PHD #053: Filling the Room
Filling the Room
Summary: The pilots are consolidated into a single bunking area. Fear the Raptors.
Date: 20 Apr 2041 AE
Related Logs: None
Players:
Cidra Quinn Daphne Marko 
Pilot Berths - Naval Deck - Battlestar Cerberus
The battlestar's pilots call this place home. Bunks line the walls with grey curtains to cover their sleeping areas. Lockers sit between each pair of bunks and a round metal table sits in the center, furnished with simple but comfortable steel chairs. A hatch at the rear of the room leads to a communal head.
Post-Holocaust Day: #53

Cidra is on the move. Literally. She comes into the bunks carrying a large box loaded down with her possessions. It's not as if she has many of them, but the books stored in her bunk are heavy. So the moving process will take a couple of trips for her, at the very least.

Quinn is settled in her bunk, the curtain half open, and it's an odd sight because, for once, she has personal affects around her. She's never had personal affects before. How she got them now is a miracle, no doubt, but she has them. An antique redwood keepsakes box open and photos almost everywhere. She's looking through them one at a time with slightly shaking hands…

Cidra sets her box down beside a currently unoccupied bunk. She's picked out a lower one. The box contains a mixture of things. Books, yes, but also carefully-maintained little religious idols and clothing. Military issue, mostly, though a splash of color here and there suggest her collection contains one or two civilian items. And pictures. Though it's the more utilitarian things she unloads first. Looking up, she spots Quinn. Offering the other woman an inclination of her head. "Captain. I am glad to see you settled in."

Quinn looks up towards her boss, a slight smile crossing her lips but she's still not quite happy with things, even if she'd not voice it. She nods quietly, "Sir." Her green eyes flicker across the woman's unpacking for a heartbeat or two before she looks back to the photos in her hands. "We all must settle in… business as usual."

Daphne arrives from the Deck 4.
Daphne has arrived.

Marko arrives from the Deck 4.
Marko has arrived.

There's no air of apology about Cidra's manner as she regards Quinn. Sympathy, perhaps a little. But, as with all things about the woman, what shows on the composed surface is just that. A little. "I should be used to unpacking by now," she says, kneeling down to begin to sort out her things. Clothing first, hung up in her locker. Blues, khakis, greens. A softer blank garment of obvious civilian make, carefully folded and put away under the official stuff. "There's always a feeling of finality to it, isn't there? One moves so much in the Fleet, yet we make these temporary homes. Where you hang your hat is the only home one has after a time."

Quinn nods quietly, "Yes, I suppose so… though I also suspect this assignment will be… the permanent one, no?" She smirks a bit to herself, a touch of graveyard humor in her voice as she begins to gently place those old photos back in the keepsake box that has been resting in her lap.

Daphne walks into the berthings and stops right at the hatchway. Her eyes go a little widee, too. In her hand, she holds her electronic diary. It's very well worn and looks like it's been through a war before the one its owner is presently in.

She drops it.

"Holy frak. I haven't seen this many people since…" The ensign crouches to retrieve the electronic device, not paying its state of health even the slightest of concerns. Clearly she's been through this before. She steps towards her bunk as though she's stepped into the twilight zone, going to far as to creep her eyes from side to side, not believing what she's seeing.

"So it does appear." Cidra's reply is more on the grave side than the humorous one. Locker is closed once her clothes are settled. "Do you need some assistance settling your things, Captain? I've still another trip back to make before mine are entirely carted." Yes, she's moved in. Clearly the Vipers did not spray the place adequately. The sound of something dropping makes her turn her head. And smile, rather mildly, at Daphne. "Kolettis. A good eve. Forgive the clutter. We'll be settled away the lot of us soon."

Quinn shakes her head quietly to the woman. "No… I didn't have much." A few additions since her birthday last week, but still not much. A single civilian dress… her uniforms… that was it. Now, rumors are she was carrying a fiddle case and the keepsake box that is now on her bed, delicately shut up, hiding it's precious store. She then looks up to the startled young Ensign, giving a half smile…"Ensign." She greets simply.

