: | (c) alice starkweather, (c) rhys gaither, (l) avalon |
Sneaking In
Daniella Kypros stepped with some trepidation onto the hanger deck following the previous night's attack by the Cylons. The deck area was especially busy today, damage control parties were still working on areas that had been damaged during the attack and extra plane crews were on duty to repair or overhaul vipers and raptors that had suffered battle damage or mechanical failure by the end of the fighting. In addition to that there were still the everyday tasks going on of maintaining the CAP and taking on supplies from the rest of the fleet. In short, it had every appearance of controlled chaos.
She'd missed it.
Dani hoped the CAG didn't spot her out here or he'd have her ass, legitimate excuse or no. It hadn't been said in so many words but she knew damn well he wouldn't want her down on the deck itself, especially on a day like today. But she wanted to check on Rhys, whom she hadn't seen since the Cylons attacked, and fulfill her promise about speaking with his new crewman about possibly applying for flight training. It did fall under her current responsibility as Air Liaison Officer, so she could claim to be here investigating that with a straight face. Not that Bojay would buy it for a second, but...
Call it the hormone fueled irrationality of a pregnant woman, but after last night she needed to see Rhys. Sitting there in their quarters, without another living soul anywhere near her as she listened to the attacks had scared her badly. It was an entirely different experience than fighting the battle, then you were too busy and too focused to be scared.
She weaved her way slowly and carefully through the busy deck, looking for her fiancée.
"These," Alice Starkweather said, pointing to some parts that had been stripped off of a Raptor when it had returned to the Battlestar. "And those. This is what's salvageable. The rest is scrap, unless Gaither says different. Put them somewhere accessible. I'll check and see what needs to be done with the rest later."
Her ears were still ringing slightly from the last hit they'd taken, and she poked a finger into her left ear to see if that would help. It did, but only a little. The work crews were going to be busy for hours down here, and that was even before they'd be able to start cleaning up the rest of the debris. Parts had to be examined and possibly stripped if they passed muster. It could have been worse, though. With the Cylons, it could always be worse.
The crewman paced off the distance between herself and a damaged Viper, examining the fighter with a critical eye. That could possibly be repaired to fly again. She'd have to find the time to look at it more closely, when things weren't so chaotic. Frakking toasters.
She was just about to make her way over to a group of younger workers when she spotted another brunette picking her way across the cluttered space of the deck. An officer, down here? Alice paused momentarily, and then her posture stiffened. A very pregnant officer. Not good. She looked around for Bojay, who thankfully was nowhere in sight, then approached the other woman.
"Sir," she said, offering a salute as she closed the distance. "I'm sorry, but in your...in your condition you're not allowed to be down here. CAG's orders." As if they didn't have enough to worry about already. "If you need something, maybe I can help, but not here."
A chagrined expression crossed Dani's face and she felt it heat up even as she returned the salute. "I wasn't aware Major Sykes had made it a standing order." She should have known better, but then again she'd never tried to come on to the deck itself since finding out she was pregnant before today. Sykes would have read her the riot act, and so would Captain Tarix most likely.
She peered at the crewman, not recognizing the other woman. A battlestar was like a small town in many ways, everyone knew everyone, so she must be new. Either a transfer from Pacifica or one of the other ships in the fleet...or a new recruit.
"I'm Lietuenant Kypros, currently on Air Liaison duty," she felt she should introduce herself to the other woman at least a little and explain why she was here. "I was looking for Petty Officer Gaither, he asked that I speak with one of his crewman about applying for the flight training program." Dani glanced about the busy deck for her fiancée but didn't see him anywhere. She would see him before she left, she was determined on that particular issue.
Alice looked over her shoulder, peering through the general noise and hubbub, then swung back to face the other woman. "Gaither had to go take one of the other mechanics down to the sick bay. We took a pretty good hit before it was all over. Master Chief Troy didn't make it, caught a piece of shrapnel in the..." The crewman paused, her expression shuttering a little, and she looked down at the floor. "He didn't make it."
