| Just Following Orders |
| Summary: | Shiner sees Damon about getting his old job back on the Deck. Things go poorly. |
| Date: | 15 May 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Various logs relating to Despondent Damon and Shiner helping the mutiny. |
| Players: |
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| Chief's Office - Hangar Deck - Battlestar Cerberus |
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| The room is fairly small, to maximize the area of the deck itself. It contains a smallish metal desk with locking drawers, a computer terminal, a file cabinet against one wall and metal shelves filled with tools, spare parts, and manuals. There are two chairs facing the desk, clearly scavenged from somewhere else. One area of the shelving, nearest the desk, has been cleared and is clean. This holds a coffee maker that constantly seems to have some brew or other in it. Above the chair behind the desk, in a position of prominence, a framed picture has been hung. It is an embroidered image depicting Hephaestus with his two metal helpers. The work is beautiful and almost lovingly detailed. The god is laughing, one eye bright where a patch covers the other. He is held aloft by his helpers, one done in glittering gold, the other in silver. |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #443 |
Day after day, it's the same story on the Deck. Damon's locked up in his office from the moment he arrives in the morning until he leaves at night, never coming out for anything. Papers get slid under his closed door if they need his signature, and they reappear outside his office the next day. Knock at your peril - he's not been in the greatest of moods for his visitors, so goes the word on the Deck.
Shiner knocks. At his peril, one would presume. Back in his scruffy orange overalls, and with more than a few pointed looks and hushed words in his direction as he traipsed over the deck to the office, he pauses just a moment, then pokes his head in. "Chief."
Damon looks up with a blank expression as Shiner pokes his head in. "I was told you'd be coming to see me," he says flatly. "Come in." The chairs in front of his desk are currently occupied by stacks of folders and loose papers, as is his desk; he rummages through them to find the one marked 'D. Wright' and opens it up. "So."
Shiner nudges the door closed behind him, wiping his palms down the side of his trousers as he steps into the office. "So you know the story, then, Chief," he replies evenly. "They didn't shoot me, but I got kicked off flight training. Can I have my job back?"
Damon is silent as he makes a show of reading over the file, even though he's obviously read it before. "Joining the mutiny, is that the story?" It's the right of superiors to ask rhetorical questions. "In other words, treason. They should've shot you." The blank face looks back up to the former Deckhand. "They shot me. Kepner's men. We fought for every Gods-damned square inch breaking out of that prison cell. The prison cell where the other hostages were shot out of hand and left there, dead. So tell me why you deserve to be frakking alive, much less working on the Deck again." Although he keeps his voice even and quiet, there's a barely suppressed rage that almost vibrates through his entire body.
"So you don't know the story, then," Shiner notes, clearing his throat. "Seriously. You want to know why I should be alive? Because all I frakking did was follow frakking orders, Chief, that's why." He leans forward on his knuckles on the desk. "Some LT tells me to keep people away from an area? Guess what I'm going to do? Oh yeah, I'll keep people away from that area. I'm supposed to be frakking psychic and know she's sabotaging the place and not fixing it? Really? You frakking /know/ me, Chief. Or I thought you did. I've taken bullets for this ship, and now I want to get back to frakking work, doing a job I can do. Enough with the bullshit. Treason, my shiny white arse."
Damon takes in this new information silently. "I only have the JAG's summary on the conditions of your release," he says. The anger is still in his voice. "Just following orders. You know who else was 'just following orders', Wright?" His words are starting to rush out, the anger boiling over. "Those frakking coward Marines who executed the hostage officers on Areion. They were following orders, weren't they? You think they'd be allowed to go back to frakking work if they came aboard this ship?" Standing up, he hurls the model Viper on his desk at the side wall. "Not a frakking chance! You think anyone on this Deck is going to believe you or trust you again after you helped Kepner's men? Not. A frakking. Chance."
"Frak you," Shiner snarls, giving the desk a solid shove and turning away. "Frak you and all your sanctimonious bullshit. You tell me where I did a single frakking thing wrong, huh? I didn't kill anyone, I didn't hurt anyone, and I didn't even frakking break anything. I followed a valid order, and I got screwed over for it. Frak you guys. If you can't even see that, then you can stick your frakking job up your arse, because I'm not hanging around to get locked up for treason again next time /you/ or some other guy decides to give an order." He begins peeling out of his overalls, tugging the arms free. "Here, give this to some other frakking mug. Maybe you can shoot /them/ when shit goes down. Shit, why not just shoot everyone! Make a day of it!" The legs are tugged off until he has his overalls in one hand and stands there in his underwear and boots. "I'm out of here."
