Nugget Zen
Nugget Zen
Summary: We are a bunch of angry little nuggets, aren't we?
Date: 5 ACH
Related Logs: None
Players:
Adrastos..Jocasta..Eleftherios..Micah..Novella..

Adrastos is not here to relax with a member of the opposite sex. Or his own sex, for that matter. At the moment, he's the only one here, watching the stars move slowly beyond the viewport, a string of prayer beads in hand. He doesn't seem to be praying, though, for once. Might even have forgotten about them.

From the back of the room comes the distinct noise of a lighter's striker sparking into flame as someone's apparently decided that the observation lounge is a far better place to spew smoke than, oh, say, the tap room. Boots on the floor make their way at a casual gait until there, abruptly, Jocasta's hunkered down next to Hektor and then asks rhetorically, "Mind if I join you?"

"Not at all. Glad to see you, Jo," Hektor says, still with that shy manner, for all he's known her for ages. "You got a smoke to spare?" Since when does he?

Jocasta mumbles something that sounds like 'sure', though it's hard to tell because she's all but gnawing on the butt of her smoke. She pats down her pants and then — ah, there they are — sinks down in her seat in order to fish out the pack from the pocket. Instead of just offering the man an unlit cigarette and then taking the time and effort to find her lighter again (even though it's right there in her jacket and within easy reach), she takes the second cigarette, sticks it in her mouth, and then withdraws the already lit one in order to chain the cherry and get the other Sarcoma burning. In other words, like everything else, she's being generous but doing it the hard way… and, you know, maybe a bit more intimate, too. She's hip sharing her cigarettes and her saliva with Hektor, apparently.

Eleftherios comes in from Corridor 9A.
Eleftherios has arrived.

What else does Hektor long for but swapping spit with Jocasta? He's slumped in a seat facing the glittering expanse before them, prayer beads twined in the fingers of his other hand, even as he rather gingerly draws on the cigarette to get it going.

Micah comes in from Corridor 9A.
Micah has arrived.

The soft sound of hesitant bootfalls can be heard on the deck from the entrance to the Lounge, and they herald the arrival of the newest member of Genny's Air Wing. Ensign Eleftherios Antoninus Tchatchke arrival is quiet per usual, and the rook doesn't spend much time on gauging the faces present in this den of relaxation. He passes through the darkened area, muttering apologies as he bumps into someone, until his foot manages to catch the leg of a chair, and ends with him landing on his knees, and careening down the aisle. All the way down the damned aisle. No one ever said that He of the Many Letters was a dancer. Or could walk in a straight line for measurable distances. "Frick! Frak. Motherfrak…" A string of curses begins to eject from his mouth, before the normally mild young man shakes his head fiercely, and climbs to his feet….giving the main exit a longing look. Now, how to get out the door without everyone laughing even more at his hapless self?

It's hard to ignore an entrance like that and far be it from Jocasta to play this moment particularly subtle. She's not laughing, no, but the thought has apparently crossed her mind and she's not above wearing an incredibly amused expression. "They testing the grav in here, El?" she asks, quip delivered wrapped in smoke.

Unfortunately for Alfa, there's a surly-looking Viper pilot thumping his way into the observation deck right about now. He, on the other hand, isn't making any effort at a stealthy approach; he's dressed in his flight suit still and carrying a paper cup filled with steaming coffee and a cigarette in the same hand. His footfalls cease abruptly when the Ensign goes tumbling not too far ahead of him and his lips purse together slightly; not really a smile, but something meaner, sharper. He doesn't bust up laughing however. Merely strides on past, making a point of stepping over the pilot. "Might try keeping an eye out where you're going next time, rook," he murmurs, dropping into a chair and taking a drag of his cigarette.

Adrastos politely gives Elef what they call the 'golf clap' back on Earth. "Caprican judge gives it a 7.0," he says, utterly deadpan, rolling his cigarette to the side of his mouth.