There was a silence while chatter around them seemed to get noisier, and then Alice offered, "Gaither should be back soon, though. Being the senior man on deck, he sort of took over and got us organized after the jump. He kind of left me in charge while he's gone, but I'm just a crewman. Alice Starkweather." She saluted again, then pointed to a place off to the side, one that was slightly less in the middle of the foot traffic.
"I'm sorry, Sir, but I'm really going to have to insist that we at least step over there. Forget about the CAG, Gaither'd have my hide if he found a pregnant lady wandering around here. We're all wound really tight as it is, y'know?"
Truth be told Dani was glad that someone had called her on coming down to the deck. She knew she'd gotten pretty awkward lately, but she hadn't realized quite how ungainly she'd become just in the last week and it had been too far from the hatch to turn back once she'd come to that epiphany, it was easier to move forward. Now that she had a guide it would be a little easier to navigate out of the way.
And it was the very person she'd ostensibly come down to the deck to see, how was that for divine intervention?
She'd heard a little about Chief Troy when Rhys had called to let her know he was ok and check on her. It was too bad, the Chief had been a good man. At least Rhys had been there to help get things organized afterwards, she was sure that had made everything easier.
There had been several good people who hadn't survived the battle. The Airgroup in particular had been hard hit, from the initial reports Dani had read that morning. It brought back bad memories from her own time in combat and the crash landing that had nearly killed her two and a half years earlier.
"Fair enough crewman, you're actually who he asked me to speak with." She smiled a bit wryly, amused at both the coincidence and the mental picture of what Rhys' reaction might actually be if he did see her down here. The grounded pilot gestured over toward the ladder to the upper causeway. "How about we talk over there, that should be out of the way enough don't you think?"
She started toward the area indicated, keeping an eye out for any hazards. "I suppose I should know my limits, but with carrying two I'm finding my limits are changing faster than I thought they would." It was as close to an apology for coming onto the deck as the crewman was going to get. If she'd realized how bad the damage was she'd have never come down.
Two. That meant twins. She had wanted children. But the one she had wanted them with was no longer here.
"I hope the walk didn't take too much out of you, Sir," she said to Lieutenant Kypros as the two of them took seats out of the milling workers. "Its been a long day for all of us." She looked down at her hands for a moment. Flight training? What had Gaither been telling the officer, and why?
"I had heard the program was recruiting," she began, and that would probably be even more true now, after this confrontation with the Cylons. "But I don't think I...mentioned to Gaither that I might be thinking of beginning training." It was true that time did tend to blur together down here, one day turning into the next amid the work of repair almost seamlessly, so it was possible that she'd mentioned something in passing and it had stuck with the man, but it was a very slim possibility.
"Did he mention me bringing it up, Sir?"
"It's all right," Dani responded to the other woman's concern, even as she put her hands on her stomach and glanced down at it after they sat. It had taken a fair bit out of her to come down all the way to the hanger deck, and the twins had been acting up a storm ever since the attack as if sensing their mother's distress and fear.
Try being stuck in crew quarters by yourself during the attack and knowing there was absolutely nothing you could do but sit and listen.It had been the longest night of her life so far, and far worse than any combat mission she'd flown. "It's been a long day for everyone."
"Petty Officer Gaither-" it was so odd calling him that anymore-"told me that he thought you might have the chops to do more than simply fix vipers and raptors, though he praised your abilities as a mechanic by the way with the words 'she has a real gift for engines'. He thinks you might have what it takes to fly them, but didn't say if you'd expressed an interest."
She looked at the other woman directly. "I won't lie to you, being a combat pilot is an extremely dangerous job. Barely half our pilots have been in the cockpit since the war began, and of those some of us who have lasted that long haven't made it through unscathed. This," she gently rubbed her ever swelling belly, "isn't the first time I've been kept out of the cockpit, but thankfully a better one than last time. It took me six months of hard work to recover from injuries I had in a crash when we left the Colonies."
"It's also intellectually challenging and physically demanding. There's a great deal you need to know in order to safely fly a Viper or Raptor, let alone defend yourself in combat."
Alice looked at the Lieutenant's belly, then away from it. Don't stare. Unless you want everyone to know what happened to you, don't stare. "This is my first experience with the Cylons since I've been in the military," she said, re-directing her attention back to the older woman. "I don't think I knew how loud it could get up close."
