| House Call |
| Summary: | Stavrian has questions for Haeleah about centurions, and likewise. The engineer earns a nickname. |
| Date: | Mar 13 2041 |
| Related Logs: | The Issue of Echidna, Bodies of Confusion |
| Players: |
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[ Naval Offices ]----[ Deck 10 - Battlestar Cerberus ]
Post Holocaust Day: #15
This area is set-up much like any standard office building. Cubicles have been constructed using cheap waist-high walls, their contents left neutral for whoever needs to use them. Inside each cubicle is a desk with a laptop and chair. Simple overhead lights bring dull illumination to the room except over the back wall where each one of the colonies twelve flags hangs from its own pole. Fake, potted plants dot the room and seem to be standard issue along with the water cooler and coffee machines. Off the main room are a few private offices such as that of the JAG or CAG.
-=[ Condition Level: 2 - Danger Close ]=-------—-
Haeleah has invaded her boss' cubicle. She's come to the offices with some papers to leave on the ChEng's desk. Up close, one would see they're…just as boring as they look from afar. Maintenance shift reports. As her betters aren't around, she just leaves them. Without even trying to read her superior's mail or anything.
Medical doesn't keep their files up here. So when someone dressed in Sickbay blue comes through that hatch, one knows already they have an agenda that isn't plain 'filing'. Stavrian has a slip of paper in his hand and a folder in the crook of his arm as he marches towards Engineering's section of this cubicle hellhole, and towards the first officer-looking figure hanging about there. "Hey, 'scuse me."
Haeleah turns. Medic spotted. Stavrian is looked up and down with curiosity she doesn't bother to hide. "Hey." The greeting is friendly enough. "This a house call?" It's half a joke, half not. Maybe somebody papercut an artery for all she knows.
"Nope. But I've got lollipops on me if I have to resort to bribery, here." Stavrian uncrumples the little paper in his hand, checking what's scrawled on it again. "I was looking for a…" He pauses, raising an eyebrow at the slip. "Haeleah Parres." That's HI-LEE-UH PAIRS, as she would apparently be known on Sagittaron.
"Lollipops, huh? Got anything in orange?" It's the name - or some variation of it - that gets her attention properly, however. She pivots so she's properly facing Stavrian rather than just half-angling her neck in his direction. A smirk. "I'm Haeleah Parres." Her own pronunciation is HAY-LEE-AH, though he was close enough that it's not overtly corrective.
"Hay." Stavrian corrects his own first syllable anyway, as if to cement it in his head. "Hay. Okay…kay." His lips twitch in a pressed smirk, and he glances down at his front scrubs pocket, where two lollipop sticks are visible. "I might. If you've got what I need." Blue eyes go back to her face and his voice lowers. "Some Captain gave some Captain gave me your name as the one to come to about certain items recovered from the Chimaera."
Haeleah smirks, snorting a little laugh. "'Kay, Jay…Gee. You practising extortion for candy? How's that fit in with…whatever healing oath you guys have to take?" Though her manner turns more serious at his actual question. Brows arch. "'Certain items?' I'm going to assume this isn't about the black box. Which we never got. Or much of anything else. Damn clusterfrak." The profanity is muttered more to herself than him. Ahem. "Only one item you could really be talking about and, yes, I'm detailed to poke at it."
"It's permitted by omission, thank you," Stavrian retorts, as to her invoking his oath. But likewise, the candies go to the wayside for now. He shifts his weight onto his right foot, right arm still around the folder he'd brought in. "Yeah, that item. You name it yet? I thought it looked like a 'C. Diddy', myself."
Haeleah snorts. There's amusement there, but it's tempered. "Not much point in naming a corpse. Whatever it's innards are made out of. If one of the crewman gets attached they can always weld a nametag for it. What's this all about, Lieutenant? I'm hoping it's more than interest in what we're calling it."
"Are you?" Stavrian smirks back at her. "Alright, then I won't disappoint." The expression fades and he draws a breath. "This may sound a little strange. But I wanted to know if you'd found anything…in its limbs, maybe, or some other compartment that looked like it could be a fine cutting tool. A sharp blade, anything like that."
"We've only just started our assessment of it," Haeleah admits. "There were a couple bits to hash out with Intel, as far as the risks to digging at it were concerned, but I think we're all satisfied now. The deepest I've gotten is a quickie damage assessment. Its weapons and defensive systems are obviously top priority to get into, though. Is there something like that we should expect to find?"
