AWD #370: A Quartet for Mid-rats
A Quartet for Mid-rats
Summary: While waiting for word from the mission the air wing is on, a pair of doctors, a marine and then a LTJG meet for mid-rats and conversation.
Date: 26/June/2016 (OOC Date)
Related Logs: http://battlestarorion.wikidot.com/airwing-crossroads
Ariadne Kelsey Samtara Stone 
Mess Hall - Deck 3 - Battlestar Orion
The Crew Mess on the battlestar is one of the larger rooms meant for occupation. The room is far longer than it is wide with the classic stainless steel tables that can be seen anywhere else on the ship, standard to all navy ships. Most of the chairs match, their padding on the seats worn down after several years. Towards the rear of the room is the food prep area and serving lines. During the time in between meals the Mess will serve midrats, or 'mid-shift rations', such as sandwiches and drinks. Coffee pots are left to run at all hours to keep people going as needed.
Wed Jan 11 2006

With the bulk of the air wing away on mission, there's something to be said about the feeling of anticipation that is in the air for those who remain on ship waiting for word. The mess hall is not crowded at this hour, mid-rats being the option at this point, and Sam puts half of a wrapped sandwich, a piece of fruit and a plate with some slices of cheese on it before snagging coffee and aiming for an empty table.

It's a pace that Ariadne is completely unfamiliar with. She's used to the patients flooding in from all corners of what's left of the civilian population that's in touch with the fleet. There were no quiet moments, maybe, some. Without the rush, it's left her nearly trudging for the coffee pots, her hands tucked into her lab coat. Ah, black with a scoop of sweetener. The spoon tinks against the ceramic and, as she turns to scan the room, she brings it up to her lips to blow a little steam off the top.

Setting the tray on the end of the empty table, Sam takes out the packet of alcohol wipes that she carries in one pocket and sets to wiping down the table, her every movement calm, neat, efficient. No one pays much attention to her doing so, this no longer being an unusual sight, after all. Once the table is clean, including the edges, she sets each plate in place on the table, lifts the tray and cleans beneath it as well and sets the empty tray on an empty chair, obviously to avoid contaminating the surface area again. This done, everything squared away, she takes the seat next to the tray and spots Ariadne, lifting one hand to wave.

Stone is coming in the mess hall as well. Having gotten food but having finished a some water he is getting some more, as well as some juice. Glancing around before spotting a familiar face in Sam. Starting in her direction. Spotting Ariadne on his way, thus greeting her first. "Hello." He greets in passing before moving towards Sam, "Might some company?"

With so few people around, it's hard not to witness the whole ritual in its entirety. Ariadne simply continues to blow, serene as ever. She grins and waves back, then she puts up one finger. When Stone says hello to her, she nods and smiles, "Hello." Then she grabs a tray and loads it up with some fruit and a sandwich.

Reaching for the cup of coffee that she'd set alongside the plate of fruit, Sam smiles as she nods toward one of the empty seats, "Not at all, have a seat," she offers. a careful, somewhat wary, taste is taken from the cup followed by a slight grimace before she takes another sip then sets the cup aside to unwrap the sandwich. This, too, is given a slightly suspicious look before she settles back and takes a bite from the sandwich anyway, glancing up as Ariadne makes her way down the line as well to grab some food.

One of the people entering the Mess is LTJG Wescott. She's in her flightsuit, mostly. It's wrapped and tied at her hips, tanks and hair drenched in sweat. Despite it, she looks reasonably calm. Tough to gauge what she's been doing. But she spots a table with her counselor and waggles fingers while passing. But, a lady on a mission she is and she grabs up a mug of coffee and a cold ham n cheese sandwich. Yep, she's heading back their direction.

Ariadne reaches up to tuck a whisp of hair behind her ear as she approaches the table Sam and Stone are at. "Hi." She sets her tray down and pulls one of the chairs across from Sam out. "This is /killing/ me. How do you keep your mind from exploding?" She plops down in the chair with a grin and she holds her breath, comically gritting her teeth as she cranes her hand at a tilt over her prey. Her hand swoops down upon the sandwich, which she forgets was pre-cut, but not fully. She ends up looking down at a triangle of sandwich dangling from a sandwich triangle.

Stone does move to sit down. Raising a brow at Ariadne's words. "What do you mean?" He asks her. Turning his attention to his food. Glancing to see Kelsey as well as she comes along. "Airwing back?" He asks curiously to those at his table.

"Paperwork," is Sam's prompt answer. "There is never, ever, an end to paperwork. It breeds, you know, in captivity. And just when it appears that all files have been brought up to date and everything is squared away, there's another new batch ready to go. It's busy work, but necessary busy work," she explains before exhaling a breath of laughter at the dangling sandwich triangles. "I think the patient is still awaiting dissection, Ari," she notes before she follows Stone's glance and spots Kelsey, "Waiting while the air wing is out on mission and not going crazy while waiting, which is both a skill and a fine art," she adds as she nods a greeting to the approaching LTJG. "Care to join us?" offered with a gesture toward another of the seats.

Kelsey upnods to Samtara and takes a seat. "Hey, thanks, Doctor." She flops down into it, a few feet further down. Probably to protect from the sweaty odor that might otherwise waft closer. Sweat. Dead bacteria. Sam will likely be pleased. Kelsey sips at the coffee and takes a big bite of the sandwich before resting her arms on the table. Then a sniff. Frown. Alcohol? Hm. She shrugs it off and goes back to eating. "Everybody made it back without injury. Just letting you know, sir."

"Apparently paperwork is an art, who knew," Ariadne shoots Stone a look and a faint smirk. "Well I like the real copies. The digital stuff felt immaterial, and you had to login every time you sat down. It was so annoying." Her other hand darts out to snap the dangler off while she purses her lips, which quickly morph into a smile. When Kelsey speaks, she looks over lets out a shallow sigh of relief.

The news that Kelsey brings with her draws a sigh of relief from Sam, "Excellent news. Thank you. Was the mission successful, the labor camp safe?" she wonders while equally appreciating that Kelsey selected a chair with a bit of distance to avoid Sam offering her an alcohol wet wipe. She turns a wry smile at Ari, "I miss not having access to immediate digital records of scans. Waiting for scan images to be printed to film and delivered is inefficient and delays the pace of care. That said, it's more secure, to a certain extent, save for the actual handling of the films between the imaging, the printing, filing, delivery, and viewing then back around again. But. Necessary."

Stone nods to Kelsey, "Sir." He greets her before grinning at the talk of paperwork. "So it seems." He agrees with Ariadne. Being silent as he eats for now. Eyes jumping between the three women.

Kelsey shakes her head. "No. We bombed the hell out of their airbase, but the SAMs were thick and then Raiders piled in. We killed the SAMs, but the Raiders made us break off the rest of the strike. They nearly bagged me and Rainbow. I was running from one and the punk shot me." Another bite of the sandwich washed down. "Blew holes right through the Predator. Nearly crashed. Had no controls for like fifteen seconds. Had to nurse it home." she shakes her head and eats another bite of the sandwich. But there's a shake of her head at the idea of paperwork. "I never minded homework in high school. But this stuff the fleet needs gives me a headache."

"I'm with you. Every time one of you comes in with the flu, it's a small mountain to crawl out of," Dr. Forrester says with a nod to Kelsey. Ariadne starts to treat her sandwich with much more normalcy, placing the dangled one on the plate and peeling back the paper on one of the exposed corners of the sandwich she held onto. "Call me a bit of a romantic. I really love the way the lightboxes flare up a good x-ray. Though I did once get to use one of the surgerical extension robotics? You know, you control it but it's just this extremely precise setup." She breathes in and grins. "It was amazing. You can dial down the sensitivity to move at the smallest layer of tissue. Quite incredible." Yes. That's mooning over medtech right there.

"Does that mean that the camp was successfully liberated and the survivors relocated by Spree's forces on the ground?" Sam asks, frowning as she studies Kelsey and wonders, "You said no fatalities. No casualties of any kind or just mechanical ones?" peppering the LTJG with questions before Ariadne's words make her chuckle. "Research libraries," she admits. "Being able to call any research facility on planet and get an immediate or relatively immediate answer to any question, networking with colleagues around the globe and, equally, on the other colonies. Surgical seminars, advanced skill labs," she sighs, "and my own surgical theatre set up just exactly to order," making that last bit sound about the same way many women might lust after and appreciate a particularly sparkly diamond.

After finishing his food, Stone looks between them, about to say more but is stopped as some marines come looking. Nodding to them and looking back to the others. "Sorry. See you all around." He says with a small bow of his head. Then he's off.