She shrugged the remark off in the next minute, then changed the subject. "I was a good student, I guess. Canceron's schools had to allow for farm chores sometimes, but my teachers never had any complaints. I can say, though, no one's ever suggested pilot's training."
The mechanic paused, then added hurriedly, "I'm pleased that PO Gaither thinks well of me and that my skills have drawn his attention. He's an excellent mechanic himself, and he's been able to help me get up to speed with the others. I'll have to remember to thank him later."
"I never experienced the Cylons any other way, before last night." Dani said simply. The fact that she didn't much care for sitting there helpless to do anything but listen and not contribute was plainly written on her face. For all intents and purposes she'd been a civilian bystander, and it grated. "The fact that you didn't freeze up speaks highly of you, not everyone can handle the pressure."
"As for PO Gaither, he's a good man," Dani said with obvious fondness in her voice. That much had been clear even before she'd fallen in love with him. "He tries hard to be a good leader to his people and make sure everyone has what they need to do their jobs. NCOs like him are what the fleet run on, really." It was a true statement, but what was also true was that Dani was a woman in love with the man in question.
She leaned against the bulkhead to relieve some of the stress on her back and eyed the other woman. There couldn't be more than two or three years age difference between them, if Starkweather agreed to try out for flight training she'd have to pull the crewman's personnel jacket and read up on them. "But we also need pilots, and that's one of my jobs while I'm out of the cockpit is to keep an eye out for fresh talent. What do you think, Starkweather? Do you think you might have what it takes?"
Alice looked down at the deck, then over to where a battered Raptor had been left for later inspection. One of the wings was half blown off, and they'd had to torch the hatch open to get the pilot out. It had been a small miracle they'd managed to retrieve the craft at all. Being a Fleet officer, being a pilot, might be glamorous to some, but it was also dangerous, life-threatening work.
Then again, she'd already passed the big test, hadn't she? The one where she'd had to stay sane after saving her life had cost her the boy she loved? If she hadn't frozen up or panicked during the Cylon attack, it was because she had nothing left to be afraid of. And some days she still missed Nathan so badly that all she could do was curl up in the fetal position on her bunk and pretend to be someplace else. But she was still here, still alive. Still trying to heal.
If she said yes, Lieutenant Kypros was going to find out about how she'd gotten here. It was in her file, that someone had given up their place in the selection process so that she could be taken aboard the transport. That anyone would make note of such a thing was both baffling and infuriating to her, a private detail, but the military seemed to care little for her feelings on the subject. Could she become a pilot? Yes, most likely. Could she tolerate the scrutiny that would come with the decision? She didn't know.
"I'll give it some thought, Sir," she said in a low voice, keeping her eyes averted. "I don't know if arrangements would need to be made to have someone cover for me. We're short-handed as it is. Crewman Jessup got burned shortly after Chief Troy hit the deck and didn't get up. Gaither had to take him down to med bay because he couldn't see. We're still waiting on word to see if he's blind. Would I have to speak to another officer? Captain Tarix, possibly?"
"For purposes of applying for flight training you would submit the application to my office," Dani told her, frowning a bit. The way the Starkweather kept returning her attention to Dani's belly hadn't gone unnoticed, but the grounded pilot couldn't quite figure out why the other woman kept staring. Sure she was getting huge, but she wasn't freakishly huge yet...though at the rate the babies had been growing the past few weeks it wouldn't be far off. So what was Starkweather's problem?
"I wouldn't worry about leaving the deck short handed, that's a problem everyone's going to have for the short term while people get moved around to fill other slots that opened due to casualties or other issues. If you decide to apply, there would be some exams you'd have to pass before you'd be considered for the next group of nuggets."
She would have to put out another call for people to apply to the flight training program, which she'd done once before since taking over the Air Liaison position three months ago. Maybe she could get on that talk wireless program that people had been talking about.
"I'm not going to put a gun to your head and force you to apply, Starkweather," Dani said patiently. If the other woman didn't want to be a pilot, fine, if that's what she wanted. "I would ask you to give it a lot of thought, though. We need pilots as well as mechanics."
