| Guns and The Gun |
| Summary: | When Sawyer tries to 'shoot' the messenger, she nearly gets shot. Literally. Guns set aside, Trask tells her all about The Gun. |
| Date: | 12 Nov 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | We're All Friends Here (Fiasco & The Gun), Colonel Pewter's Two-Step Twist (Kepner offers invite), & If Not That... (why Sawyer is initially 'grr' with Trask); Referenced logs: Welcome the Coming, Speed the Going (The Gun in-action); As Flies to Wanton Boys (Morgenfield murders Orr and holds Trask hostage); Due Process (Sawyer is physically assaulted in the News Room) |
| Players: |
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| News Room - Deck 3 - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| Post-Holocaust Day: #259 |
| This room isn't huge by any means, but it does have all the updated equipment and a small news staff that runs the area. |
| Condition Level: 3 - All Clear |
Do you know what happens when days and nights all start to blend together? You get Sawyer Averies working in her pajamas. Well, work in a rather loose sense of the term, as she's curled up in the tight woven cocoon of her hammock with a book propped open in her lap. A little reading lamp has been clipped just shy of the D-ring attached to the wall, shining a little puddle of light down on the reporter. She looks half asleep among a nest of blankets, but still the pages flip.
What also happens, evidently, is that Sawyer Averies forgets to lock the hatch, as she usually is wont to do when she actually bothers to enjoy some downtime. Then, again, perhaps she's expecting company. If she is, odds are that it probably isn't the arrival of Bootstrap that she's anticipating, especially in light of the last conversation they had some six days ago. With the overhead illumination turned off and the bulk of the computer monitors in 'sleep' mode, that one stream of lamplight hovering over the hammock draws his attention. "Averies?" is inquired, as the duty greens clad officer steps further into the News Room.
<FS3> Sawyer rolls Firearms: Bad Failure.
There's a subtle shift in the reporter, her hand dropping down into the folds of the blanket. "Stay right there, don't come any closer." Maybe she still /is/ a little jumpy after that run in with the unnamed assailant. But there's something odd about the 'gun' she's now holding. It's obviously silver plastic, complete with the little orange tip to make it extra glaringly apparent. "Oh. It's you." She must have recognized the voice, or his vague shape of a shadow he creates. Maybe that's why she pulls the trigger, spritzing the distance across the room with horrible inaccuracy. "Cheap piece of shit…" Comes the mutter, followed shortly by a little titter of laughter.
<FS3> Trask rolls Alertness: Success.
It /is/ somewhat dim and, combat training being what it is, no one really could fault Kal for having a split-second response of drawing his own firearm at what instinctively would register as a weapon being aimed at his own person. From afar, the silver does not register as plastic. For all he knows, it simply is not a military issue handgun. And the little orange tip is only extra glaringly apparent /after/ the ECO barks, "DROP IT!" and Sawyer is already facing the barrel of his very real Picon Five-SeveN, safety off. Even after it registers that the woman is holding a water pistol, it still takes a brief moment before the safety is reset and the 5-7 lowered. "What the frak is wrong with you?!"
"I could ask the same of you. You didn't knock." Only after his weapon is lowered, does she lower her own. Not that hers stands any chance against an armed Trask, unless she meant to soak him into submission. "Can't blame a girl for taking a little precaution." While their talking, there seems to be a chemical smell coming from the wetness of her weapon's discharge. Sawyer takes lets out a whoosh of air, "Branchala's balls, it's been a long time since I had one of those pointed at me." Not including a Cylon operated one, she must mean. "I'd ask if you were overcompensating for something, if not for those being standard fleet issue."
"I never knock," is derisively pointed out, the Five-SeveN not yet returned to its holster. "And, yeah," is added, with just as much acerbity, "I'm overcompensating for the fact that the last time I had a gun aimed at me, it was immediately after my pilot was point-blank shot through the head," and very much killed. It's rare that the ECO loses his temper. Right about now, he's downright fuming. As for her protestation about taking caution, he certainly can snark back, "No? Next you're gonna tell me I can't blame a frakking moron for being a frakking moron?" For someone who deals with stressful situations by being flippant, Trask is not at all responding well with how dismissive the blonde is being about how she very nearly — and very literally — would've been breathing her own blood by now had his senses not been sharper. Speaking of which, still annoyed, "What the frak is that smell?"
