PHD #425: I, State Your Name
I, State Your Name
Summary: Nataly finishes basic training.
Date: 27 Apr 2042 AE
Related Logs: None
Players:
Constin Nataly Ryder Vandenberg 
Hangar Deck - Port
The single largest rooms on the Cerberus are the hangar decks. Each flight pod consists of two stacked landing bays with adjoined decks and hangars, which along with computer-assisted landings results in a faster Viper recovery rate. Mirror images of each other, these two huge areas are located on the flight pods. The inboard sides of the deck, closest to the ship's main hull, are lined with parking and maintenance bays for Vipers and Raptors based aboard the battlestar. The outboard side of the deck contains the launch tubes used by the Vipers for standard deployment. Huge blast doors seal the deck into four sections, each one containing an elevator that leads up to the flight deck directly overhead. The fore-most section contains an elevator system that leads towards Aerospace Fabrication.
Post-Holocaust Day: #425

Seventeen hours, four minutes. Nataly has eighteen hours to complete all thirty miles on the ship. Full gear, rifle loaded with dummy rounds, and no sleep. She's been asked to perform menial tasks while on the move, still having to pass all of them - which included a pair of laps in full gear through the pool. Somewhere about the halfway point Constin, who had started this barrage of Hell, dropped out for duty and was replaced by none other than Nataly's own guardian: Vandenberg. The growling barks of Constin and snarls to keep her ass moving have been replaced by the gruff silence of the Marines' Operations Officer. She too, kitted out in full gear, has run along beside Nataly through the whole trip and even done the same tasks. Some might consider it showing up a tired person. To a Marine, its teamwork and support. Coming into the last few miles, Van became a little more vocal, urging the recruit on. Its the worst kind of testing but all those stairs have probably paid off in a huge way. Both doused in sweat, they come into the last hundred yards with Van in silence until she starts barking at full volume. "Move your ass! You don't finish like the frakking Navy, maggot! You finish like a godsdamn Marine!! TRIPLE-TIME, RASSVET!! MOOOOOVE!!" And she best believe Van is either going to drag her faster or try and run her down from behind.

Nataly stares at the line ahead of her. It is a hundred yards away, but it looks like miles. Her feet hurt, her shoulders burn where the straps of the kit have been pulling for the last seventeen hours, and the damp of her suit from the swim is irritating her all to hell, but she moves, boots hitting the deck, pushing forward with everything she has, giving the increase in speed Van demands of her. The girlish body is gone, cords of muscle vibrating as they push the smallish frame forward. "Sir, yes sir…" she gets out. Another step. And another.

Vandenberg's boots are slamming the deck right behind her daughter's. "Haul ass or I'm gonna throw you down!!" she hollars after Nataly. Coming down the last flight of stairs and onto the hangar deck, the finish line is a Viper bay just past the hatch. "Move move move!!!" Vandenberg dodges out of the hatch, catching her arm to help spin herself through it forwards. She sounds pissed as hell as they come up on the line. A look behind will show Van just as drenched in sweat but rifle held in both hands and she's charging on as if she had all the energy left in the world.

Nataly does NOT have all the energy left in the world, but she has enough. The line comes closer and closer, Van's voice flailing her from behind, and then, finally, she crosses the line. She wants, with all of her being, to collapse, but she does not, instead snapping to attention and standing just past the line, awaiting orders. She isn't completely still, there is no hiding her heavy breathing, but otherwise, she might have been on duty anywhere. Except for the sweat and mustiness of the wet kit, of course.

A week prior, the Marine Corp had mustered to pay respects to their dead. As Nataly's sight focuses through the sweat and mustiness, she would recognize a few things. The Hangar bay once again has the colors displayed: the flag of the 12 Colonies, the flag of the Colonial Marine Corp, and the regimental colors of the First Battalion of the Marine Corp Ninth Division. Front and center is Constin, in dress tans, garrison cap set aggressively forward on his head. Drawn up on either side, leaving a clear avenue of approach for the recruit, are several familiar faces. Captain Joe Ryder stands out in his dress greys. "Atten-SHUN!" the bull voiced sergeant barks, loud enough to echo in the empty space. "Recruit. Fall IN!"

