| Obtuse Messages and Unsolved Mysteries |
| Summary: | Post mission to Gemenon, Marko and Quinn debrief with the CAG and their SL. |
| Date: | 18 May 2042 AE |
| Related Logs: | Just a Small Step Down |
| Players: |
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| Ready Room - Deck 7 - Battlestar Cerberus |
| With the hatches at the rear of the room, the walkways on both sides slope down towards the dais at the front of the room. The stadium seating forms a partial semi-circle around the speaking podium and provides enough seats for all three hundred members of the Air Wing. The walls are adorned with the patches of each squadron aboard and their mottos stenciled in white lettering above each one. Behind the podium is a set of large LCD screens that can display any matter of material from reconnaissance to maps to gun camera footage. |
| Condition Level: 3 - All Clear |
| Post-Holocaust Day: #446 |
Thirty (30) minutes, give or take, isn't a long amount of time. When that half-hour involves a classified, high-risk recon drop on Gemenon, though, those minutes may seem to take their sweet time. Perhaps it is because they'd assembled the best team possible, or maybe it's due to the gut feeling he's had that the drop-off would go off without a hitch, but all those seconds really don't seem any slower than usual to Bootstrap, who has been keeping occupied with flight footage reviews. It's what he was doing before Saratoga was dispatched, was what he was doing when word came in that the Raptor had returned, and still is what he's doing while awaiting the arrival of those required for the standard debriefing.
Cidra had little to do with herself while she waited for the recon to return, other than pace, so she saves time and eventual walking energy by doing her waiting in the Ready Room with Trask. Sans cigarette, a rarity for her when she's got the downtime to smoke, though she has brought with her a tin cup of tea. The footage is watched with a slim frown, though she's content to view it in silence as the minutes tick by.
Quinn goes through the usual motions post jump, landing, the checks, but everything is quite fine. So, helmet under her arm, she steps along side of her ECO for the trip as they head towards the Ready Room. A few locks of her red hair are plastered to her forehead and neck with sweat, the only sign that she is a bit… well, on edge about this all and that it wasn't the easiest flight of her life. She nods towards both Trask and Cidra. "Sir. Captain."
It might've only been thirty minutes worth of flight time to get Saratoga up and running, but at least four of them were some of the most gut-wrenching flying Marko's ever been involved in. Jumping into atmo? Not fun, oh no, not fun at all. Once the bird is secured and he signs off on his post-flight checklists, Marko follows along with Quinn, his own helmet tucked under his arm as he strolls towards the ready room. "Sir. Captain," he echoes, nodding politely to each in turn.
Considering how he loves to smoke oh so very much, the sight of Trask also sans cigarette is probably just as jarring, even if he hasn't had a single puff since before he had surgery. Whatever it takes to get back on the flight roster ASAP, he's doing it, and that includes foregoing sweet nicotine because that constricts blood vessels. Stupid cells need maximum oxygen intake to heal as quickly as possible. "Jugs. Flasher." It's an amiable greeting, simple as it is. "I'm a bit sick of watching movies that look like a billion other movies I've already seen. How 'bout you show me somethin' a bit more novel, yeah?" No, he doesn't ask how they are, seeing how a cursory examination reveals that the mission duo is no worse for wear than anticipated.
Cidra rises fluidly as Marko and Quinn enter the Ready Room. Though she tries to keep her expression as standardly inscrutable as possible, there's a flash of intensity in the CAG's eyes. As there is about all matters Gemenon. "Captain. Lieutenant. Report." She keeps it short and sweet. She wants to hear the details quick-quick.
Quinn quips lightly to Trask, "Don't suppose you know who the Great Serpent is?" Well, it's not a video like the thousand other videos he's been watching. She slides the flight camera footage across the table in his direction, just incase he wants to watch what she's discussing, but then Cidra gets them straight down to business and she stands stiffly before the table, speaking smooth. "Everything went as planned. The Marines are down. We were intercepted by two raiders that seemed to give a friendly… waggle, almost, and then flashed me a most intriguing light signal message. It's on the tape there. If I translated right, they were asking for protection from… some 'unnamed' and 'great serpent'."
"Or who the Unnamed might be?" Marko chimes in, shaking his head a little. "The jump was a little rougher than I'd hoped," he admits ruefully. "But we got 'em down, sirs," he adds, nodding slowly. "It's in the lap of the Gods now, or more to the point, in the lap of Van and the Gods," he smirks.
Unsurprisingly, Bootstrap is keen to review what he's been given. "Don't suppose you brought back some kettle corn, too, huh?" Queueing the footage, he does remark, "That'd probably be one for the Sister." That being the Great Serpent and Karthasi, respectively. "Might have something to do with Ananke, although I'm not sure how one averts Necessity." Audibly capitalized. "And the Unnamed… best guess I have is something to do with the Thirteenth." Which is also unknown. "Frakked if I know, though. We still have no idea how ten sparrows play into this." Not twelve. Not even thirteen. Ten. "Or who or what they are… or were."
Mention of the 'friendly' Raiders is met with a frown from Cidra, albeit a thoughtful one. "That does square with their behavior during our last fly-over. Sweet Pea and Shakes' report describes them as almost… playful." It's said with a certain amount of disapproval. "The Great Serpent?" Her frown deepens. "That is familiar. Serpents and sparrows. The creature that called itself McQueen…" That is apparently McQueen's full name now, as she always prefaces any mention of him with 'the creature.' "…wrote of sparrows in his letter to me. And such images recur in the strange visions that come to the crew…" A questioning look at Quinn at that. "…What strange game do they play at with all this?" It's not a question she seems to expect either of them to have an answer for. Her frown only deepens at mention of Ananke. "Ananke. The great serpent. Inevitability. That was the name of the damned MolGen special project that brought us to Leonis."