The question, for some reason, seems difficult for the PA to answer. Stavrian's lips twist slightly on the right side. "Maybe. Maybe you can answer me this, though — from what you've seen of it, just so far, would you say anything on it is capable of very delicate operations? Especially, like I mentioned, with a small blade or something like that?"
Haeleah frowns, considering that, and ultimately shaking her head. "As I said, we've only just gotten into it, but my preliminary answer would be, no. It's definitely more refined than the…early models." First War is heavily implied there. "But it's still essentially hulking, and made for brute-force work." Her eyes narrow at him. "Were you by any chance on the Chimaera, Lieutenant…?" She leaves it hanging for him to fill in the blank.
The final — even if tentative — 'no' makes Stavrian's jaw tense a little. It even distracts him for a second or two, his blue eyes flickering as he realizes she's still talking. "Jesse Stavrian," he obliges, then clears his throat and gives her a single nod. "Yeah, I was there." A slight pause. "I'm sorry about Specialist Ren."
"Thanks," Haeleah says softly, as to Ren. "He was a good kid. Though I can't say I knew him long. Good worker, though." She clears her throat, back to business. She edges more properly into the Engineering cubicle, motioning for Stavrian to follow her. "I've been meaning to speak to the personnel who were there that night. To get a better idea of how these things actually act in the field."
Not as good a eulogist as the engineer, Stavrian nods at the words about Ren but adds nothing to them. He quirks a brow as she beckons him into the engineering web, sticking his free hand into his pocket as he heads in after her. Stepping to the side so part of the wall is behind him, he leans back against it and braces a booted foot behind him. "Marines would be better to grill about this shit," he tells her, his vocabulary relaxing once out of general earshot. "But I'll do what I can."
"I'm sure they will, but every little bit helps," Haeleah says, picking up a free notepad and pen. "Have a seat." This cubicle clearly belongs to an engineering officer more senior than she is, but he's not there now, and she generally acts like she owns the place. "You're one the first to actually see a Centurion in action in forty years. We're all still kind of feeling these things out." She flexes her knuckles a little as she says it. Like she's looking forward to reaching out and touching her toaster.
"Lucky me." Stavrian slides his back against the wall and steps forward to slide into the seat. Scrubs rustle. "Gods don't even have the decency to warn you before they drop your name in a lottery like that." He sets his own folder down close by and folds his arms, eyes on her. "Their eyes glowed. Did they glow forty years ago?"
"I don't know how much the gods had to do with any of this," Haeleah mutters, making some notes on her pad. "Glowed? What color? I believe they did, from the old schematics I've read. Visual light sensors. Also good for getting a bead on…whatever. What about their movements? Did they show any particular feats of speed or agility?"
"Red," Stavrian answers, without any hesitation there. "They were red." His eyes flicker, summoning memory stored somewhere upwards and to the right. "Three of them had managed to get down behind one of the consoles. Folded up, like frakking lawn chairs. Wouldn't have thought they could do that, not looking at them when they were standing up straight." He pauses, thinking back. "And they were really damn fast. When they came up on us, as they were moving. 'Walking', whatever you want to call it."
Haeleah nods along with that, making more notes. Scribble, scribble, scribble. Her writing is near-unintelligible semi-shorthand, but it seems to make sense to her. "Thanks, Lieutenant. That is interesting. At first glance they *do* look like walking chrome toasters, but there does appear to be far more dexterity in their limbs than you'd expect." She frowns. "It's a pity we weren't able to recover the black box from the Chimaera. Or much else in the way of equipment. I'd like to know why the frak they stuck around that ship."
"It's like they were expecting us," Stavrian says, the words making his lip wrinkle slightly. "But why hide and wait for us to get to that one spot? They obviously knew something was coming…they could have just gunned us down in the corridor. They let us get where we did." He sucks his teeth, happening to notice his watch right then. "Shit, I need to get back to Sickbay. But do me a favor, El-Tee? When you're looking at their hands and the rest, if you see anything that might be connected to what I asked earlier, just let me know." Slight pause, slight smirk. "Oh kaykay, Hayhay?"
Up go Haeleah's eyes from her pad. Pen stops in mid-scribble. The medic is *eyed*. There's a long pause before she deadpans, "Okay. JayJay."
Stavrian flashes her a thumbs-up and the kind of grin that makes you want to slap a man. "Kay kay." He stands up, picking up his folder and heading on out. Before she can throw a stapler at him.