Sawyer is rather adept at maintaining an even keel in the face of things that should upset or otherwise provoke some emotional response. It's a rather handy thing to have when you're a journalist or psychologist. Either way, there is a tremor to her fingers as she calmly tries to close the cover of the book she's reading to toss it down by her feet. The book? Seems to be a history of Tatau and their meanings. Go figure. "Ground spinach added to a rubbing alcohol base, filtered through a coffee filter." She explains simply, "Do you need to sit down?" You know, before he throws a clot or something.
Maybe he's rattled at the prospect that his guard was down enough around Sawyer that she managed to aim a (fake) gun at him with enough time to pull the trigger. Such a thing really can't go over well with someone who has experienced bullet wounds before. Doubly so for someone who helplessly watched his pilot get shot point-blank in the head before immediately finding himself on the receiving end of that murderous skinjob called Morgenfield's gun nozzle. Regardless, seething as he is, Kal wills himself into some semblance of calmness, stretching his neck and rolling his tense shoulders. Finally, he re-holsters his gun. "News flash, Averies: you're a frakkin' moron." Yeah, he's cranky. "Unless you really wanna write some first-hand account about what it's like to be perforated and aspirated by bullets, don't /ever/ pull another stunt like that."
"Been there, done that. Even had it published, as a matter of fact, but I don't think we're close enough for me to show you the scar. If you'd prefer, find me a squirt bottle with a better range and you won't have to worry, but I work with what I've got and this toy gun was in the haul that Tisiphone and I got from that One Cubit Store. The chlorophyll fluoresces blood red under ultraviolet light." As if /that/ explains everything. Him calling her a moron? Also completely ignored.
"Fabulous," is sarcastically exclaimed. "You can write a companion piece 'cuz I'm packin' Ay-Pee rounds." The better to kill Centurions with, my dear. "If you don't," want to write said companion piece, "get your own frakkin' bottle." They've been over this before — the whole bit about how he doesn't work in the office of the quartermaster. Everything else Sawyer says pretty much is just 'blah blah blah'. Trask even makes that 'blah blah blah' face.
Sawyer sighs, even adding a little shake of her head for emphasis. Her exasperation manages to find its way through, now that the adrenaline is no longer ringing in her ear. "So, beyond our scheduled shoot out at high sun, I assume you had a reason for stopping by, because honestly I'm beginning to think you don't much care for me, so there has to be some reason you're subjecting yourself to my moronic presence. Come to try and make me cry again?" Yes. Again. "You'll be disappointed, I've reached my quota for the month."
"Really?" That sudden keen interest can only be the set-up for a blithely sardonic response. "How's that work with crocodile tears?" Evidently, Trask will believe that he's made the woman cry when he actually sees it. Judging by his manner, it's not something he expects to ever happen, for whatever reason. When his lack of caring is cited, he snickers, "Yeah. I only told you to not do pointless, stupid shit that could get you killed /solely/ 'cuz I don't wanna face charges of involuntary manslaughter." Those big brown eyes of his theatrically roll, which means he even throws his head into it. Whatever. He's done with that conversation. Case in point, he carries on with, "Yeah. I'd heard a rumor. Figured I'd have something of interest to relay were you able to verify its veracity." Yes, he just said veracity.
Sawyer mms as she half-rolls out of the sling, spilling her legs over the side as she pulls the blanket off her lap. The toy gun stays in the folds where she can easily find it later. "Such a big word for such a Black Country boy. I guess what they say about your callsign is true." What comes after a surge of adrenaline? A wave of exhaustion. The journalist's lips split with a yawn and she eases to her feet with a tiny stretch of her arms over her head. She shuffles to her desk and yanks out a drawer, pulling out a pad of paper and slapping it down on the surface, along with a bottle of little white pills that is wrapped with a prescription label. "It wasn't pointless," she mutters, but lets that string of conversation die if he will. Fat chance on that, but one she takes. One of the white tablets is procured from the bottle and swallowed dry before she hefts up a pen and flops down in her desk chair. "Alright. Fire away."
All things considered, Bootstrap isn't as touchy as he really could be about the stereotypes he endures from being not only Taurian but also being from the Black Country. Granted, this is probably because he holds most people in contempt for being imbeciles. So, he instead smirks. "Learning big words is a small price to pay when it comes to knockin' someone down from their high horse." Who doesn't like breaking the brains of uppity Capricans? Or Virgans? Or Librans… or Picans or…?
