Liberty Air Force Lieutenant Melanie Tyler was fuming. The rest of the Air Force had been out playing with their new space-borne toys, and she'd been assigned to organising the dining-in night. Protocol Officer indeed. It was closer to cocktail duty. She swirled her own drink impatiently, nearly sending the orange liquid splashing onto her dark blue mess dress. The Lieutenant slowly placed the beverage on the table, in the same manner one might handle an explosive device, pacing across the small room to the door and back again.
Low music pulsed through the Hornet's converted conference room, scarcely audible among the chatter of the few civilians in the room. Former Air Force pilots to a man, the Dining-In Night had happened to coincide with a reunion on Houston, and regulation had insisted they be invited. Tyler would have preferred to just have the dinner, and regulation be damned. Eyeing the largely-empty room, it seemed there were some things regulation couldn't control, Air Force pilots being, well, pretty much all of them. The dinner itself wasn't scheduled to start for another thirty minutes, but Melanie was desperate for some more junior officers to arrive. There was only so long she could make polite conversation for before grabbing a ship and running for Bremen started to look like a seriously good idea.
Waiters, mostly enlisted men dragged from bases on Houston drifted from group to group, offloading cocktails to anyone who'd take one. The irritated Protocol Officer snagged one off a surprised Corporal and retreated to her seat, placing the full glass opposite her. Hopefully it would be sufficient to convince any of the brass strolling around that she already had company. Bored beyond measure, she folded her arms and started counting down the seconds until the rest of the fighter compliment was late.
One Major Harold Comstock entered the mess hall, known for being a strict authoritarian with little or no mercy in regards to training 'accidents', and looked around until he saw a more familiar face. He let a grin flash across his face as he spotted his first victim, or rather, conversation. He walked up to Lt. Melanie Tyler, sipping slowly on a glass of water. She seemed rather flustered, it would be a few more minutes before the rest of the pilots came streaming into the mess hall for their grub.
"Lieutenant. How fairs the Protocol duties?"
He eyed her expressions for a moment before casually glancing throughout the rest of the room, ignoring the other glass on the table.
[font=Agency FB]Lieutenant Gilroy entered the room. He straightened his Uniform and looked around before he saw the Lieutenant and the Major at a table, he walked over to them, quickly saluting to the Major, nodding to the Lieutenant. He grabbed a drink from one of the men walking around and set it infront of them.
"Good Evening my friends, not alot of us showed up yet i see"
He took a drink from his glass and looked at the two of them.
[color=lightblue][font=Agency FB]Major John Eagle whooshed into the room sparkishly, it was obvious he was in good mood. His recent transfer from the National Guard to the Air Force cheered him up like nothing had done in the past months. He walked past a table a grabbed a drink from a tablet. With a smile laying on his face, he rushed towards the small group of people having a chat at another table. A friendly small-talk with his new colleagues before the rest arrived, that's what he was out for in that moment.
[font=Agency FB]Captain Kelly Ruiz slowly entered the room. A smile could've been seen on her face, as she was obviously happy and in a good mood. She came over a tablet and took a glass of cocktail. Then she took a look around the room, looking for familiar faces to appear. Kelly suddenly spotted a group of familiar people. He slowly came up to them and saluted.
"Good evening people."
By speaking these words, she took a seat and leaned back comfortable in her chair.
"Not so many of you around here."
Kelly raised an eyebrow.
A Major. Brilliant. Come to think of it, he did look a little familiar. Briefs had been held prior to the Dining-In night, perhaps she'd seen him at one of them. Even if she hadn't, whispers of the man's demanding nature had already spread throughout Space Command with a speed that put the Task Force's FTL communications systems to shame. Major Harry Bloody Cornstock, a man you wanted to avoid if you were on the sims, unless you were perfect. If you wanted to pass, that was. She met his gaze, choosing her words carefully.
"Well enough Sir." If soul-crushing boredom was your cup of tea. Tyler swept a hand over the still largely-empty bar, hoping her frustration didn't show. "For the numbers we've got."
If the Major was going to comment he didn't get the chance, another Lieutenant chiming in. Melanie uttered a quiet prayer of thanks to whatever God had directed him to her table.
"Nope, we're still running a little low." She concurred with a frown. "I guess it's the whole carrier landing thing. I went up with the controllers earlier today, when Rostburn was launching, they were laughing too hard to co-ordinate comms." She was exagerating, but not by much. Despite weeks of training on the ground, Carrier operations were still pretty new ground to the Air Force, and the Naval officers on board never tired of reminding them of it. "Was it any good Gilroy? The landing?"
Tyler was so caught up considering the intricacies of space flight that she barely noticed the newest officer in their group. Gilroy's body largely obscured him, anyway. Probably another Lieutenant. With a grin, she slid the full cocktail over to his empty hands.
[font=Agency FB]
Harry nodded to Tyler as the other lieutenants made their way to the table, he nodded to each of them as they walked up.
"Lieutenants, Captain."
He stepped away and saw Major Eagle, he grinned. He had heard of the mans exploits in the National Guard. He walked briskly up to him to intercept him before he reached the table.
[color=#FFFFFF]"Major John Eagle, glad to see you here. I've heard of what you've done with the Guard. I hope your particular expertise in the field of space warfare operations will come in handy in whipping these fighter jocks into combat condition. I look forward to the mutual cooperation it'll take to get these people into shape for front-line missions."
He shifted his weight to his other foot, and took a sip of his water glass. He chose to forgo the ample supple of alcohol that was readily available on dine-in nights. Harry glanced back at the table he had just left as another lieutenant walked up to it. I wonder how many young men and women have to die before this war is over... he thought.
[font=Agency FB][color=lightblue]Gilroy chuckled a bit at the Lieutenants question
"Well , its alot different from the training, it wasnt my best landing, even though i made it on the first try. But then again it wasnt my worst landing either"
He shrugged remembering the incident where he had to crashland his former jet at Holloman Airfield because of a system failure.
"How did you get here? Shuttled up with them navy boys?"
He raised an eyebrow curiously.
"[/i]Naval[i] Shuttles?" Tyler's face twisted in mock-horror, the expression showing exactly how little she thought of the idea.
"Yeah." She finally conceded, grinning. At least she'd had the opportunity to meet up with the other sailors. Despite all the noise they made about it, they were on the same side. "My bird's still being patched up down on Houston. Navigation failure, can you believe it? I guess the brass felt sorry enough for me to get me to throw this together." The Lieutenant sighed, glancing at her watch. Five minutes until they had to move into the main hall, and the dinner would begin in earnest.
"Did I miss anything out there? TACOM didn't mention anyone turning up, but we've just been hugging Houston. And they don't tell me anything anyway." It was their right, there was no point panicking the ship over a few light scouts, but it hardly made her feel better. Rheinland warships shouldn't have been that uncommon at the frontlines, a fact for which Melanie was grateful. In her opinion, anything that bought a Wraith closer to her crosshairs was good news. Everything else was just getting in the way.
[font=Agency FB]Lieutenant Anja Ryer, perpetually worried about being late, arrived appearing slightly flustered. She took a moment to breathe in, looking around for familiar faces.
Futilely. She had not actually met anyone else in the LAF, yet.
Well, this was awkward.