| Never Volunteer |
| Summary: | Garrett goes to visit Idris a couple of days after the wing has their first engagement against the Skath. |
| Date: | 10/04/2017 (OOC Date) |
| Related Logs: | Return of the Erfiki |
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| Flight Simulators - Deck 2 - Battlestar Orion |
| The Air Wing has access to flight simulators to train pilots off the ground in combat maneuvers and situations that are hard to replicate with regular dogfight practicing and this is their home. A very large rectangular room, the hatch opens up beside the bank of computers that control the simulations and what is seen by the individuals when training sessions are in progress. The sims are actual cockpits cut out of old frames and installed here to function exactly as the real thing, right down to oxygen plugs for suits. The screens of the old days are still there but rarely used, and in each helmet the crews see a projected hyper-realistic depiction of the combat environment and what their cockpits look like with any incurred damage. There are two Vipers, two Predators, and two full-cabin Raptors available. |
| MD #2 - 26 Oct 2028 |
Things have certainly kicked off with a bang. Hardly everyone had assembled on the Orion than Airwing immediately had a mission. No time for sims, no chance really to get to know his squadron and work with them. But it went off well with no serious losses. A good omen one might say, to start off a new kind of war. An offensive one against a new enemy.
Captain Bloodfeather got himself through what might have been a nasty landing with a badly damaged viper. He came out of it unscathed aside from a few bruises. Just now he's in the Flight Simulator chamber, sitting up at the control consule. He is dressed in his duty blues with senior flight qualification wings afixed to his left breast. Crisp, always turned out sharply. His long fingers tippity-tap on the keyboard as he works on programming a simulation. Idris' dataslate lies beside the keyboard and he glances at his notes occasionally. The coffee pot is dead and cold, ignored.
After the bombing last night and the touch by one of the 'ghosts', Garrett was more than a little spooked, but shook it off pretty quick. After spending the day handling a few things and an alert five, he arrives in the Ready Room after asking around for the Squadron Lead. "Captain Bloodfeather?" he asks, his flight suit's arms tieed about his waist to expose the double tanks. "Do you have a few minutes?"
Idris looks up when someone enters through the hatch and his fingers still. "Yes, Lieutenant." He smoothly indicates a chair Garrett may draw up but he does not rise from the computer terminal. Bloodfeather's accent is mildly of Canceron even though that world was lost when he would have been a youth. He picks up a cup and sips warm tea, leaving a faint hint of spice to linger in the air. There is a pot on a tray but no other cup. Dark eyes study Garrett as he waits to see what is wanted of him.
"Thank you sir." Garrett offers easily as he moves to set down his flight log. "First.. I want to apologize. I know I broke formation the other night, and lost coordination with you during the air battle - which may have led to your fighter being damaged." he admits as he looks down at his hands and steadies his breath and looks back up. "I got overly-excited and went to assist instead of following you to where you were going."
"That is true." Idris is cool, without any hint of emotion, "But you were still following orders to protect the Raptors. I was fine up to the last when we had to depart. What else, Lieutenant Fawkes?" He sits with his back erect and holds his cup of tea as he studies his fellow pilot, keeping his tenor low.
Garrett was half expecting to get chewed out about that, so there's a bit of an uncomfortable silence as the pilot takes a moment to bring himself around to calm down. "There was something else, sir." He looks haunted for a moment, and then he shakes that off as well. "I have a qualification with as a Survival Officer, and I wanted to start to work on a second one - I have given it some thought, and I wanted to put in to start on the Dogfight qualification. Maybe if I had known more of the tactics instead of just firing missiles and waiting - I would have done better the other night, sir."
"Thank you sir, I just want to be a better pilot and help protect the ship and crew and my wingman, sir." Garrett offers as he moves to pick up his data log again, and then he considers for a moment. "Do you believe the stories about this ship?" he asks, suddenly off-topic. "Or about Piraeus.. that it was … haunted?" comes the curious question.
Idris makes a notation on Garrett's file as to the current qualification he'll be pursuing in the coming weeks. "Which stories precisely? I am as newly transferred to the Orion as yourself, Lieutenant." His words are spoken crisply as he dresses, aristocratic for all that Canceron was a fairly poor arid world. "I know nothing of Piraeus except what is in the files, Fawkes." His dark eyes rise back to Garrett, "I haven't been there."
"Oh. It's nothing. Maybe I was just distracted last night in the attack." Garrett admits before he nods his head. "Thank you for your time - with your permission, since we're over a ship graveyard, may I take some time to use the Viper for some in-fleet manuveurs, moving between ships and the like as a possible in-close battle scenario?"
"Stay strictly to flight plans on CAP. People are jumpy. Wait until things are less … tense. There will ample opportunity to get in practice in sims with your squadron. Meanwhile, review the attack footage, Fawkes. You seem to be a self starter. Make a list of everything you can think of that we might have done better, both the Lucky Strikes but also the Gentleman Ghosts on their part of the mission run. I will schedule a mission debrief and we'll discuss it as a group." Idris makes another small note, then picks up his tea, "If there is nothing else now, you are dismissed."
What's the old adage? 'Never volunteer?' Seems that Garrett for a moment has forgotten that, and he gets sucked into the debrief. "Of course, sir, I'll get started on the gun camera footage tonight." he says as he moves to attention and snaps a salute to the Captain. "Thank you, sir." he says, as he turns to head out.
Saluting is rarely done on board since it's considered indoors, but as Fawkes was given orders, Idris moves to stand and properly acknowledge the salute with one returned. Soon as the other moves to depart, Bloodfeather sits back down and gets back to work on his simulation programming. Fun, fun.