Marko pauses in the hatch, his big duffel bag in one hand, and his carry-on for the 'Space A' flight to Cerberus that seems like a million years ago dangling from the opposite shoulder. "Okay…..lots of people here now.." he muses, looking around for a bunk.

"I'm sorry," remarks Daphne, who sounds more like she's explaining her reaction than actually apologizing. "It's just that I haven't seen this room so full since before half of our pilots died." This is said with casualness. She sounds as though she's accepted that fact rather easily. She steps towards her bunk which is made so well that it might be difficult to believe anyone actually lives there. The bed's tight enough to bounce an entire roll of cubits on, let alone a single coin. "That and a lot of faces I've rarely seen. It's kinda nice, actually. Reminds me of when I first got here."

Cidra nods to Daphne. Again, gravely. "Command needed the space. It seemed time to see it put to…practical use." A pause as she begins sorting out her books. Flight manuals many of them, with a smattering of religious texts, including what looks like a complete copy of the Scriptures. And, if one were to look closely, a small collection of Colonial poetry. "Besides. I cannot say I am sorry to have more company."

Quinn is quiet now, slipping out of her bunk as she moves for her locker to put away that keepsake box gently. She gives Marko a half smile, nodding, "Hey…" She calls to her pilot, glad to see a few more familiar, friendly faces around, btu that's as social as Maggie is feeling tonight. She's probably soon for bed.

Marko waves a little to Quinn. "Hey Cap, looks like it's moving day." he comments, stepping into the room and seeking out the first available top bunk. "Did this rack belong to anyone?" he asks any of the Viper crews as he pulls the curtain aside and shoulders his duffel onto the matress.

Daphne nods, "At some point." Daphne sets her diary on the shelf of her bunk, then, opens her locker to obtain a lint roller. She takes it and begins to spread it across her bunk because, you know, a lot of lint can accumulate on a starship with an air filtration system in the, what, 24 hours since she last did this. "At some point. I'm glad to see people, too. Every week it gets a little quieter in here." Her chuckle is nervous and flimsy. "And it's nice when there's more people instead of less."

Cidra looks up and over to watch Daphne with the lint roller. Then back to her own business of unpacking things. "In my experience Viper country is generally a louder place than rooming with Raptors," she says wryly. Faint smile crooking her lips. "But we shall endeavor to add more to the general cacophony." Eyes to Marko. She does not answer him. Likely she does not know. "Ask Captain Laskaris or Sitka, perhaps. Or your new neighbors. I would like to know more about the former occupant of mine, I shall admit."

"Kinda thought so." Marko sighs, starting to unpack. "I'd be more thoughtful, but I'm too frakkin' tired." he admits frankly.

"I've heard stories." is all Daphne has to say about that. She's smirking to herself, though not about the lint removal job, which her body language is registering as perfectly, completely normal. She gets the sides, too. She puts the remover back into her locker, and then comes back with an octogonally shaped cloth, which she spits on, and then rubs over the latter to her bunk. Yes. She's spit-polishing it. "I had questions like that, too. I barely knew that guy. He was in the Sunliners and they called him Deadbeat. He had something like three ex wives. I try not to think too much about all these people."

Cidra blinks at Daphne. Is that Ensign spit-polishing her bunk? Another blink. She does not ask. Thoughts are more on what the younger woman is saying, anyhow. "All cope in our ways," she says softly. "We were all so new to the ship. Still are. Well." She has largely finished arranging her books. Her more personal effects, like photographs, are left in the box for the moment. Stuffed with some care into a bunk-corner.

"For every man now alive, there stands behind him thirty ghosts, for that is the ratio of the living and the dead." Marko quotes. "The dead are gone, one way or another, they're gone." he says simply, opening his locker and starting to stuff his paltry belongings in it. "They don't care where we sleep."

"Well you're perky." Daphne finishes with the spit polish, and then unlaces her boots and her socks, puts them in her locker, and then pulls the rubberband out of her hair to disassemble her ponytail. She looks her face over in the mirror sunk into the back of her locker. "Some guy is spreading rumors that we're basically going to suicide on the Cylons. Fat, obnoxious little frakker. Calls the Rear Admiral by his first name."