Quirkily attractive with soft, young features and bobbed light brown hair, Nataly looks at the worlds with the intensely curious eyes of a girl who used to keep track of which celebrity singers were dating which Pyramid players in her sleep. She stands a few inches above five feet, more softly feminine than voluptous, typically sporting a smile.

Nataly is wearing a pair of comfortable denim overalls, which have been patched several times with various bright colors. Underneath is a t-shirt bearing the names of one of several bands Nataly followed in high school.

Vandenberg trudges up beside Nataly, her own breathing heavy. She keeps walking, though, keeping the blood flowing. There's a look back to the young woman and a knowing smile there before she turns to face the setup. The officer comes to attention at the call from Constin and stands in silence until Nataly moves. Once past, Van is moving right behind her.

Nataly stares straight forward as she falls in, not even daring to meet the eyes after a brief glance at Van. She's gonna hold this together, until dismissed. She's a Marine now. Unless Elf makes her run more stairs first. Then she might just die.

"Recruit Natalya Rassvet," yup, her full name. "Having completed the requirements of basic training as set down by the Commandant of the Colonial Marine Corp, is it now your intention to take the oath of service?" Constin's stern cadence is all too familiar by now. this is the 'official business' voice. There is no podium, nor is there a microphone, nor does the Master-at-Arms read from a paper. This is a ritual long since committed to memory.

Vandenberg comes up beside Nataly to the right, taking one step forward. She executes a snap facing movement to the left and stands there in her full gear with the rifle slung behind her. The breathing is still coming heavy, but its slowing. Van may be short but she's in damned good shape. She just stands there in complete silence.

Nataly looks Elf in the eyes. "Yes, Sarge." She responds, ready. She had been prepped for this, if not as much for running all over the universe.

"Raise your right hand and repeat after me," Constin instructs in the same stern cadence, as he raises his own scarred and rebuilt right hand to arbitrate the oath. "I, state your name," a moment's pause is allowed for Nataly to do so. "Do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Articles of Governance of the Twelve Colonies." Again a moment's pause. "Against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

Nataly responds, following his cadence perfectly. "I, Natalya Rassvet." Beat. "Do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Articles of the Governance of the Twelve Colonies." Beat. "Against all enemies, foreign and domestic."

"That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same," Constin continues, strong and steady. "And that I will obey the orders of the legitimate government therof and the orders of the officers appointed over me." A drawn breath, "According to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice." Elf's shoulders and chest rise with a slowly drawn breath, before the last words of the oath are spoken: "So help me Gods."

Beat. "That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same." Beat. And that I will obey the orders of the legitimate government therof and the orders of the officers appointed over me." Beat. "According to the regulations and the uniform Code of Military Justice." Beat. "So help me Gods." Her face is as close to Elf's as she can manage, though there is a small curl at her lips. She'd done it.

Constin lowers his right hand at the completion of the oath. Briefly he glances aside to Vandenberg, to whom he offers something small and unseen from his left hand, before taking a half step to the side so that he is facing Nataly's right shoulder, rather than her face. The sweat soaked and sodden uniform Nataly has dragged through the last thirty miles and eighteen hours receives one half of the small, unobtrusive, but brightly polished pins of a Marine Private.

Vandenberg takes the pin and takes another step forward and then another facing movement back to Nataly. "Its my personal pleasure to pin you a Private in the Colonial Marine Corps," she says, lifting her hands to attach the pin she was given. Her words are quiet, personally for Nataly and Elf to overhear only. "Today you cross the line from civilian to protector. You are a mother to humanity and a defender of life. Three hundred years of Corps venterans stand behind you and have shared this very place with you. Render them the same honor as your will show the rest of our race, Private Rassvet. We will do our best to honor you." Van lifts her hand once more in salute to the young woman who stands a mere inches from her.

Nataly returns the salute, and can barely restrain the smile, but remains composed.