And in her own way, Alice already was. As a civilian, she had been self-taught as far as mechanical skills went, and while the Fleet's training program had gotten her this far, maybe there was still further to go before she could be fully herself again. "Thank you for taking the time to come down here, Sir," she said to Lieutenant Kypros with the ghost of a smile. "Sorry to make you walk all this way, but thank you for making the effort."
"Dani?"
A male voice overrode the noncom's words, and Alice looked up to see Gaither returning. The Petty Officer's coverall was smudged with soot, one of the sleeves torn. She immediately got to her feet. That greeting had been extremely....informal. And Gaither looked worried.
Oh. Oh
She would ask about Jessup later. Now was the time to be someplace else. She cast a furtive, slightly jealous look at the two others before removing herself from the situation. Love. She envied them that.
Rhys barely noticed Starkweather's departure, and he clasped his large hands together at the back of his neck as he regarded Dani a little anxiously. "You're not supposed to be down here," he told her, trying to sound censuring. But it had been a stressful few hours, and he gave up the act after only a minute or two. Stepping towards her, he pulled her into an embrace, just wanting to stand there and hold her for a little while.
"Remind me to be mad later, okay?"
"It's no trouble-" Dani broke off from her train of thought at the sound of Rhys' voice. She lurched herself off the packing crate she'd been siting on and turned to take in the sight of her intended, the crewman suddenly forgotten for the moment.
"Rhys..." He looked exhausted, his shoulders were slumped and there were circles under his eyes. His coverall was stained with fluids and soot, and torn in several places. In short, he looked like hell.
Dani didn't care, she was just relieved he was in one piece and eagerly returned his embrace. The grounded pilot stood on her tiptoes, wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him so she could kiss him thoroughly. At that moment she really didn't give a damn about the rules against public displays of affection.
After she reluctantly pulled back a bit she had the good grace to look suitably abashed. "I didn't think it would be quite this busy, and I needed to see you." Maybe it was the hormones making her irrational that caused her to come down here, but right now she didn't care whether it was or not. She'd wanted to prove to herself that he was all right.
He could feel the press of Dani's stomach against his, and the knowledge of the lives growing inside her was enough to balance out the exhaustion and the leftover adrenaline of the last few hours. She really shouldn't be down here, but he was willing to take the comfort of her presence just the same. He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, then rested his forehead against hers, uncaring about anything except that she was there.
"Sorry you had to sit this one out," the mechanic said in a quiet voice. He knew what flying still meant to her despite her grounded status, and he wondered if she intended to go back to it after the children were old enough. The way the war was dragging on, they were going to need all the help they could get against the Cylon threat. "Next time at least warn me you might come down here," he half-joked. "Being forewarned will help me stave off the heart attack."
Rhys looked over his intended's shoulder at the continuing efforts of the deck crew to put things in some kind of order, knowing he was going to have to get back to work soon. This respite couldn't last long. But he could wring just another minute or so out of it, an island of safety and sanity among the chaos. It would be enough for now.
"I didn't really think about it, coming down here," Dani admitted softly as she rested her forehead against his and took comfort in the feel of his arms around her. "I had this urge to see you, make sure you were all right with my own two eyes. Thought I'd kill two birds with one stone and talk to that crewman of yours."
The attack had been terrifying in that there had been nothing for her to do but sit there. Normally she'd been too busy fighting for her life or doing some other task, but this time there hadn't been anything and she'd been reduced to a sobbing wreck temporarily by the end of it.
"Let's not wait, Rhys," she pulled back her head enough to look into his eyes. They'd discussed setting a date for making everything official and saying their vows before the gods, but hadn't come to a firm conclusion. Dani had been torn between marrying Rhys before the babies were born and waiting until she'd had a chance to regain her figure, but the events of the past twenty four hours had made everything clear. "Let's get married, soon. I know it might take some time for us to get everything arranged, but I don't want to wait any longer."
She wanted it to be official in the eyes of humanity and the gods. This was the man she wanted for life, and Daniella Kypros would not be denied her choice by a random chunk of battle steel like that which had claimed the life of Master Chief Troy. The young woman put her head back on his shoulder and enjoyed what little time they would have together before duty would once again separate them.