That's it right there - Damon's breaking point. Lunging across the desk, he attempts to snag Shiner by the loosened-off coveralls and jerk him down and slam him against the paper-covered surface. "You wanna know something, Wright?" he asks through gritted teeth. "I don't take too frakking kindly to people who helped the bastards who shot the Fleet's CO, executed hostages, and held Cerberus by the balls with her own Gods-damned nukes. I especially don't make allowances for frak-ups like you who think they've done nothing wrong afterwards." His free fist is balled into a fist, shaking with the shred of restraint remaining in him.
"Frak y—arrgh!" Shiner exclaims as his chest hits the edge of the desk, flailing wildly to try to make contact with Damon's face. "Look, you stubborn cunt! Either get the frakking facts or frak off!" Fingers hook for the eye socket while the other hand claws down the Chief's shoulder. Shiner is through with playing nice, and he yells into the man's face, "I never did SHIT, dickwad! I did my frakking /job/, you stupid cunt! You want to shoot the guy who put the nukes on board, too? For doing his job? I mean, shit, if they weren't there, then the Areion shitferbrains guys wouldn't have been able to do shit. Clearly his fault too, then!"
Shiner's flailing fist connects solidly with Damon's face, sending the unprepared Chief staggering back clutching his bleeding mouth. "You son of a slut," he spits. There's no restraint left in him now as he jumps over the desk, sending papers flying everywhere, in what looks like a full-on Pyramid tackle. Except that he's got his left arm up - he's not looking to bring Shiner down to the ground, he's trying to pin the man against the wall to wail on him. "Your job isn't betraying Cerberus and her crew. Your job isn't shirking responsibility for when you frak up! You want your old job back, you frakking gutless weasel? I got your Gods-damned job right here!" He continues trying to land shots on Shiner whether he's got him pinned or not.
"Ram it!" Shiner spits, grunting as the blows come in. Rather than directly attack back, he's quite happy to take the defensive route, weaving from side to side and blocking as best he can until an opening allows and… ooo. Knee. Testicles. "You don't know SHIT, dumbass!"
That stops Damon's assault rather abruptly. He crunches down into a ball, still standing, his face crinkling with pain. "You… little… shit," he gasps when he catches his breath, leaning against the desk for support. "Can't take responsibility like a man, can't frakking fight like a man. You're a disgrace."
Which is time for Shiner to take full advantage of the situation. He takes a last swing for Damon's jaw, right hand coming in a solid uppercut. "Ram it," he repeats himself, this time with less force and more resignation, turning for the door before the Chief recovers his wits enough to return the pain.
Damon, almost recovered from the cheap shot, tries to dodge the uppercut but can't move fast enough from his doubled-over stance. The best he can do is lean to one side, turning a full-on solid shot into a hard glancing blow that still sends him sprawling back across the desk. His blurry vision clears just in time to see Shiner walking out the door. Too shaky to go after him on his feet, he reaches for the nearest heavy object - the Centurion model on his desk, knocked over on its side - and hurls it at the back of Shiner's head with all the force left in him. Or at least somewhere in that general area.
Shiner always knew the cylons were out to get him. Proof comes in the form of a flying Centurion to the back of his head, the weight of it connecting with his skull with a sickening crunch and a spray of dark blood. Walking out of the door becomes faceplanting on the deck in a millisecond, hands not even coming up to stop the dead fall, and a second spatter of red blood follows in a delightful halo as his nose hits the metal floor. Out cold.
"Whao! What the frak!" comes a startled shout from the Deck as Shiner goes down. Damon calmly walks out from his office, checks Shiner quickly to make sure he's still, y'know, alive, and points to the closest Deckhand that approaches to see what the hell is going on. "Get the janitor to clean up this trash," he orders. Another right of superiors: uttering cliche lines. "And grab a mop for this frakking blood. Gods dammit." He wipes at his own blood, still flowing freely from his mouth; there's a black eye already forming nicely as well as other visible cuts and bruises. "The rest of you, get back to frakking work!" And the Chief's door closes again.