| It's Just Speculation |
| Summary: | Daphne and Tisiphone catch up over lunch. |
| Date: | 2041.05.04 |
| Related Logs: | None. |
| Players: |
  |
| Galley — Deck 9 — Battlestar Cerberus |
|---|
| Post-Holocaust Day: #66 |
| 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. |
| Condition Level: 3 — All Clear |
Daphne is playing with her food. No, really. The substance that was supposed to be mashed potatoes is, instead, a tiny sculpture. Deft use of her spoon has allowed the young pilot to rend the startchy powder into an assaultstar-looking sort of thing. The chicken is, at least, mostly eaten. Fingers are wrapped around a cup of something hot and steaming, but mostly, its owner seems busy with the sculpture. Clearly she can't eat it now. That would be destruction of a work of art. Or something.
Lentils and rice and veggies, the same as always. Tisiphone hasn't touched what the Cerberus considers meat since the last of the grilled goodies for QUODEL were served up, weeks and weeks before. Of course, she doesn't touch a lot of what's put out for chow. It's only since Doctor's Orders came down during physiotherapy that she started, with extreme reluctant, to endure cereal with reconstituted milk. Her tray gets slid down across from Daphne's, Mount Lentil landsliding over a patch of limp green beans. "The frak is THAT?" she asks.
"It's supposed to be an assaultstar." Daphne looks up at the voice and smiles weakly. "It's not coming out quite as well as I'd hoped. Instant potato doesn't work as well as clay. Who knew?" She shrugs, then returns to her Chick'n (TM), seeming not to care what it actually tastes like. "So, what's the call? Are they letting you leave the nest again, or are you still suck on egg-warming duty?"
"Just…throw some of that crap they call gravy on it. Glue it all together," comes Tisiphone's suggestion, a disgusted but mirthful eye on the sculpture. She shifts on her seat, trying to find a more comfortable way to sit and failing to do so, then reaches for her tumbler of water. She's trying to stall, and failing to do so casually, as usual. The corner of her mouth keeps twitching upward for a moment before she stuffs it back down to a straight line. Finally, she throws in the towel: "Assessment went great. The second Lasher gets me back up on the whiteboard, it's a go." Suddenly she's all grins, nervous and relieved all at once.
Daphne admits, "I was thinking of hollowing out the hangar, but then I might have to eat it and I'm not sure I want to." She eyes the other pilot while she goes through her non-verbal routine, and then folds her arms over her chest while managing the sort of irritable, impatient look made famous by librarians from every culture. At the admission, she exhales in relief, "Great. I told you you'd be fine. Now back to the never-ending stream of near-death experiences."
"Doesn't matter if you want to. It's on your plate, isn't it?" Tisiphone is likely one of the least-sympathetic people on the Cerberus when it comes to the idea of throwing food away. Waste not, want not. You know how it goes. She digs a small plastic packet out of her pocket — her 'nutritional supplements' given to her during physio — and tears the corner open, giving the assortment of pills that fall out the same dour look as they always get. Washing them down with a gulp of water, she sets into Mount Lentil immediately after. While chewing: "The sims. I mean- the targeting passes you pulled me through. They really helped, you know?" Light words, beyond the lentils, though the look she turns up to Daphne is somewhat odd.
"Unfortunately. I knew it was a mistake to eat the fancy food we had at the beginning of this trip. I really couldn't win. I ate it, so now I miss it. And if I hadn't had any, I'd be whining that I missed the best meal I'd be likely to have before I die." Daphne laughs lightly, then reaches for the steaming mug. "I knew you'd get back into it again. You don't erase two years of training with one month of downtime. We've got to get back to making our so-called superiors look bad, remember?" She makes quote-marks in the air with her fingers, too. "I can't do that alone. I mean, I can. Don't get me wrong, but it's too much work for one person."
Snerk. Tisiphone accompanies the somewhat rude noise with an eyeroll. "Won't take us long. You know Lasher's got me chasing his ass around hard vaccuum for the forseeable future? Frak. Me. Nearly enough to make me jealous of your wingman." Emphasis on the /nearly/. Her eyes light up suddenly, though, with a somewhat malicious light. "Shit, that reminds me. Speaking of chasing ass. Guess who was trying to chew on Spiral's ear in the library last night? Spiral's." Repeated for faintly-disgusted emphasis. "You'll never frakking believe it."
Daphne rolls her eyes, "Figures. He's going to give you a workout. Having Lasher for a wingmate is like holding onto the leash of a really big, energetic, and curious dog without much in the way of self-preservation instincts." At last, she cuts into the prow of her mashed potato starship, sending imaginary crew to a vacuumy death while she puts the mashed potato bits into her mouth. "I could think of a few people. He's actually kinda hot, with that gruff attitude of his. But I'm guessing Ducky?" She smiles sarcastically to herself.
"Kinda hot?" Tisiphone's fork pauses mid-motion as she stares at Daphne. "Dude. Dude. Shag someone, already. Your vision's getting dangerously blurry." There's an unwholesome and rather sly chuckle before she continues. "You want big and blocky and rough around the edges? Shiv. Frak, even Lasher, but-" A slight curling of her lip, and the sort of shrug that says, if it wasn't LASHER. "Not- dude. Seriously. That man's /way/ beyond rough-housing funtimes. That's someone who hurts people." She frowns, as the conversation suddenly veers into Pensiveness, Population: Her. "Anyway. Yeah. Trying to get him drunk before CAP. Stay classy, eh?"
Daphne sticks her finger down her throat and makes retching motions, "I didn't say I wanted to bone him. I just said I could sort of see where she was coming from, though Ali's such a damned cockhound. Anyway, all the good guys are taken or dead." She has another sip of her coffee, and then spittakes in reply to Tisiphone's final statement, "Wait. What? Why in frak?"
"There's only two reasons a girl ever tries to get a guy drunk, Daphne, and that wasn't a mission of mercy she was on." Tisiphone pauses there for another glug of water. Devouring Mount Lentil is thirsty work. "I'm gonna assume she didn't realize he was up for CAP because the alternative is- skull-implodingly stupid. It's the reason he shot her down, anyway. Meh. Who the frak cares." Her interest in the topic depleted, she shrugs it away for less catty topics. "How's flying with Spiral, anyway? You know he crunches trajectory equations when he's not busy being an abusive ass? His flight footage is crazy."
"I don't know what it says about her that she seems to be on a never-ending quest to get frakked by my wingmates, but I'm sure there's some sort of meaning in there." Daphne spoons more of the Potate'Ohs into her mouth and chews. Dutifully. "I'm hoping I never find it, because that's the sort of knowledge that's going to damage me. Eh. He's… kinda like the Colonial Navy's bitter aftertaste. Really, really, -really- jaded." So jaded, in fact, that conveying this information requires her to open her arms wide. "Call him sir every chance you get. It really pisses him off and he'll keep politely asking you to stop, but he can't bring himself to make a direct order. It gets me through CAP, anyway."
"Mmn." It's a somewhat uncertain sound Tisiphone replies with, first. "I'm trying not to wind him up too much. Not like another formal reprimand on my record's really gonna hamper my upward mobility-" Snort. "-but getting chewed out by someone who can do it without even raising their voice? Not too high on my list of fun."
Daphne snickers cruelly, "Maybe I should request to Lasher that Lucky be my new wingmate, since she always seems to be trying to get between my and my wingmate. Maybe it's some coded message that she really wants to fly with me. Not that she's exactly someone I'd want to have on my wing in the first place. That worked out really -awesome- for you." She makes the 'ok' sign with her hand, and then eats the rest of her potato-like substance, forcing it down her throat. The swallow that follows after is almost for demonstrative purposes, as if to say 'See? I swallowed it all up!'.