"Yeah, Jo. They just sent me to make sure it's still on." Fully on his feet now, he brushes at his uniform trousers and smiles slightly. "I can report back in the affirmative." Adrastos' clap and quip is given a smirk of its own, and a sigh. "Leave it to a Caprican to not recognize a dazzling performance, if ever there was one." He is over his embarrassment quickly enough, though he makes a point to sniff the air, and look around. "Does it smell like sweaty ass in he…" Cutting off, eyes fall on the newest arrival. "Ah. Viper pilot. That explains it." Folding himself into a seat closer to the two pilots whose grief for falling was at least good-natured, he digs into his uniform for a stick of gum.

Ugh. That voice. Jo cranes her neck back at what surely must be an incredibly uncomfortable angle so that she might be able to spy the pilot who's just arrived and, yep, that's who she thought it was — Micah. Brilliant. She sinks down a little lower into her chair, not that it much helps to disguise her presence, of course, because she's already opened her big mouth. Nudging Adrastos with an elbow, she teases in her Aerelon drawl, "He doesn't mean you, mate. You don't count."

Micah cheerily lifts his unoccupied hand after Alfa speaks — still facing forward, and thus away from the pilot — and flips him the bird. "What're you praying for, Rook?" He addresses Adrastos and his prayer beads with that question, even as his gaze skirts over Jocasta, pauses, and redoubles back for a long, lingering moment.

Hektor's lips thin out and he's clearly choosing the words for his reply to Micah carefully. "Victory," he says, finally. "Hope," He toys with the beads - they're cobalt glass - making them click softly against each other. And then he snorts at Jocasta. "I should hope not. I bathe every day."

"How do you win, if you race is decimated? We could kill every last toaster, and still not win, man." These words are spoken softly, and booted feet cross, one over the other as Elef lounges more comfortably in his chair. Silver paper is rolled up, and shoved into a pocket…Jocasta is given a look, complete with tilted head and lifted eyebrow. "You too? Well. We should go to him, if we ever need lessons on winning friends and influencing people." And then the stick of deliciousness is folded into his mouth, and he sets to silently chewing.

Her, too, what? Jocasta looks momentarily puzzled but doesn't pursue the inquiry. There's a heap of smoking to be had and if she's not sucking it into her lungs then it's just not getting done right. She does, however, object to the observation. "We're not decimated. Look," she says, cigarette clutched between a pair of fingers that then gesture in tandem to the view of the void and what's left of their race, floating about in space like so much metallic jetsam. If she's trying to make a rousing point, this probably isn't the way to go about it.

"In't a game. In't about winning or losing, it's about knowing that so long as you're still standing, still alive…” Here, Micah takes a drag of his cigarette and lifts his chin to exhale it through his nose and lips, "…that it's your gods' given duty to fight, until you can't fight anymore. And then? Then, you take as many of those motherfrakkers down with you as you can. That's what it's about." The coffee is sipped from and he rests his head back against his chair, dark hair tangled on his eyelashes and lips, half-matted with a serious case of helmet head. After a long moment, he twists his head sideways and speaks to Jocasta, "Sorry I didn't come to say hello, down in the hangar bay. Figured… figured you didn't much want to talk to me." Which, judging by her reaction, likely isn't too far from the truth. Micah speaks, too, with a thick Aerelon accent to rival Jocasta's; it could be likened to a Yorkshire or Sheffield burr.

"Survival is victory, of a sort. Making sure they can never deal another blow to humanity as they have now….and doing what we can to restore the human race," Adrastos says, quietly, turning the beads in his free hand, even as he ashes delicately to one side.

"You're right. We're not decimated. I was generous in my choice of words. A decimation is every tenth soldier of a unit being killed." Eyes have yet to leave the viewport, and the ships that Jo indicated in her attempt at making a point. "I'd say that we're rather beyond a mere decimation. Frak. A decimation would be a holiday on the Godsdamned beach." Eleftherios sighs, and shakes his head. "Survival is not a victory. Survival is merely what we have to do. You don't get consider the mere act of breathing to be a success, do you?" His arms cross under his chest, and he fights the urge to shiver, as their predicament sinks in, once again. "There should be no question that we must fight until we can fight no longer. That we must exterminate the Cylons. But, in the end…survival is merely what we must do. I see no triumph in that. No victory."

Is this… wait, what?? Is today the day when Jocasta's actually the most optimistic person in the room?! Of course, the term optimistic is probably functioning on the barest acceptable definition of the word but… all the same… something about this scenario just isn't right. Ignoring Micah for the moment, Jo leans forward a little in her seat to lock a look on to Elef and wonder aloud, "Survival ain't success but that sure as hell doesn't mean it ain't survival. If I have to choose between breathing and not breathing then, hey, I'll take breathing." Or, in this case, smoking. Which she continues to do with passionate, lung-blackening enthusiasm. It's only after a particularly harsh exhale that she acknowledges her fellow Aerelon(ian?) with a sharp gaze but doesn't bother to berate or blast him with a razor's retort. Yet.

"What the frak's wrong with you, Alfa? You're talking about this like it's a war. Like you're buying all the bollocks Command's been feeding us. It's not a war. Right now, it /is/ survival. When we've figured out how to survive, maybe then we can fight. Maybe then we can build back what we had, and make the frak sure it never happens again." Micah's tongue lashes across his lips quickly, an angry, aggressive motion mirrored in the slouch of broad shoulders and even the way he occupies his /seat/. Jocasta's gaze is met head-on, like a drag racer playing chicken out on some rain-slicked highway.

"I'd say survival is victory of a sort, when what your foe is after is your complete and total elimination," Hektor opines, tucking away the beads. Not so much with the somber contemplation when you've got a slew of other pilots hovering around you. "But ….what can we do? Run so far they can't find us, and start again?"

"Survival is survival." Not that he sounds unhappy about surviving…but Alfa clearly sees it as nothing more or less than they will achieve. As for what's wrong with him….there is a lifted eyebrow and he stares at Micah for a moment. "Wrong with me? It is a war. For our survival. I don't understand why you make the two as mutually exclusive. We will not learn how to survive without fighting the metal bastards. Unless you suggest that we should run and hide, and hope they never find us." A frown. "Newsflash. They orchestrated the genocide of our entire race. They will frakkin' follow us to the ends of the universe, if that's what it takes. Extermination of their kind comes before we can ever truly sustain survival."

Well, so much for that whole finding a nice, quiet place to lay low and catch a smoke in thing. Jocasta's unofficial plans for the evening have officially been shot down in a flaming spray of uncomfortable company and surprisingly vehement conversation. She's officially smoked her cigarette down to the last tolerable measure and as extinguishes it with a grind against a suitable surface that doesn't count as destruction of military property, she finds her feet and announces, "I'll be in my rack." A beat. "Whicha you's up to join me?" Another beat, followed by a finger pointed at Micah. "Kidding." She then tosses an almost apologetic look over to Hektor and explains, "Raptor sortie tomorrow."

"Not what I said," Micah retorts, ashing his cigarette into a dish set down nearby, before lifting it to his mouth for another pull. "If you'd happened to have been listening to me, I said that we are in a fight for our survival. A fight. Not a war. We do what we can to stay alive, and frak them up, but a war… a /war/ isn't fought like this. Maybe try thinking before you open your frakking mouth next time." His eyes flash toward the Ensign, smoke exhaled through his nose as a quick smirk twists at his lips. "Don't worry, baby, I think I've got some flight schematics to go over, anyway. Maybe another night." Hey, two can play at that game.

Novella comes in from Corridor 9A.
Novella has arrived.

"Me," says Adrastos, expression entirely innocent. "If you've got room for me," Apparently he missed the 'kidding'. Or chose to ignore it. He's silent on the larger question, as if wishing he hadn't touched on that most sensitive of subjects.

"That's motherfrakkin' semantics, you dumb shit. Accuse me of not thinking before I speak. We're -never- going to be in a position to fight what you consider a proper war. But, like it or not. We are at war. You fight with what you have, not what you desire." Yes. The normally mild-mannered Alphabet clearly does not care for Micah. Which isn't a bad thing, considering how mopey he'd been since the day after arrival on Genny. "I see marines, and fighters, and two larger warships. That is our outpost of humanity's warmachine. We have to focus on military objectives set forth to achieve our goal. Which is, incidentally, survival. Makes it no less a war." A roll of his eyes, and he looks away, eyes drifting to Adrastos. "I'm just glad this fool isn't the first Viper jock that I'd met….or I might have a bad impression of you lot, man." Jo is given a grin at her words, but also a mere wave…"I'll see you in space, Jo. Know who you're ridin' backseat for?"