"So what I'm hearing from you, Doctor, is that in order to save you the headache of paperwork, we shouldn't come in for anything minor. Ever. Just wait til something is seeping. am I right?" Kelsey grins mischeiviously at Ariadne. Yep. Trolls gotta troll. She eats another bite of the sandwich and shakes her head to Samtara. "We're going to have to go back in the next few days and hit it again. We'll probably have to land Marines to free the camp. They're all still there for now. The only injuries, though, are to the aircraft. Just about everyone took a minor SAM hit." Speaking of pretty things, "When a SAM lights off at night, it' actually very pretty. The way AAA looks, too. The way it sprays into the air. Precise ballistic arcs… Doctor nadir, you fix us all the time. The bases, from what I heard, used to all have flying flight surgeons. You should fly a combat op with us some day. Sit in the backseat. It will help you understand the stresses on the body." She tilts the mug of coffee to Ariadne. "And on the mind." The suggestion makes her grin over at Stone.

"Nope. I cannot hear you." Ariadne hunches over a little to bring her palms together under her chin, the frame of her face leading her forefingers to her temples. "Romance isn't dead." Finally she gives up, her head tilting to the side as she stares Sam down for a moment in look of squinty mock villainry. Then she takes a bite out of her sandwich. She washes it down with some nearly luke-warming coffee as she listens to Kelsey rib her. Eyelids flutter with little concern. She waits. "Not at all. I think it's more like I should just image copy pre-filled out charts, or burn it all," she says nearly deadpan, but her eyebrows betray her first, followed by a faint grin. It rolls into something more considerate as her brow gently slopes. She nods at the suggestion. "I think she may be onto something Doctor."

Sam laughs. And not a quiet laugh. More of a rather unexpectedly loud burst of sound. "Clearly, you have lost you mind. Both of you," she includes Ari in this assessment. "No," said with as much emphatic negation is required to make this single word as clear as possible. "I get air sick," she adds as she gives a visible shudder. "Do you have any idea how unsanitary it is to actually vomit on a patient that you're supposed to be treating? And mortifying, which - while not a fatal condition - is equally lasting of a memory to linger. No," there's that word again. "I'll go in the field with marine units if they have need of me, that's fine. I can usually keep from throwing up in transit. But I swear every damned time I'm in a Raptor, even when it's not being shot at, there's some genius at the helm who wants to prove that Raptor's can do barrel rolls and still land in one piece. More or less."

Kelsey just gives an oh-so-sweet look to Ariadne and runs a hand through her hair, keeping the length from dropping in front of her face while she snickers a little. But the agreement has her sit bck suddenly in the chair and take another big bite of the sandwich. She's almost done with it. She just looks back at Sam and siiiiiiighs when the Doctor finishes her reasoning. "It's fine. You're wearing a sealed flight helmet. You just puke all over yourself. And if you do, you can't see anything through your puke anyway. Land, get cleaned up, you're fine. It's not terrible. I still say you should do it. The way your spine compresses during a 9-G maneuver is rather terrifying. But you usually come out the same height you went in." Another sip of the mug and she looks at Ariadne. "You should ask the CAG about going. What's the worse that could happen?" You could get shot down and end up with anxiety and a little PTSD and need to see a shrink about it because of your nightmares. It's nothin.

"I was just thinking about how it'd be like one big terrifying amusement ride, with guns." Ariadne chuckles at Kelsey's description. "I think this one would barely get through CAP." She glances over at Sam with a smile and then back to Kelsey. "I think it would be a good experience. Though I'll probably vomit, I'm sure it's not nearly a fraction of what you guys experience."

Sam shudders, visibly shudders, at the perfectly graphic description that Kelsey gives of vomiting into the flight helmet. She goes a lovely shade of green at this and rather calmly rises, if somewhat abruptly, from the table. "I'm going.. to.. go . . clean.. something.." is all she manages as she scoops her empty plate onto the tray. She sets her dishes with the others, the tray with the stack, and is pulling the packet of alcohol wipes out of her pocket and cleaning her hands as she exits the mess hall.

Kelsey gives a thumbs up to Ariadne. "You should do it. Once in a lifetime. I get into flying because a pilot took me up once. Granted there was nobody shooting at us, but still." She then looks back to Sam and tries to contain a laugh as Samtara rises. "Sorry, Doctor." One the doc is off, though, Kelsey busts into a laugh and slowly rises, taking the remnants of her sandwich and coffee with her. "Thanks, Doctor. Sleep well when you get there."

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License