| Idle Galley Chat |
| Summary: | Damon, Tisiphone, and Merrell try to make sense of all that's happened. |
| Date: | 27 Feb 2041 AE |
| Related Logs: | Preceding Long: Chapel of Uncertainty |
| Players: |
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| Galley | Deck 9 - Battlestar Cerberus |
Behind the two hangar decks, the Cerberus' Galley is the largest room on the ship. Nearly half the size of a football field, the eating area is made up of long lines of stainless steel tables that can be folded up and placed against the wall for larger events. Individual seats are the standard military issue, boring and grey with lowest-bidder padding. The line for food stretches across one of the shorter sides of the room while the kitchen behind works nearly twenty-four hours a day to produce either full meals or overnight snacks and coffee for the late shifts.
"I'm fine. I'm…I'm totally fine." Tisiphone gives another one of those scratchy, disbelieving laughs. "First time I make a combat landing worth a damn, all it took was the world coming to an end around me…" The sudden spike of bitter mania drains away as suddenly as it arrived. "I'm a month out of Flight School. /I'm/ the one's supposed to be in Sick Bay with my guts in a bucket, not- ahhh, so not helping…" She shakes her head hard, leaning back in her seat, staring up at the ceiling beams for guidance again. "I'd have to hit the history books again, but I can't remember anyone who hates Picon this much."
Tisiphone and Merrell are across a table from one another. The pilot looks like hell warmed over, wearing slept-in fatigues; the engineer looks like hell warmed over, scraped into a pile and fried over again.
Merrell looks like she hasn't stopped - the dead woman walking. Parked at a table, her hair is a godawful mess. Its partially pulled out of the ponytail and certain lengths have been singed off. There's burn marks and stains all over her coveralls. Even some blood smattered across her chest.
Merrell finally looks back to Tisi and seems a bit beside herself. "Already did that, m'self." Guts in a bucket. "Good to hear you're doing..alright? I guess?" Robin fingers her mug, quiet for a long moment. "I don't know anyone who hates a whole colony that much."
Damon wanders into the Galley, disheveled and wearing his regular duty uniform, not the jumpsuit he's usually seen in. There's a darkness underneath his eyes that hints he hasn't been getting much sleep lately - then again, who has? He grabs a couple tidbits and a juice and scans the table for a familiar face. Nothing, nothing… Tisiphone. Hesitation evident in his face, he gives her a nod of acknowledgement - some officers like to sit with their own, but he squints for a better look and it seems like a Senior Chief is sitting across from her.
Even on a Battlestar with thousands aboard, the galley gets quieter at weird o'clock. It's hard not to notice the occasional new straggler and, given the past twenty-four hours, impossible not to react to a familiar face. Tisiphone's posture straightens a little; she mutely beckons to Damon with a lift of chin and a tilt of her head. "I don't know, either," she says to Merrell, finally biting into the dented apple she's been turning around and around in her fingers. "All I could think at first was that, at least with that kind of tech, nobody would think it was /us/." Us being Sagittaron, presumably.
Merrell looks up to the Petty Officer and dips her head to him. She looks back to her mug of coffee, then. "Well undoubtedly someone is going to blame Tauron. We catch shit for everything. The Colonial Redheaded Stepchild and resident flock of black sheep." She lifts the mug to her lips and takes a small sip of the brew inside. "I saw the nukes go off from the airlock. Just..flashes everywhere. In neat little squares. It was-" Her face twists into something half-disgusted and half near despair. "It was almost pretty." She's mostly just rambling, staring absently at the table. "Like little stars twinkling in the night sky. Then it just kinda hits you what it is. What's happening."
Taking the simple invitation the moment it's given, Damon heads over and takes a seat at Tisiphone's table. "Hey, Ensign, how you holdin' up?" he asks her, scooting his chair forward. He introduces himself to Merrell as, "PO First Damon, knuckledragger." The burn marks and blood splatters definitely get a browraise from him, but nothing spoken aloud. "A fellow Tauron?" he asks her, his voice taking a hopeful tone. "Have you heard any news of home, hey?"
"Better than I deserve to be," is Tisiphone's somewhat odd answer to Damon. "It's- good to see you're in one piece." She pauses there for another bite of apple, the wet crunch overloud in the quiet room. She's two chews into the mouthful when Merrell's words sink in; she stops short, staring at Merrell with a sickened expression. "You got back through the docking tube," she says. Horror.
The Senior Chief looks back to Damon, her voice a bit devoid of emotion for a second before she makes that attempt at smiling. Fail. "Chief Merrell. I head-up what's left of the Mechanical and Repair Division in Engineering." She's probably exagerrating. Probably. "Yeah, from Tauron. And nope, haven't heard from Tauron, if that's what you mean. I don't think anyone has heard anything from anyone, though, so don't feel bad." When she looks back to Tisi its probably more apparent where the blood on her coveralls came from. "I never left the ship. But I was there, trying to get the panelling open and cut the hydralic lines. Cut them and they slam shut with about forty tons of force. I guess you could say 'luckily' I didn't have to." Her cheek twitches and she lifts a hand to swipes her hand smoothly over it. Its the only part of her face that's really clean.