"Alright, you two, that's enough. Knock it off," says Jocasta, who only appears to have made it two steps closer to the door. Wait, seriously?? Little Miss Likes to Fight is going to try and play peacekeeper now?! Is this really the observation lounge… or, is it perhaps some bizarre portal to an alternate dimension in which Jo didn't just set another pilot's bunk on fire barely twenty-four hours ago?? Oh, wait, no. This is just what they call 'being a hypocrite', right? Yeah. Right. Exactly. Still, she's got a hand hung up on her hip as if either of the bickering boys might be convinced by her attempts. "Hek, help me out here." Yeah, Hektor… don't just sit there and be all infuriatingly serene. Throw a punch or something.

Alfabits does not care for Micah? Preposterous! That is, at least, unless you consider that half of his own /squad/ doesn't like the kid. "Frak you and your idealism and your wishful thinking, Alfa, and go get yourself a frakking dictionary. Organized conflict-" Crow's ticking things off on his hand, hunched forward in his chair now with his cherry burning bright between his fingers as he waves it about. "-between two militaries, involving a dispute with a basis in politics, ideology, culture, waged through a series of battles. Not a frakking massacre. Not a holocaust. Aye, we have military objectives, we're soldiers, but it doesn't make it a war just because they tell us it is." No, he isn't paying any attention to little miss peacekeeper over there. If anything, he's ditching his cigarette and getting a look about him like a hungry animal.

Through the hatch steps Novella, actually looking a little more fresh than her usual suited self - somewhere between shower and a flight. There's a book in her hand as she moves through, but the voices of the normally quiet Obs Deck… what’s this? Sniff sniff. Tension in the air? The barest hints of a smile tug at the edges of her lips as she stops by Jocasta. "Well hello…” She looks between the boys and then Jocasta. "This looks cozy."

Hektor remains obnoxiously zen. And then cowardly. "I'm heading for my rack," he says, calmly, pinching out the cigarette, and heading for the door.

"No matter how small it is…we have a frakkin' war machine. Plus the Cylon fleet. Two militaries. And, last time I checked….Genesis has engaged the enemy. An enemy who appears to have serious ideological issues with our very existence. A mutual feeling, I might add." A shrug and Alfa just shakes his head. "We're it. We're humanity, now. We have an enemy to fight. In an organized manner. Or else, we die. It's a war. It will be remembered as such. And you are just trying to argue semantics where there are none. Douche." The last word is emitted in a frustrated……"Frak it. Just drop it. I could show you a picture of a cat, and if it meant arguing… you'd say that it was a motherfrakkin' rose bush." The look that Jocasta gets is more than amused….oh. He remembers being the calm one in flight school. Really. "Bunk time might not be a bad idea. I suddenly find myself bored to godsdamn tears."

Alright, well. Now that the tempest has somehow been shoe-horned back into the toaster, Jocasta re-embarks on her return route to the Ares berthings with a small posse of angry ensigns in tow, apparently. Woe betide any unfortunate deck crew or nameless peons who might happen to cross their paths in the corridor or on the ladder. Surely, there will be blood… and, very possibly milkshake-drinking with a very long straw…

Micah has been itching for a fight for a while, it's plain to see in the way he carries himself: like the carrion bird he's so aptly named after. Skulking, glitter-eyed, waiting for that whiff of fresh meat to savage. It didn't particularly matter if it was Eleftherios, or Jocasta, or the Admiral of the fleet; so long as it fought back. The pilot's frustration certainly seems to please Micah, though his withdrawal doesn't. There's a flaring of his nostrils as the rook mentions leaving, and the viper jock starts digging around for another cigarette, barely glancing over when he hears Novella's voice joining the mix and Jocasta's, leaving it.

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