Moving onward, the irritation he felt about the stand-off starts to dissipate into his usual boyish impishness. "Wellllllll," he begins, "I heard that Rudy Kepner asked you out on a date." Cue the scampish smile to go along with the annoying delivery of a precocious six-year old. "Diiiiiiiiiid he?"
And by date, the SL likely means the offered tour of the Areion.
There is a look from Sawyer, as if fully expecting this to segue into another joke about her being on her backside. Thusly, she proceeds with caution. "The only interaction I've had with the Commander was during Pewter's card game, wherein I finagled a chance to get a tour of Areion. If that's what you are referring to, then yes, it's a date. A heavily guarded and guided tour filled with lots of disapproving glances for being a civilian /and/ a reporter." She makes a little 'uch' sound, maybe at that endearing smile he has, and she reaches for the pill bottle to add a second to the first.
"Screw Kepner." Beat. "Not literally." Although his tone isn't at all suggestive that he thinks the investigative journalist /would/ literally screw Kepner because, well, he honestly doesn't see Sawyer operating that way. A smartass remark, though, is a smartass remark, and not the kind of thing Kal can easily pass-up. "Bring a wingman, though." Beat. "Person. Whatever." A right-hand (or left-hand) somebody. "The guy you wanna go after is named Marduk — a Viper jock called Fiasco. He's the weak wildebeest and everyone there knows it, so you'll need all the help you can get to separate him from the pack."
Sawyer makes a little scribble on her pad that may or may not be 'Marduk', but it's hard to tell with her odd handwriting. There's a little smile from her, though it seems a carefully guarded expression, as if it might break. "Thanks for the tip," she murmurs more down to her pen and paper than the man supplying it.
Seems that there's more. "Fiasco, truly, is a fiasco. Also, he's, uh… I believe the scientific term is 'metrosexual'. I'm sure if you ask him about his hair care regimen, you'll be, like, his new Bee-Eff-Eff." Mocking Marduk as he is, the ECO is also actually serious. "Wear a skirt," is noted. "He's an ass man." Probably best to not ask Trask how he knows this about Fiasco. That all said, here comes the juicy part, "Now, the Areion has this thing they call 'The Gun'." The caps are audible, and perhaps a wee bit snickered. "It's somethin' super secret and hush-hush, and Marduk has mentioned it more than once. No sooner than he mentioned it, one of his superiors initiated damage control." Ergo, the need to get the pilot alone. "I suspect that this 'Gun'," faintly, he smirks at its mention, "is what they used to frak-up the Cylon fleet above Sagittaron."
Sawyer actually looks up now. Seems a juicy story supercedes any personal hang-ups she might have. A thin brow quirks, "They have fancy toys and they're not sharing? That's not in the true spirit of the sandbox, is it?" The implication of that has the reporter's teeth sinking into the tender flesh of her inner cheek, worrying it between her molars. As the gears in her brain slowly try to click their spokes together, she eyes the man supplying the goods.
With an insouciant shrug and a faint 'what do you expect?' expression, Bootstrap notes, "They're spooks." Duh. They /don't/ share. "To be honest, I'm surprised they've been so /generous/ with their other toys. 'course, that's probably just smokescreen." Viper Seven-point-Five schematics and a Raptor with boosted ECM capabilities being offered up for examinations. "Anyway, I'm sure you're capable of being discreet when absolutely necessary." Pause. Inscrutable scrutiny of the investigative journalist. "Well, failing that, try not to get killed. I wouldn't put it past those frakkers to have an 'unfortunate civilian casualty' during a 'freak accident' that occurs during the tour." Once more, the quotes are audible. "Gabe Marduk, though. That's the tasty wee wildebeest. Dark hair. Dimples. Uses enough styling mousse that it might explain his corroded grey matter."
That appears to be it because Trask looks as though he's ready to depart.
There's a smirk from Sawyer, a rather predatory thing that has her tongue running along the sharp edge of her incisors. Something he said obviously touched on her perverse sense of humor, and there's actually a low chuckle. When he moves to leave, she doesn't stop him with continuing the conversation, but rather just offers: "Aw. You /do/ care. Have a good evening, Kal."
"In my own frakked-up way," he smiles with that impish, boyish charm. Tossing a jaunty little wave over his shoulder, Trask bids adieu with, "See ya, Scoop." A spin of the wheel later, he's out the hatch door.