Ah, for a second, there was a glimmer hope in Damon's eyes - that's quickly extinguished with Merrell's answer. "Still good to hear a familiar accent," he says quietly, more to himself than anything else. He starts peeling an orange methodically - he's very particular about the way he does so, ensuring that it all comes off as one piece. "You too," he says to Tisiphone, glancing up from his orange. He listens to the Chief's story while splitting the orange apart. "I didn't end up getting to the deck until after the birds'd come back in - but I've been there almost the whole time since then," he sighs. "It's startin' to sort itself out proper again."
Yeah. 'Lucky'. Tisiphone's been saying many things are lucky, these past twenty-four hours, that she's pretty sure don't deserve it, either. "Being parked in Uram Sector isn't helping communications any, I'm sure. I know they'll fill us in as soon as they can." There's some minty-fresh Ensign naivete for you. She's about to say more when her restless gaze lands on one of the galley's clocks; she blinks in confusion, then is suddenly on her feet. "Frakdamn, I'm going to be late for patrol. I've gotta go. Frak. I'm sorry." Just like that, she's heading for the door with an urgency just this side of panic.
"Yeah. I heard the Deck is scrambling like mad to get aircraft operational. I think it helps to get things sorted when you have everyone throwing themselves into work." Robin's voice stays quiet. "Nobody wants to think about what happened. When you're trying to put out a fire or fix something you aren't think about it." She coughs a few times before sipping at the mug once more. With Tisiphone's unexpected departure, she nods to the woman's exit and looks back to Damon.
Damon nods mutely, snuffing an orange piece into his mouth. He grunts and nods to Tisiphone as she rushes off, mouth too full of citrus explosion to say anything coherent. "I've been on autopilot," he says to Merrell, picking out pulp from between his teeth using his tongue - at least he keeps his mouth closed while he does it. "That's what it's all about, ain't it? Composure - in time of crisis, even if your brain shuts down, your training takes over and you do your job."
The Senior Chief lets off a soft sound somewhere between a sigh and a snort, looking back to the depths of her dark brew. "Yeah. Composure to do your job no matter what." Her cheek twitches again and she swipes at the clean spot once more. "Its a nice ideal. Times like this, though, I'd give anything to be a Crewman or Specialist again." She's quiet with the musing. The woman looks pretty stable and iron-fisted on the outside - if not ten years older than she might normally - but she's all over the map inside. "How is the deck chief holding up? He doin' alright?"
Damon's jaw sets at the question, trying to strangle back emotion and keep his face impassive. "He - he said his wife and kids were supposed to meet him on Picon," he says flatly. No need to point out the obvious. "He's… he's doing his duty." He relaxes a bit, forcing himself to untense. "How's your department doing, Chief?" he asks softly. "Any news on the FTL?"
Robin sighs with that news, shaking her head slowly. "I can't imagine what he's going through. I should go talk to him." She lifts the mug with both hands and sips the rest down. "We took some losses. Some didn't make it off the station. I think I saw one of mine trapped in the causeway right before the airlocks shut." Another twitch, her hand moving but she doesn't wipe this time. "No news on the FTL, though, I'm afraid. We've got crews on it now. I got ordered out because I've been up for about forty-eight hours, even did some drinking before the attacks, and haven't been able to get away. Not sure I want to try and rack out. How're you doing?" The mug is empty but she keeps both hands clasped to it.
"I'm… I think I'm feeling a bit better," Damon replies, uncertain of his own words. "Haven't been able to sleep, I just - I had to keep working. But I just went to chapel, and I think it helped." He rubs at his eyes a bit before popping another slice of orange into his mouth. "How did this happen? How could anything like this happen?" he asks in disbelief. "I know it's cliche as frak, but I feel like I'm walking through a dream."
"Yeah. I think we'll keel over at some point or another. Hardest part is fighting the knowledge that eventually you're going to become a danger. Gotta sleep sometime." High words from the woman who has been up for two days straight. But she's still keeping her voice low, mostly looking into her mug. With his last, she stays silent for a bit. "I don't know. All that death. Gods. I need to get to the chapel, too. I need to talk to someone. I feel like I'm about to explode her something." She gives a soft sound almost like a laugh, face smiling as she looks up and wipes at her eye with a dirty hand. "I don't even know what I feel. But a dream sounds pretty accurate." She swallows hard and slowly rises from the table. "Yeah, I think I need to try and sleep before I keel over into a soppy puddle. Gods watch over you, Mister Damon."
"Gods be with you, Chief," Damon replies, toasting her with an orange piece as she gets up. "I know you don't need me tellin' you this, but you might wanna grab some sleepin' meds from the infirmary… makes it easier." He purses his lips for a moment. "Dreamless." After all, falling asleep is often the easy part - managing to stay asleep without waking up screaming is harder. "We'll all wake up soon, I think." Whimsically, he adds as an afterthought: "So say we all."