AWD #032: Plenty of Ideas
Plenty of Ideas
Summary: The D-CAG is intrigued by one of Phin's, much to the ensign's surprise.
Date: 08/02/2013 (OOC Date)
Related Logs: View From the Ground
Phin Zachary 
CAG's Office — Deck 2 — Battlestar Orion
Office-y
Fri Feb 08

It's not every day that Zachary summons someone to his office, so when Phin was sent the summons, it might be a surprise. The CAG is waiting in his office as he looks over some notes he has in front of him.

Surprise or not, Phin arrives pretty promptly. Whatever time it might've taken him to get here might've been partially spent spiffing up his uniform. His blues are free of notable wrinkles as he enters. He instantly straightens up and offering Zachary one of those crisp-cornered salutes that he probably committed to muscle memory in flight training. "Ensign McBride, sir." He'll stay standing like that until he's given an 'as you were.'

"At ease, Ensign." Zachary says and gestures to a seat. "Pull up at a chair, Dolly, I think we have a long night ahead of us. Have you had chow yet?" he asks as he settles down, and considers, turning to pick up the phone. "Mess, Sheperd. Heat up and bring up my chow." Shortly thereafter arrives a rarity - a pizzza. Made with goat's milk cheese, tomato sauce, fresh spinach and chicken. "So, you and Sergeant Knox had a bounce session, and I was told you had some damned good ideas. Mind sharing?"

"Thanks, sir," Phin says when he's eased, sitting. Not that he looks that much more relaxed. He's presently practicing his best posture. The question about chow makes his brows go up. "Umm…not yet, sir. I'm not particularly hungry. Coffee would be good, though. Thank you." That's tacked on before Zachary's finished with his comm message. There's a look of…not puzzlement, exactly, but definite kind of wary thoughtfulness about him. It eases, a little, when Sergeant Knox is mentioned. He nods. "Oh. Yes, sir. I haven't had a chance to speak with the other members of the drop team yet, but I dropped off some notes off what we'd talked about. Glad you got them. I meant to get you a proper report, but I wasn't sure when would be the best time to present it, with you in Recovery and everything."

"Help yourself." Zachary says to Phin and gestures to the pizza as he cuts it and takes a slice for himself as he settles in his chair and takes out a couple of bottles. Virgon stout. He sets them aside for now. "For after we're done planning." Pizza and beer? Dear gods, Zachary may actually be human after all?

"Well, I see plenty of ideas here, but what brought you around to crossing the line?" he finally asks, glancing up to the young Ensign. "That was a brilliant stroke of genius, for the record."

Pizza and beer? If anything, this makes Phin look warier. "Umm…thank you, sir." Not that he takes up the offer for the food just yet. Let alone the booze. He folds his hands in his lap, like he's trying to get his brain in order. Zachary's opener to that surprises him. He smiles slightly, in a half-abashed sort of way. "I wouldn't say that, sir. Sergeant Knox and I got a little off point when we were talking, actually, though I think we went over most of the important points of what they saw on the ground. I saw he got you those diagrams he'd worked up." Anyhow.

"It just seemed logical. I mean, I'd never thought about it before, but when you think about it…y'know? We were talking about how the Cylons might be resupplying. