Ulfbhert Hangar Bay, 0424 Hours, On a Tuesday
The spacious hangar bays of an Orca-class carrier are a boon to both pilots and marine training exercises. Pilots enjoy the extra space afforded by a carrier with volumetric fields between their workspace and the void. They can freely move about the hangar in their craft, or open the thing up like a can of sardines and point at things while looking at mechanics with knowing glares. Marines enjoy these hangars for their wide open spaces. Any carrier that's under-compliment (and every carrier is under-compliment) will boast enormous spaces, like small cubic warehouses of distance which serve as great venues for hand-to-hand combat training, zero-G combat training, power armor familiarization, secret midnight sexual rendevous, and at times an event which could be considered a mixture of all of those things.
On this particular morning, one of these abandoned corners served as the meeting place for the small unit that (as rumors aboard spacefaring warships are the only thing which travel faster than spacefaring warships) had over the course of the last few hours began to be known as 'The Wire Humpers'. The credit went to one Corporal Davenport, who upon noticing Commandant Black's children said to her loose-lipped friend Private Bakersly, "There go the Wire Humpers."
Private Bakersly found this absolutely hilarious. He told his buddies at the card table twenty minutes later, one of whom told a disappointed woman the joke after disappointing her for about five minutes in Utilities C-- the same disappointed woman who told the Communications Officer she was relieving on the bridge-- the tired Comms man later mentioning it over a midnight breakfast with the ship's XO. The ship's XO related it to the laundry technicians who were watching Antisepticizer Beep basically do all of their work for them with awe. It went around and around, a sturdy piece of information which changed little over the course of the night. At some point, the story got back to Corporal Davenport, who was outraged that Chief Langham had gotten credit for her joke and demanded that someone make it known she said it first. Eventually, the night crew had come to the consensus that it was indeed Corporal Davenport who'd made the original joking reference; and that this would be the story as it was presented to the day crew in a couple of hours.
Near Harmonious Solarsailor's berth was the corner of the hangar in question. There was even more empty space in the section of the hangar where the Freespacer gunship was settled. The patrol pilots who'd gone out to fly around between the various ships of the massive gathered fleet gave the Phantasm II more space than it probably needed. But there was something frightful about the odd gunship, and it was abuzz with Junkers and a few odd mechanics as the finishing touches were put on something. Added to the bottom of the mighty 'Spacer gunship was a compartment, a lump of curving metal which made it look like Harmonious Solarsailor had perhaps devoured one of the fighters and now had it digesting deep in its comically distended gut.
And arranged just a few meters over from where the Junkers were skittering left and right with metal plating in claw was an airbike. Just a normal airbike, like a teenager might buy to tromp around the neighbourhood or like a group of middle-aged fat men might all be riding on with the whining repulsors tuned for maximum volume as the rode caravan style across the highway and annoyed anyone they passed. It was an older model, long and flat olive in color with thick steel plates over the repulsors and a plow-like swoop of metal resting ominously at one point. Pre-Succession machinery. Some of the parts still had Yamataian registration stamps fading away from them. There were also some old Blue Faction bumper-stickers slapped on the fuselage, from back in the day when color-coded armies fought for control of the Nepleslian homeworld. Beneath this retro monstrosity was the Commandant himself, the clean and wide-collared officer uniform missing in favor of a pair of standard-issue Marine cargo pants and the tank top from the PT uniform; these both now peppered with occasional black fingerprints and grease smudges. Only the tip of his braided beard issued forth from beneath the airbike to serve as an identifier of the man. The one part of the officer uniform which was present on this occasion was the peaked cap, still planted atop the head of the small girl which sat atop the back of the airbike, tiny legs dangling over a saddle bag and kicking the air. Cloudheart sat there with another paper book propped on her knee, this one titled 'Winning: The Science, The Art, The Act Of'. With her free hand, she stroked her miniature Junker idly as it watched its larger brothers dashing back and forth to work on the nearby gunship.
A chime echoed from Killroyal's communicator and the Commandant slid out from beneath his station to sit up and withdraw the device from his pocket. It was 0425, five minutes before he'd ordered everyone to muster in the hangar. He wiped a layer of sweat and grease from his forehead with the back of his hand and silenced the alarm, then regarded Cloudheart for the first time since she'd silently arrived a few minutes before.
"What are you reading, little girl?" He asked her with a furrowed brow.
"It's a 'self-help' book, which is really not accurate." She explained, not looking up from the ancient tome. "Then again... It's helping me learn what sort of things a Nepleslian might feel insecure about, so maybe it's a 'meta-self-help' book?"
Killroyal nodded with a grunt and stuck his hand into a rucksack he'd leaned up against the bike, fishing for a moment as he told her, "Your book is shit. That book is shit. Every self-help book is shit. You know what really helps people?"
"Tell me what really helps people." She answered, still eyeing her book but with a sort of excitement building in her voice-- her perhaps about to gain insight on the inner-workings of the self-appointed father-figure.
"Books that don't tell you what to fuckin' do, books that just tell you interesting stuff you can think about on your own time. Books like this one." The Commandant withdrew a thin, hardback volume and pressed it against Cloudheart's leg from below. "Got it when I was a kid, thought it would teach me how to fix my airbike. Instead..." Killroyal's eyes widened and his expression intensified, if that was even possible, "It taught me how to live."
And so, Cloudheart dog-eared the page she was on and closed her book, reaching down to retrieve this yellowed codex which was so sacred to Commandant Black. She looked upon it curiously. Inner Peace and The Art of Airbike Maintenance. She looked back at the Commandant timidly, an expression of awe-- for few other than her kept paper books.
The spacious hangar bays of an Orca-class carrier are a boon to both pilots and marine training exercises. Pilots enjoy the extra space afforded by a carrier with volumetric fields between their workspace and the void. They can freely move about the hangar in their craft, or open the thing up like a can of sardines and point at things while looking at mechanics with knowing glares. Marines enjoy these hangars for their wide open spaces. Any carrier that's under-compliment (and every carrier is under-compliment) will boast enormous spaces, like small cubic warehouses of distance which serve as great venues for hand-to-hand combat training, zero-G combat training, power armor familiarization, secret midnight sexual rendevous, and at times an event which could be considered a mixture of all of those things.
On this particular morning, one of these abandoned corners served as the meeting place for the small unit that (as rumors aboard spacefaring warships are the only thing which travel faster than spacefaring warships) had over the course of the last few hours began to be known as 'The Wire Humpers'. The credit went to one Corporal Davenport, who upon noticing Commandant Black's children said to her loose-lipped friend Private Bakersly, "There go the Wire Humpers."
Private Bakersly found this absolutely hilarious. He told his buddies at the card table twenty minutes later, one of whom told a disappointed woman the joke after disappointing her for about five minutes in Utilities C-- the same disappointed woman who told the Communications Officer she was relieving on the bridge-- the tired Comms man later mentioning it over a midnight breakfast with the ship's XO. The ship's XO related it to the laundry technicians who were watching Antisepticizer Beep basically do all of their work for them with awe. It went around and around, a sturdy piece of information which changed little over the course of the night. At some point, the story got back to Corporal Davenport, who was outraged that Chief Langham had gotten credit for her joke and demanded that someone make it known she said it first. Eventually, the night crew had come to the consensus that it was indeed Corporal Davenport who'd made the original joking reference; and that this would be the story as it was presented to the day crew in a couple of hours.
Near Harmonious Solarsailor's berth was the corner of the hangar in question. There was even more empty space in the section of the hangar where the Freespacer gunship was settled. The patrol pilots who'd gone out to fly around between the various ships of the massive gathered fleet gave the Phantasm II more space than it probably needed. But there was something frightful about the odd gunship, and it was abuzz with Junkers and a few odd mechanics as the finishing touches were put on something. Added to the bottom of the mighty 'Spacer gunship was a compartment, a lump of curving metal which made it look like Harmonious Solarsailor had perhaps devoured one of the fighters and now had it digesting deep in its comically distended gut.
And arranged just a few meters over from where the Junkers were skittering left and right with metal plating in claw was an airbike. Just a normal airbike, like a teenager might buy to tromp around the neighbourhood or like a group of middle-aged fat men might all be riding on with the whining repulsors tuned for maximum volume as the rode caravan style across the highway and annoyed anyone they passed. It was an older model, long and flat olive in color with thick steel plates over the repulsors and a plow-like swoop of metal resting ominously at one point. Pre-Succession machinery. Some of the parts still had Yamataian registration stamps fading away from them. There were also some old Blue Faction bumper-stickers slapped on the fuselage, from back in the day when color-coded armies fought for control of the Nepleslian homeworld. Beneath this retro monstrosity was the Commandant himself, the clean and wide-collared officer uniform missing in favor of a pair of standard-issue Marine cargo pants and the tank top from the PT uniform; these both now peppered with occasional black fingerprints and grease smudges. Only the tip of his braided beard issued forth from beneath the airbike to serve as an identifier of the man. The one part of the officer uniform which was present on this occasion was the peaked cap, still planted atop the head of the small girl which sat atop the back of the airbike, tiny legs dangling over a saddle bag and kicking the air. Cloudheart sat there with another paper book propped on her knee, this one titled 'Winning: The Science, The Art, The Act Of'. With her free hand, she stroked her miniature Junker idly as it watched its larger brothers dashing back and forth to work on the nearby gunship.
A chime echoed from Killroyal's communicator and the Commandant slid out from beneath his station to sit up and withdraw the device from his pocket. It was 0425, five minutes before he'd ordered everyone to muster in the hangar. He wiped a layer of sweat and grease from his forehead with the back of his hand and silenced the alarm, then regarded Cloudheart for the first time since she'd silently arrived a few minutes before.
"What are you reading, little girl?" He asked her with a furrowed brow.
"It's a 'self-help' book, which is really not accurate." She explained, not looking up from the ancient tome. "Then again... It's helping me learn what sort of things a Nepleslian might feel insecure about, so maybe it's a 'meta-self-help' book?"
Killroyal nodded with a grunt and stuck his hand into a rucksack he'd leaned up against the bike, fishing for a moment as he told her, "Your book is shit. That book is shit. Every self-help book is shit. You know what really helps people?"
"Tell me what really helps people." She answered, still eyeing her book but with a sort of excitement building in her voice-- her perhaps about to gain insight on the inner-workings of the self-appointed father-figure.
"Books that don't tell you what to fuckin' do, books that just tell you interesting stuff you can think about on your own time. Books like this one." The Commandant withdrew a thin, hardback volume and pressed it against Cloudheart's leg from below. "Got it when I was a kid, thought it would teach me how to fix my airbike. Instead..." Killroyal's eyes widened and his expression intensified, if that was even possible, "It taught me how to live."
And so, Cloudheart dog-eared the page she was on and closed her book, reaching down to retrieve this yellowed codex which was so sacred to Commandant Black. She looked upon it curiously. Inner Peace and The Art of Airbike Maintenance. She looked back at the Commandant timidly, an expression of awe-- for few other than her kept paper books.