Squadron Briefing

Posted on Wed May 22nd, 2019 @ 7:47am by Captain Garrett Lovejoy [ Taylor]

Mission: Episode 1: Hell is a four letter word
Location: SQ Briefing Room
Timeline: After Senior Staff Briefing
754 words - 1.5 OF Standard Post Measure

Jess entered the briefing room. "Alright... pipe down." She noted. "Ladies and Gentlemen, it's days like these that I wish I didn't climb out of bed. Apparently. Captain Lalor, Commander Taylor, Commander Qwyyn, and Commander Holmes has suddenly disappeared without a trace."

"El-tee, who's commanding the ship then?"

Lovejoy stood to one side as he and Jess entered the briefing room. These were her people he would let her conduct the briefing.

"Fortunately, you now have me as the acting Wing Commander."

Matthews then spoke quietly. "Terrific, we have the Spanish Inquisition as our CO's"

"Matthews..." Vaii stated. "Shut your mouth, or I swear to the goddesses, you will be on sanitation duty until the twenty-fifth century." She stared at her pilots. "Now the rest of what we're going to discuss dose not leave this room. Apparently a certain person, whom we will not discuss." Vaii shot Lovejoy a glance. "Went and decided to hand over the Captain's sister to the Erisian Royal Family without orders. So now we may have a Search, Rescue, and Defend. That means, if the Erisians go hostile, we'll need to go weapons free to disable them. Disable, goddesses help us; we're not here to start a war today."

Garrett heard the muttered comment but gave no outward indication that he had other then a swiveling of his head toward Matthews.

"Are you kidding me?" One pilot stated. "Someone screws up, and we get to deal with the problem?" Jessica nodded. "Yes, we get to deal with the problem. If we fail, then a fifteen year old girl on this ship will receive all the tender mercies of an Erisian torture room if they get her off this ship. And they are not going to get her off this ship even if there is only two of us left. Is that clear pilots!?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

"You're going to be deployed on a four shift patrol rotation, I want all of your sensors pinging away for the Captain's shuttle. Every nook and cranny of this system. Each of you will get down time and a break before your next flght. We will find the Captain, Dismissed." Jess waited until the pilots were out of the room.

"Goddesses have mercy if we're not going to be neck deep in Erisians, and whatever else they're bringing." Jess asked. "I assume we've sent a signal for reinforcements of some kind?"

Garrett stood to one side. He watched the briefing conclude in stony silence. "I'm not privy to exactly what steps the Commodore has taken so far. I will only say that is a fair assumption."

"Well, my team got a good look at an Erisian warship during the Qortic Evacuation." She brought up some flight recorder images of the ships. "We couldn't get a good scan of them, the planet was kicking out all sorts of interference, it made it difficult to guide the transports out of the system, and a few of my pilots got buzzed by them, we didn't give into their heckling." Jess noted. "It was like being in a campus bar with fratties."

"Federation wanna bees." Lovejoy commented disdainfully. "Trying to impress the older kids. I commend your pilots for not succumbing to their tactics."

"My people are organized, we know strategy and tactics in regards to fighter combat." Jess smirked. "They may be hot-dogs, but we eat hot-dogs for lunch. Pardon the pun."

Lovejoy nodded in approval. "Good. They need to remember all they were taught. I hope they are extra hungry, they just may need it."

Jess nodded. "I'm hoping it won't come to that, Commander. If we find Captain Lalor. We can high-tail it out of the system before these forces arrive, and head to the nearest Starbase. It's always a good thing when we win the battle before its fought, so it doesn't have to be fought."

"Agreed." Garrett answered and spoke like a true tactician. Hopefully a battle won't come but a good defense is the best offense."

Jess now. "Now if you'd excuse me, I'm heading out on the first patrol."

Lovejoy nodded and watched her leave. He knew what the crew thought about himself, Percy and the Commodore and he didn't care as long as they carried out their orders and performed like they were expected.

She grabbed her flight helmet and walked down to the flight deck. "Holy Rings.... We have a command staff who thinks they're better than the people they're commanding. It's like Battleship Potemkin all over again."

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