"Cabbages, Lewis? Never had you pinned as the agricultural type." Come to think of it, she couldn't recall a time Lewis had divulged any interests outside of the Navy. "It ain't the betting I take issue with. It's the fact it's happening in uniform. You know the regulations. Hell, back when we came in there'd have been a dozen P.Os on us if we thought about pushing them. Just yesterday, I had a full Lieutenant walk up to an Admiral and a Captain with a 'Hey guys.' Don't think I've seen an officer try and fix that rubbish since Robinson. Right nasty excuse for a human being, but the woman knew her discipline." Commodore Christina Robinson had been the scourge of the Navy for most of Hartman's career before, out of nowhere, trading her position in for a Lieutenant's slides and a quiet posting out God knew where. Seemed like Hartman and Lewis hadn't been the only ones to have trouble letting go. As much as Hartman disliked the Commodore, she had to admit that the officer had run a tighter ship then the Navy Hartman now found herself in. It was an environment Hartman missed more keenly then she cared to admit.
"I'm sure you'd find yourself something, Lewis. Wrestling instructor, maybe." Even as what passed for an old man in the Fleet, Lewis had maintained a fearsome reputation in the sparring ring. More then one overconfident junior officer had gone back to the barracks with a new gallery of bruises, courtesy of his new Commander. "Found some odd work down at Bragg lending a hand with Recruiting when I took a break. Could ask around for you, if you're after something."
"For someone who hasn't seen me fight personally, you sure do take a lot of interest in my hand to hand skills, Jane."
I was smiling as I said this, the quip meant in jest. Over the years, a fair few number of recruits had attempt to incite me to fights, sometimes to prove a point, sometimes to make me take my shirt off for a friend. It'd sound like bragging to anyone else, but I'd worked hard to retain my fitness, even after I stopped actively serving in the marine corps.
"I did send a request to Admirality about joining in some sort of advisory role. They haven't gotten around to responding yet."
I was still not sure why I did that. I had my fair share of battle experience, but they had far better minds amongst their advisors. In hindsight, it seemed like I'd inflated my own importance, but what was done was done. Their silence to my comms made their stance clear enough.
"Discipline is an interesting beast, Jane. Some people will follow it out of respect for their superiors, or for ideals. Some will do it because it's practical, that they'll end up horribly dead without it. And some will only do it when a a Commanding officer beats the crap out of them, verbally or otherwise..."
I smiled, enjoying this particular tangent.
"Take away those factors, and discipline falters. I'm guessing there's a lack of trash talking Admirals in the Navy now, huh? Wish we still had Defmir..."
"I take a healthy interest when half the crew of one of my ships turns up looking like they just went eight rounds with a mountain lion." A dry laugh slipped through. "I don't think base medical knows what to do to fill the time anymore,without you there to break noses. Felix says they've almost had enough sleep this past month." Felix Marchant, Chief Medical Officer to the Battleship Missouri, was a minor celebrity in the ranks of the Navy. Rumor went that he'd personally treated half a platoon of Marines, while under fire, when a boarding action went awry.
"Never know with the brass." Even as a senior officer herself, Hartman still harbored an infantryman's distrust of high command. "I wouldn't hold your breath on a reply. It's hard enough getting things through from our side. Not sure they couldn't use some of that 'discipline' of yours." She shrugged and let the matter drop. It wasn't worth brooding over things beyond her control. Not that it had ever stopped her before.
"Shame how Defmir went." Moping in a hospital bed was a poor end, no matter who you were. For a soldier who had spent her whole life in the profession of arms, it was almost insulting. "I ain't too sold on trash-talking, but if it's that or Fuchs, I'll go with Defmir every time." She balled a fist in exasperation. "The man's taken to operating on first name basis with everyone during operations. Hell, if he wants to call his secretary Betty or some other rubbish in the privacy of his own office, that's his business, but when he's prancing about shrugging off compliments and treating the flight deck like the O's club, it's a right pain for the rest of us. I can't go correcting an Ensign when the Admiral's doing it, can I?
Give him another month and it'll be 'Hey, Jane. When you've got a few, could you see about chasing down that destroyer, if it's not too much trouble.' You'd think he'd at least have efficiency covered. Heard the Rheinlanders were meant to be decent at that."