Cidra regards Marko throughout that. She's no answer for it. She just looks very serious and rather sad. "So say we all, Flasher," she murmurs soft. Clearing her throat. Daphne's words require a firmer answer. She frowns. "He sounds it. A fat obnoxious little…frakker, that is." The CAG oh-so-rarely swears. Her prim, lilting Gemenese accent wraps oddly around the word. But she employs such phrases occasionally. "He is also mistaken. We all did not live through the attacks on the colonies just to throw our lives away on meaningless for nothing. What we must find is another path." Not that she elaborates on what that is, mind. But she at least manages to *sound* confident there is one to be found.

"So say we all." Marko replies simply. "So who is this idiot, anyway?" he asks anyone who cares to answer. "Cause if he's got some grand design for us, I'd _love_ to hear about it." he adds. "All I know is…" he begins, then smiles, blushing and turning away a little. "I've found someone to hold on to through all this….whatever happens next happens."

"I have no idea. Some sort of politician. He had a clipboard with 'Quorum' written on it. If I didn't think he somehow had the power to put me in the brig I'd have done something to make Major Hahn put me in the brig." She purses her lips into the mirror, then shuts it and climbs onto her bunk. It looks like something out of a photograph. Diseased. "Called us all stupid, was telling a woman from engineering that she has a nice rack, so she at least has some assets, and kept telling me he wanted to help me live to be older than eightteen so my boyfriend could frak me without going to prison for underaged sex." Daphne rolls her eyes, "If I wasn't so strung out at the time I'd have been angry. And that's sweet, Flasher. Glad someone found something that wasn't bleeding or melting."

Cidra's jaw tenses at Daphne's account of this Quorum gentleman. "I would not terribly mind meeting this person," she says levelly. From her tone, that'd not go over pleasantly. "He sounds an idiot stewing in his own juices and trying to take out his feeling of uselessness on the crew. He is not worth your trouble. But I do hope the Admiral is aware of his…antics." She sneers. Expression relaxes a bit as it turns to Marko, however. "That is for the good, Flasher. That is ever for the good." She reaches back into her new bunk to retrieve her now-emptied box, then closes the curtain. And she and her box step back toward the hatch again. "One more trip should do it, I think."

"Wait…Was that the guy in the ugly suit?" Marko asks, turning to face Daphne and nodding to Cidra with a bitten-lip grin. "I can't remember the man's name…..Older guy? Kinda fat? Smokes cigars?"

Daphne nods towards Marko, "Spoke like he had an inside line with 'Mikey'." Quote marks in the air with her fingers. "Sounded like he hasn't been able to bust his nut looking at porno or hiring hookers in a while. I wonder if his stash of drugs have run out." She may kind of sound a little bitter. She pulls the top of her fatigues off, leaving the tank top, and sets it on her bed, then lays on her back and folds her arms behind her head, burning holes into the ceiling.

"Mikey." Cidra repeats it in a deadpan. "I doubt he has anything of the kind. I'll not claim to know the Admiral well, but I doubt he'd tolerate such stupidity. Think not on him, Kolettis." That said, she resumes her course out the hatch. A little more moving to do before the Raptor Invasion is complete.

"Yep!" Marko says, snapping his fingers then pointing towards Daphne. "That's the guy." he says. "We had it out on the Observation deck a few days ago…." he grumbles. "He is going to be trouble. He's a defeatist…thinks we're all doomed no matter what we do." he sighs, setting his jaw. "He talks enough like that, the Gods just might make it so. How much hell is he really raising?"

"Historically speaking, it's the kind of thing that starts mutinies. Telling his men that their leader is sending them off to die in a big battle rather than running the other way and escaping. That's really why I'm bringing it up. I'm a nobody, and my word against him, the only thing that happens is that I stay a nobody until I'm dead." She turns on her side and regards the two fellow aviators. "I was going to devote my life to the military before any of this happened. His words don't affect me, but he'll really frak with anyone with really bad morale. Enlisted especially."

Cidra frowns. Her reluctance to agree with the ensign is obvious. But she can't, really. "He is a fool," she says flatly. "And we shall not just be sent off to die. If he becomes a problem I am certain he shall be dealt with." If she has any doubts about that, she doesn't show it. Not that she sticks around to supply her reasoning. She's got a few more books to move.

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