Time to Fly

Posted on Thu Feb 22nd, 2018 @ 8:51pm by General Janice Fultian-Bremer & Major Edward Maxwell & Cadet Senior Grade Marcus Mattson & 1st Lieutenant Jericho Alexander

1,261 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Episode 95 - Helping Old Friends
Location: Starbase 400, CiC
Timeline: MD4 2205hrs

ON:

It was late, but Janice still had work to do. She wanted to keep busy, her husband off to the Delta Quadrant, her brother in law off investigating the apparent losses of the Vanguard and Kearsarge, and the Federation Alliance's joint fleet training exercises still on going. There was a lot to do, and with both Commander Draven and Lieutenant Commander Rann off the station, all Intel duties fell on her, marine or not.

A Lieutenant walked up and handed her a PADD. Janice looked over it, then tapped her comm-badge. "Major Maxwell, First Lieutenant Elrod, Cadet Mattson please report to the CiC, Tactical Operations."

It had been roughly an hour since CSG Marcus Mattson had arrived at the station. The trek from Sol had been long and boring. Being ferried by one of the scheduled supply runs from Earth had left him with practically nothing to do. He was still ‘in school’ as it were so his duties as a pilot and marine didn’t get utilized to the extent as if he was commissioned. Not to mention the ship he was on was an Nebula-class so it wasn’t exactly a need for either. So he was more or less attached to the ship security force.

Marcus was pretty excited about being stationed on a major outpost such as Starbase 400, he had read up on the available history of the station and it was colorful to say the least. So he hoped he would get some action while spending the last months of his education before graduation there.

Now he had been assigned a living space that he was sharing with another cadet, an engineer that he had never met before. He wasn’t much of a talker, much like Marcus and both were unpacking their stuff. Marcus didn’t have to much with him, just an acoustic guitar, a rather solid box, several sets of clothing. But the other young man had; what looked like to Marcus. Brought with him a forest worth of posters and printed texts of various papers. The posters were mostly of famous starships, even one of Zefram Cochrane.

The announcement of Marcus being summoned to the CiC slightly startled the pilot as he wasn’t expecting it. But a summon is a summon, so he quickly changed into his cadet uniform. Triple checked to see if it were spotless, after a few adjustments he was happy with it and headed for the nearest turbo-lift with his orders on a PADD. “CiC, Tactical Operations.” Mattson said calmly before the lift took off to the destination.

Maxwell's Quarters:

"Damnit." Ed observed with a sigh and an apologetic glance to the vidscreen on his personal terminal in his quarters. "Gotta run Pop. Looks like the day isn't over yet. Ry ought to be there in a few days, maybe a week tops."

"You can't raise a kid through a vidscreen Edward..."

Ed raised a hand to cut his father off before he could really get going. "I know Pop, I know. If I thought there was gonna be this much action out here I wouldn't have sent for him to begin with. Maybe once I find myself a woman who doesn't mind a premade family we can get him back out here. But I gotta go. I'll call tomorrow." He said as he pressed the button to end the call.

He risked a glance at himself and decided not to waste time changing. Technically he was damn well off duty. If they didn't like him in sweatpants, sleeveless shirt and sneakers, they shouldn't call him when he was ready for bed! He grabbed his commbadge off the desk and stuffed it into his pocket.

"Jericho, meet me in CIC Tac Ops. Someone's calling me in off personal time, so let's save extra briefing time if shits about to hit the fan." Ed ordered pressing the comm button on the desk and summoning his acting XO.

If someone was summoning a bunch of Marines to the CIC in the middle of the night shift, when most were off duty, something was in the works. Maybe an alert had come in of possible hostilities, another invasion, another missing ship. Things just didn't calm down for long on 400! He released the button and headed out of his quarters, jogging to the nearest turbolift.

Jericho shook his head but was elated for some action. He hopped on the turbolift and made his way to CICTO. "1LT Alexander, reporting as ordered, Major" he said with a crisp salute.

"Knock it off Jericho, do I look like I'm in uniform here?" Ed snorted and shook his head. "Let's go find out what the hell all the excitements about this time. CIC." He ordered as the doors slid shut behind him.


Combat Information Center

Ed stepped off the lift, ignoring the looks he got from all the on duty personnel. They were on duty, so uniforms were mandatory. He was off duty and would damn well report in what he was wearing. If things were about to get exciting, a flight suit covered it all anyway!

Janice looked around, "Seem to be one short." She didn't see First Lieutenant Elrod, perhaps he'd been called away or was still trying to get settled, she didn't know.

Janice handed a PADD to Maxwell. "All replacement fighters are aboard the station, as well as some replacements for our capital ships. We also had all supplies inventoried. If needed, the station's shipyard can manufacturer new fighters as well now, conversions to two of the four shuttle construction units have been completed." Janice then handled Maxwell another PADD. "You also have several replacement pilots, a new Wing XO, and a Cadet doing his Midshipmen cruise here. This is Cadet Mattson." Janice motioned to the young Cadet.

Marcus had stepped out of the lift, of the lift and quite happy to see many of the senior staff where in fact very senior. In fact many of them where flag officers of significant rank. This told him that either they only had the best of the best here or the family of officers and crew where quite extensive in years together. This made the young cadet happy to be there.

What he didn’t expect was that he had been summoned together with several members of his peers and seniority, but A LOT in fact. He not even out of the academy and bootcamp. Why he would be here with them was beyond him unless he had something he had to answer for and ever since the crash years ago, he hadn’t crashed anything since. But he had butted heads with many of the instructors, telling him was to much of a maverick. The young man felt his heart sink slightly, thinking his chances were already ruined.

Then he was addressed, not directly but introduced. From the words spoken this was his direct CO and with the traditional way of greeting. He gave off his sharpest salute to the man. “Cadet Fourth Grade Marcus Mattson, reporting as ordered sir.” his words nearly drowned out the hubbub of the normal operations of CiC.

Ed nodded an acknowledgement to the cadet, but kept his attention on the General. "Sounds like we're as close to being back up to a hundred percent as we're going to get General." He glanced at Jericho with a nod. "Okay Marines, we've got work to do. Lets head down to Fighter Ops and get to it so we can get some sleep."


tbc...

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