"If I beat up half of your crew, they probably weren't doing their job very well."
I smiled at Hartman's exaggerations. A personal confrontation was absolutely a last resort for me, reserved for particularly belligerent subordinates. I rarely sparred with friends or for fun, that was not my preference. "Felix had better enjoy his rest while he still can. The Gallics are coming."
That was a sobering thought. Although I'd no longer be on the front lines when they invaded, a lot of good men and friends would die in the confrontation. And for the first time, Libertonian victory was not assured. I still hoped it'd not come to that, that they'd contend with conquering Bretonia. It was a cruel thought, but anything to avoid more lost friends. I'd had enough.
"Never met Fuchs. Sounds like a fun guy..." I said, chuckling. "Baker will need to get the outfit together if you want to stand a chance against the Gallics."
Silence reigned at the table for a long while following Lewis' comment, as though a wing of Lynxs had flown through the window and swept away the conversation as easily as the Gallic fleets had subjugated the Taus. Hartman's lips curled into a grim smile; recalling fragments of video that had drifted back to the colonies. The Gallic fleet had torn through the no-man's land dividing Bretonia and Kusari faster then either belligerent nation could react, leaving broken ships and isolated outposts in its wake. Bretonia and Kusari had been distracted, war-weary, and surprised. Was it any wonder their militaries had crumbled like so much tissue paper beneath the Gallic onslaught? Liberty would be different.
"The Gallics only won through dumb luck last time. They were in the right place at the right time." Liberty's Navy hadn't faced a serious threat to its dominance since the Nomad War. Even then, the aliens hadn't dared to pit themselves directly against the full strength of the Navy, relying on subterfuge and manipulation. The newly-emerged house had thus far demonstrated no such inclination. "Come on, Reginald. You know the media. The way they blow these things up, we won't need high-explosive to win the war. Even if they're not exaggerating, that's a hell of a supply chain to maintain all the way back through the Taus. I was aboard Normandie, I've seen the mountains of supplies those ships need. I'll be damned if they can keep anything bigger than a cruiser group supplied that far out without taking Bretonia out of the picture. And we've already seen how loyal their sailors are." Her last sentence carried a twinge of bitterness.
As the first and only Libertonian Commanding Officer appointed to the former Royal Navy Flagship Normandie, Hartman had been the last officer to serve aboard the ship before it renounced all allegiance to the Republic and vanished with half its battle group. The possibility that it was her presence that had tipped the ship into mutiny still gnawed away at her, doubly so now that she was back in uniform. It was foolish and pointless to waste time in the past, yet the idea persisted, a treacherous thought lurking in the ravines of her mind. "And Bretonia ain't exactly about to go quietly off into the night. Even if the Gauls get a grip on the planets, the Royal Navy still has access to our ports for resupply. No." She leaned in to emphasize her point, a ripple of light from one the pub's dingy lanterns dancing across the line of scar tissue that stretched across her face."Either they rush into Bretonia and the Royal Navy shatter their supply lines, or they let the war drag on while we buff up the military even further and learn how they fight and they'll get pulled kicking and screaming to the guns of the an Overlord-Class. Either way, we'll be having dinner and champagne on New Paris long before the frogs put a foot on Republic soil."
"Being in the right place at the right time decides most wars."
Hartman felt strongly about this, I realized. It was obvious, for I had shared that sentiment at one point. Surprisingly, those feelings still held. Old habits die hard.
"I'm one of the few who fought in wars where Liberty played to win. This war with Rheinland is containment, nothing more. While it's given the new guys some combat experience, I don't think they're ready to fight a real war yet. The Gallics will be coming fresh off the conquest of an entire House, and with a fleet that can actually challenge ours. The odds are too even to judge, and I am not looking forward to it."
Old, cynical soldier versus the Optimistic one. I'd seen enough to know that confidence and wide, rhetorical statements did nothing to win a war. It would be decided by who had more people to fight for them, and how strongly they felt about the issue.