"Let's just frakking hope she doesn't get anyone else nearly killed. Even if our birds are worth more in the grand scheme of things than we are, currently. Frak, I hope the fabrication comes back online soon." Tisiphone frowns down at the eroding north face of Mount Lentil, shoveling up a bit more of it. "You heard it was a bomb on the Viper that blew, two days ago? What the frak, man." Back to pensive she goes, shaking her head.
"A bomb?" Daphne narrows her eyes in surprise. She just got seriously unnerved. "No. I didn't. What, did we miss it from the boarding party? Holy frak." She's bending her metal fork like she's trying to test its limits. She might not be aware.
"Yeah. They called in the bomb squad after the fire crews got the Viper's ammo to stop cooking off. MPs collecting witness accounts. The works. I don't- I don't frakking know." Tisiphone rakes her own fork across her plate, pulling deep faultlines through Mount Lentil. "Shiv and Lasher were on their way out on CAP. It would've taken them both out." A brief glance up, there. Both Squadron Leaders, just like that.
"Either someone wants their turn at being leader really bad, or we might have a real serious problem." Thank you, Lady Obvious. She sets her fork back down on the table, "No. I hadn't heard this at all. That's just great. Just frakking great."
"Queenie and I were talking about it, a bit. Night before last. Was- weird." Nice one, Tisiphone. Nice and specific. "Damned odd talk, until I got too drunk to keep up." She chuckles softly at herself, a sly glimmer briefly overcoming her pensiveness before fading away again. "Y'know- small problems reflecting the bigger problem you can't see yet. Then, yesterday. Stephen and I were talking about it in the Map Room. He figures maybe someone- a bunch of someones, whatever- threw in with the Cylons before all of this started."
Daphne shakes her head, "No. No way. We'd have picked up someone -that- mental in a psyche evaluation." She closes her eyes, annoyed, now. It's written all over her face in faint little lines. "There's no reason to make this worse by just postulating things like that. It seems pretty simple from where I'm standing. They found a nasty hole in our computers, we paid the price. And when they boarded the ship, they must've left us a few gifts… I'm assuming deck has checked out the rest of those vipers."
"How many weeks ago did they board? How long has Deck had to check out the Vipers between then and now?" Tisiphone starts to push her tray away from her, as if her appetite's been destroyed, then grudgingly draws it back in toward herself. "Anyway. You're right. It's just- speculation. Mind-frakking speculation." She starts shovelling through the last of her lentils with a vengeance.
"Then they missed one. It's that simple." Daphne's almost angry at the messenger, but it's mostly fear. "They missed one. We're human and we make mistakes, even though we can't afford any." It's a good thing she's finished her meal, because she no longer looks hungry.
"Yeah. Yeah. Just-" Tisiphone stops short, coughing once as she tries to chew and talk at the same time. Aspirating lentils, not so fun. She takes another drink before continuing. "Just mistakes and coincidences. That's all it is." Cue dragging silence, as she works on cleaning off the rest of her plate.
Daphne does nothing to marr the wonderful solace of nothing that follows, staring at her tray in delicious silence. At last, she breaks it to point out, "We're probably not going to get away, but it'll be fun trying. Sort of takes some of the stress out of it when you know you're probably done for, huh?"
The last few lentils are scraped off Tisiphone's plate. With a sigh of relief, she pushes the tray away from her and slouches back against her uncomfortable chair. It lasts only a moment before she starts climbing to her feet. "Yeah. Guess it does. Listen, I'm gonna grab my gym clothes and punch the crap out of something for a while. No deck hours, not on the flight board yet, might as well make sure I'll leave a pretty corpse, eh? I'll catch you in a bit."
Daphne nods, "Yeah. Yeah, sure." Daphne's a little distant, lost in thought. "I'd join you, but I should probably review some flight footage and watch myself crash for the thousandth time. I know every line by heart now, and even have a favorite two seconds." She smiles thinly, her delivery deadpan, but probably not meant to be. Take it easy, Tis. I'll see you in the cockpit."