| Harder than Physics |
| Summary: | Marcion and Tisiphone just can't seem to have a normal conversation. (Surprise) |
| Date: | 18 Feb. 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | none |
| Players: |
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[ Flight Simulation ]----[ Deck 11 - Battlestar Cerberus ]
A training room specifically dedicated to honing aerial skills, this area is equipped with several flight simulator pods that allow the pilots to practice maneuvers and tactics without being in a real live plane. The Viper-pods are installed on one side of the room with a little space between them, an attempt to provide a realistic feel for close-range wing training, while a smaller number of Raptor sim-pods are installed on the opposite side of the room from the Vipers. A central computer terminal and overhead display screen sits at the head of the room, where one can input exercises and data to be run in the sims, scroll through score records, and control the training modules.
Marcion is hunched over the simulator, his always present notebook on the table beside him as he continually punches in data from his notes. "Not right, not right, not right. Not correctly evaluating effect of radiation field on FTL signature, only interested in physical reactions."
"Didn't know you wanted to be a fighter jock when you grew up." Tisiphone's voice, from the other side of the table. When in Hades did /she/ sneak in? She's standing there in her fatigues, hands slouched down into her pockets, watching the engineer with that pale stare of hers. She doesn't look sleepy, but she does look weary.
Marcion jumps. "Whoa… what?" Stepping hard backwards while his head whips around to follow the voice, his foot lands on one of the wheels of the chair he was neglecting to sit on, which of course flies out from under him, sending him crashing to the floor. "Argh…" he mutters from his crumpled heap below the table. "Perhaps would settle for less clumsy before trying to fly something…"
The anti-acrobatics result in a scratchy chuckle from somewhere above the table. "Are you okay?" comes Tisiphone's amused voice; her combat boots circumnavigate the table before she comes into view, crouching down to offer a hand up. "Didn't mean to brain you. I'd do a better job if I meant it." She's attempting to be funny, honest.
Marcion gratefully accepts the hand up. "Got too focused on work. Like usual." He gestures to the console. "Took advantage of downtime to run some simulations on figures I cooked up. Can get computers back to standard setting if you need Sim time." Sitting down in the chair, he looks up at her. "How are you doing, Tisiphone?"
Tisiphone is a strong girl; with a heave-ho, Marcion is hefted back up to his feet without much effort. She gives him a slap on the shoulder before slouching her hands down into her pockets once more. Her head cants to the side, glancing at the clipboard for any of the mentioned fresh-baked figures. "No. Actually, it's okay. I was thinking about Raptors. Thought I might check some of the sim's combat settings for them. We had flight exercises last night, and if I never have to fight a Raptor again, it'll be too soon."
"Here, take a look." Marcion uncovers some sheets and shows her a complete blueprint of the Raptors. "Built for armor and power. Won't dodge much, doesn't need to. Of course, technically, FTL makes Raptor infinitely faster than Viper." He is babbling. "Look. Wanted to… apologize. For earlier argument with Nostos."
"Doesn't need to dodge. No kidding." A burst of temper flares sullenly in Tisiphone's eyes. "Daphne and I have run entire two-versus-two skirmishes, first contact to fireball, in the time it took me to peck through one. I was even trying for the engines, and frakking /nothing/. FRAK. ME. We don't have to worry about Cylons, we should be worrying about a Raptor Rebellion." To each their own topics for running on, it would seem. It takes a few seconds for the apology to sink in — once it does, her brows knit up in confusion. "Wait. Apologize? But…shit. Seriously? Why?"
Marcion looks up at her, a bit surprised. "Lucky Raptors don't usually carry ship to ship payload, then?" He smiles a bit… she looks frustrated like he does when a darned equation won't balance. When she finally gets to what he had said, the smile fades, and eyes go to the floor. "Wasn't appropriate. Was senior officer in situation and should have been more professional. Instead, allowed self to get drawn into… er…" he looks up at her again. "What do they call it?"
"A big ol' dick-waving contest?" Tisiphone suggests, equally amused and helpful. "Shit. It was nothing. Alex. /Really./ Don't sweat it. You're sharing space with two thousand people who have trained for years to believe they're the hottest shit ever. Myself included." Her mouth quirks at one corner. "There's a reason we've got MPs and a brig."
"But made you look so uncomfortable," Marcion says miserably. "Dunno what I was thinking. Researcher, not a fighter. Haven't gotten any PT in weeks, too busy with drive. Should stick to calculations. What I am good at. Let meatheads be meatheads."