"They can't challenge us." There was a fire in Hartman's eyes. "The way you say it, the Gallics might as well have put the boot in Bretonia already. In case you missed it, the Kusarians have been trying for five years and took half a system. The Royal Navy'll be bleeding hard by the time they get here." She straightened in her seat, voice taking on a hard edge. "And don't you dare say Rheinland ain't a war. There's a lot of bodies that'd contest that. It don't matter how many ships there are in the fleet, one person trying to kill you is as good as ten. One bolt'll do the same to a ship, regardless of what House the gun that fired it came out of.
The economy might not be willing to support the war, and I sure as hell hope that's what you were talking about, because our boys and girls are better prepared for war than the Navy's been in centuries. You've been in there with them, Lewis. You've seen it. The Nomads, the Rheinlanders. If that doesn't make them combat ready then I'll be dead in the ground before you find something that does, and half of them'll be with me." The earlier warmth had vanished from Hartman's features. The troops had been fighting. She'd seen it, flown alongside them herself. They were ready for anything the universe could throw at them. To hear Lewis, of all people, implying otherwise was a slap in the face. A betrayal to the people both of them served that stung as sharply as any wound.
A Civilian 'Gull' Trasport ship moved into the atmosphere taking on a landing point it set down its two containers at a community trading center while the ship its self flew off towards the equipment work ships for repairs and refueling. A short duration of time passed as Daerune Custos checked on the cargo making sure that it was secure and locked before reaching inside his jacket to pull out a communications device speaking in a short length as to his progress before shutting it off, replacing the phone back in its place Daerune moved on hailing down a shuttle for transportation. Hereditary looks and accent placed him as one of the those from the deep reach of the Omicrons sharing no resemblance to the Hispanic's.
Black haired, hazel eyed broad shouldered and dressed in black the young man made his way into the the Flask bar, he moved with a only a casual pace of someone who had time to kill his head and eyes moved about scanning the room and the faces of those who he could see before moving towards a corner seat sitting down. Yet to order anything he slanted his lower body foward on the seat and slouched back resting his head on the back of the seat, he soon took out a data pad and started scrolling through the Sirius news network.
For those that did take in observations it was easy enough to tell he had a stoic disposition, with a small flick of his hand he sent the data pad skidding across the surface stopping a small distance before it would have fallen off and hit the floor. sitting up stright if only for a few moments he slouched forward putting his face into his hands and wiped his face slowly as if to rid himself of a growing wariness his age ranged looked from about twenty to twenty two with those the nack for being able to identify such things. signaled down employee of the bar and ordered a bottle of vodka. He spoke assumingly to himself as the employee walked away. "Were it so easy." finishing with a sigh as he folded his arms and lent back against the chair, his head tilted down
Lunari
For all the wrong you have hidden in the dark. The Moon bares witness
Letting a few moments to let that fact sink in, I continued, still smiling.
"Wars are won by motivated people who have fire. At least, you still have fire...mine has turned to ash a fair while ago. Remember that I've fought in more wars than you have. Under the plots of the Nomads, our navy took on the Kusarian and Rheinland fleets in battle simultaneously and obliterated them. I was there then...and the Rheinland fleet then was a fair bit more powerful then they are now."
There was no levity in my words now, as I kept my intent gaze upon Hartman, hoping to get my point across.
"I hope that it will all turn out for the best, but I suspect it'll get a lot worse before it gets better. The Nomad war was hell....seems we're returning to it."
Hartman shrugged. "They're all hell." It hardly mattered who the enemy was. The losses always hurt the same. At least, that was what she told herself. In truth, it had been a long time since a casualty report had made her feel anything other than numb. Perhaps it should have disturbed her, but that emotion too, had long since been exhausted. Resolve. Resolve was all that was left.
Still, it felt good to have someone believe in her.
" 'Still got fire?' Someone else said that to me a long time ago."Over a decade, now."I think you've got a few battles left in you yourself, old man. You're still here." She smiled. "We both are." It wasn't a great deal, but damned if it wasn't something. They'd both been fighting for so long that it was a small miracle of probability that they were still breathing. War had a strange way of bringing people together, she thought, regarding the still-smirking man across from her. The two of them had faced down everything from rheinland fleets to lost transport captains. In some ways he was more her brother then her real siblings ever could be. Perhaps, just perhaps, someone she could trust. Her brain took that impulse and ran with it. Hartman glanced at the door. "Is your bird docked? There's something I'd like you to see."