Behind them all, Joe Ryder looks on with a look of barely contained pride. He nods to the younger girl encourgingly.

Constin's hand is brought up in salute in the same instant. His role in the ritual is complete with the deceptively simple words, "Congratulations, Private. Dismissed." And with that, so end the formalities.

Vandenberg drops her salute quickly and grins. Rather than stick her hand out to shake now, no, she dives to cover the last half a foot or so between the two with a huge grin, plucking the young woman into a big hug. Sweaty combat gear rattles together, rifles clanking. "Godsdamn I'm so proud of you, Natalya!! I can't tell ya!!"

Nataly's arms wrap around the el-tee, and finally her smile breaks open fully. "I did it… I actually did it…" she almost wheezes. "Oh Gods, I hurt all over…" the smile doesn't go away, though.

Constin regards the display of commissioned dignity with his own composure kept firmly intact. A few among the onlookers applaud at the conclusion of the ceremony, and all will want words with Nataly eventually.

Joe walks over behind Elf, still all dignity, but with a smile. "Fifty minutes ahead of the deadline. You do good work, what with only having a month and being held for almost half of that," he says quietly to the sarge.

"You did it, darlin. Damn you did it well, too!" Van pulls back from the hug and slowly removes her helmet, running her hand through her hair. She pokes Nat in the stomach with it playfully. "Take twenty-four hours, devil dog, and report to Captain O'Hare for duty. Tonight? I suggest you go to Pete's and get frakkin tanked, Marine." She winks and takes a step back so others might have words with the newly minted.

Constin looks over his shoulder, cracking a tight grin at the words as he turns to face Captain Ryder. "Your girl done good, Joe," he returns in a matching low tone to the big once-and-always-marine (regardless of present posting). "Give me a tick, and we'll have words, after, yeah?" Letting the grinlinger a moment long before his game face slips back on, he claims next in line to speak with Nat.

Tanked? So long as it eventually led to sleep, Nataly likes the sound of it. She gives Van a big grin before turning to see who is next… and there is the Sarge.Dismissed or not, Nataly stiffens just a bit at Elf's approach, eyes flickering back towards the stairs.

Vandenberg watches Elf approach and grins at him, sweepign the sweat from her brow with a thumb. "Be nice, Guns. Or I'll give you orders to be carryin' her up to Deck Six your damned self." Its a snickered joke that she passes along before heading to a chair to flow down and relax.

Constin's stern expression fixes on Nataly after he wills himself not to grin at Vandenberg's words. Briefly his eye slips aside to follow the direction she'd looked. The stairs. Heh. "Private," he greets evenly, extending his thick, calloused right hand toward the newly minted marine for an offered shake. "You've earned this, Private. Do us all proud." A moment later he adds, "I STILL expect you to memorize the Military Police Credo, you hear me?" Only after that does he crack a first, tight grin.

"Yes, Sarge, understood, Sarge," Nataly replied automatically, and then reaches over to take the hand, watching as it disappears into Elf's huge, bionic mit. "Thanks, Sarge. For everything. "

Constin answers Nat's thanks with a short nod, a firm handshake, and the words, "Welcome to the Corp, marine," before turning aside to let more vocal and outgoing well wishers descend upon the victiorious Nataly.

Joe gives Nataly a nod, a smile, and then heads out. Now is a time for those in the core. He'll get the time with the girl he's watch grow up, later. Nataly then walks to Van, kit slung, and smiles. "I'm gonna ditch this kit, shower, steal a skirt that would be short on YOU, and hit Pete's. You gonna come with?"

Vandenberg smirks at the Private heading over to her and lofts her brow. "Oh? Feeling adventurous, are we Private?" Van asks with a grin. She slooooowly rises from the chair and nods a few times. "Alright. I think I can do that. You're a Marine now. I think I can handle a bunch of drinks with you at the bar. Last one to the top of the stairs buys the first two rounds?" Ohhhh that's just mean.

Nataly laughs softly at that… and then dashes for the stairs.

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