"Dude. The whole frakkin' ship outranks me. I'm still half-convinced they put me here just to give the jigs someone to chew on. I probably look uncomfortable even in my sleep." Tisiphone sounds a bit exasperated, now — at herself. It abruptly swaps for wry amusement as she points out, "You /did/ pick the meatiest head in the Viper wing to butt against, too."
Marcion nods. "Still, felt should apologize. Were having a pleasant enough conversation before that happened." He gestures to the console. "Here for practice? Can reset the computer pretty quickly."
"Yeah. Yeah, we were." Tisiphone's mouth quirks further, perilously close to a grin. "I'm still getting used to the idea that I'm not going to hate everyone else on-board. Though-" A sudden realization brings a moment of glumness. "-waiting for my Squadron Leader to tell me I'm not supposed to hang with the engineers, too."
Marcion looks over at her with a small, shy smile. "Squad Leader tries that, will use her Viper for further FTL experiments. Did you know that, due to gravity matrices, the easiest location in universe to plot for a jump is singularity of a black hole?" His smile fades. "You thought you would hate everyone? Why?"
Tisiphone doesn't seem to know how to answer. She digs her hands down into her pockets a bit further, and rocks back and forth on booted feet, obviously giving her reply mental edit after re-edit. Finally, sounding like it may be the understatement of the week, she says, "I don't tend to get along well with people. Either I piss them off, or they piss me off, and then it's happy fun-time." She shrugs restlessly, as if dispelling the subject. "Anyway. Frak that. You're talking about gravity matrices." Cue the grin. "You're serious, aren't you? You ever actually jumped something into a black hole?"
Marcion looks a tad concerned but lets it drop easily. She asked him an FTL question. "Possibly. Never on purpose, though. Lots of Experimental jumps never come back. Nature of the beast. Still, stretched space found in Black hole increases size of target, so theoretically easiest target to hit. Toyed around with idea to use Black Holes as guideposts, extend jumps. Never worked enough to send manned flights. Eventually gave it up for single spinner config, which works." He smiles. "Hypothetically."
"Hitting the bullseye on an arbitrarily large target," says Tisiphone with a grin. She's letting her inner math nerd out. Sssh, don't tell.
"Precisely!" Marcion says, his smile big. She is doing an exceptional job of stoking his enthusiasm. "Was requested to aid research project by building ftl drive for black hole probe. After Probe went beyond event horizon, was to attempt to jump out. Heard nothing… believed to be lost. Found probe TWO YEARS afterwards, in deep orbit near Armistice Line, more than 200 lightyears away from jump coordinates. Craziest thing was jump computer. Reported jump to be successful."
The finishing comment is rewarded with a genuine laugh, the first the Ensign's had in a while. Tisiphone is well and truly amused. "What the /frak/, huh? Nothing wrong with the probe? No hints how it went from one to the other? It's not like they've got a black hole hiding behind the Armistice Line just to mess with your calculations."
All Marcion can do is shrug. "Cannot tell. Could have, perhaps, with multiple jumps, but by the time was discovered funding had been pulled. Computer seemed to be functioning properly, however. Can only speculate that black holes interfere with FTL process." He shrugs. "Disappointing, though. Hoped to find that computer rate of time had been messed with. Reported one month passed when two years had passed, that sort of thing. No such luck, Chronometer right on." He sighs. "Potential time travel would have scared up some funding."
Tisiphone chuckles and rocks back on her heels, balancing there with only a faint wobble, studying her boot-tips. "I really hope this tour of duty doesn't wreck you," she says, out of no where. "It's like- All this boring reality all around you, but a head full of multivariable calculus." She glances up, chuckles once. "Frak. I'm such a killjoy, eh? SO. SERIOUS."
Marcion's eyes are wide with surpise. "Kidding? Have the E-Class. Biggest single spinner FTL Drive in history. Will have ages to analyze jump data for next model. Plus, have research funds for possible upgrades, learn more mechanical side of engineering, pretty girl to talk calculus with…" at that, he goes beet red. "Uh… meant… meant…" he looks down at the floor.
Tisiphone may be thanking each and every god, goddess and godlet out there that the engineer's suddenly so fascinated with the floor — it gives her a moment to mentally flail about without being witnessed. "Hey," she finally says, voice warm with amusement — and maybe, just maybe, affection. "I see what you did there. I think you blush better than I do." That's /sure/ to win you points, girl. "A-a-and, on this socially akward moment? I'm going to go." There's suddenly a wolfish and massively cheeky grin splitting her face, as starts making her retreat. "Don't blush yourself to death, okay? I'd be lonely if you did."
Marcion remains quiet until she has left. As the hatch closes behind her, he looks up at his notes, then shaking his head resets the computer to go back to his desk and work. Time to go to simpler things. Like Sub-atomic Quantum Physics.