"Beg pardon, sirs, but I'm going to do what I tend to do and crawl out on a little bit of a limb here," Marko says, frowning thoughtfully the way he usually does. "We know that Parnassus was involved in a research project it shouldn't have been…" he says, taking his time as he tries to arrange his thoughts. "Was it Leonis we found all of those experimental cages and whatnot in? My apologies, but the weirdness around here tends to get blurry pretty quick." he chuckles, trying to brighten the mood a little.
Quinn goes a bit quiet for a heartbeat or two, her muddy green eyes flickering over to land on Cidra for a few moments as she tries to ignore the goosebumps that have risen on her arms beneath her flight suit. She breathes out slowly. "In some of the dreams, yes… there was a great serpent. It… stopped myself… and Kalli… from getting to Lampridis Falls. It… ate us, before I woke," she confesses, more goosebumps following. She nods a bit to Trask, "It might be a matter for the Priestess but… this special project is intriguing, also." She looks back to the other two curiously.
Impatient SL is impatient. While Cidra broods and muses, Trask opts to be more proactive and starts fast-forwarding to the signal code. "MolGen just happened to be the lowest bidder for Project Ananke." Gotta love how military contracts work. "According to Averies, The Gun," also in audible caps, "is one of the many twisted fruits to come from that harvest. Last I heard, though, no one managed to crack Miranda. I've been kickin' 'round the notion to have Doc Adair and Magnus take a look at it, especially since some of it might actually make /some/ sense, now," thanks to hindsight, "to those of us who aren't AI geniuses or neuroscientists specializing in biomechatronics." There's a bit of a smirk there.
Cidra is decidedly brooding about all matters Gemenon, though she does manage to stay mostly focused. Not that what she's hearing makes her any more cheerful. "The Gun. Perhaps. The Cylons would see it as a great threat. But the Areion is gone. And even with the way it parted, I do not think we would be seen as the savior from *that* particular serpent." As for Miranda. "Perhaps, though all efforts have been made to get what information out of it that can be gotten. I suspect such avenues have already been tried, though I shall touch base with Command upon it. I would also be curious what the Priestess will have to say on this… latest message. The Cylons seem very much wrapped up on our religion, at least those who have buried themselves in Lampridis."
Marko smirks back to Trask and nods slowly. "Yes, sir….. That just seems like an _awfully_ big co-incidence to me," he says, shrugging a little as if to acknowledge that his own thoughts on this are probably completely irrelevant. "Can you tell me about your dream, Jugs?" he asks his former Squad Leader, regarding her curiously. "I know people have been having them, just don't know any details."
Quinn looks towards Marko, her lips pressing a moment. "We were in my home… from where I grew up on Aerilon… Kalli was probably four or five. It was monsooning outside. Kalli kept saying she wanted to go home. There was also a great… massive serpent curled up by the fireplace, like some house pet. Then there was a knock on the door and an older couple was there. Tom and Cass were their names. They said strange things… asked if we knew God, and if we were going to Lampridis Falls. They told us the flood was coming…" She frowns a bit deeper. "Kalli wanted to go with them. I wouldn't let her at first, but then I decided to try and follow them to the Falls. But the water was too high, and then the serpent came and ate both of us."
"I somehow doubt The Gun is the only thing to have been cooked up in that freak factory," is sardonically smirked while the current SL continues to skim. "Aaaaand here we go," Kal jauntily exclaims, having finally reached the heart of the footage, so to speak.
'PROTECT US FROM THE HAND OF THE UNNAMED. PROTECT US FROM THE COILS OF THE GREAT SERPENT FOREVER.'
"Protect us from the hand of the Unnamed," he starts to translate. "Protect us from the coils of the Great Serpent forever." For a moment, Trask is silent. Then he shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Seriously?" Yeah. Not at all impressed. "You'd think that if they really wanted to be saved so badly, they'd stop being so damn cryptic. Hells, they deserve to be smacked by the hand of the Unnamed and swallowed by the Great Serpent for being so frakking obtuse." His right hand is flippantly flicked in a dismissive manner, and he mutters, "Morons."
Then, much like someone abruptly joining a different conversation, Bootstrap decrees, "No one's eating my niece. I wouldn't mind a snakeskin belt, though."
"Quiet, Boots." Though Cidra sounds less annoyed at Trask's snark (though that's present as well) than intent upon the footage. "I think I will watch this again." Probably many times tonight. She manages to take her eyes away and turn to Quinn and Marko. "I know not what it means, but perhaps our personnel on the surface may find more answers. A fine day of work by both of you for delivering them. Unless there is anything further, you are dismissed."
Marko nods his head to Quinn. "Heh, I dunno if that's a revelation from the mists or a bad experience at the mess hall," he chuckles softly, shaking his head a little. "I just… dunno…" he shrugs again. "Maybe we're not looking at this from the right point of view? Though what the _right_ point of view could be, I'm almost scared to find out. Anyhow, that's all the news that's fit to print. Good eve, sirs," he says, giving them both polite nods as he prepares to go. "Jugs, good flying with ya," he says, offering her his hand.
Quinn smirks to Marko, giving his hand a brief shake, "Hell, it was before Kalli was even born. I was having a lot of strange dreams." Though never one really like that. She looks back towards Trask and Cidra, slightly tipping her head before slipping out the hatch with her ECO of the day.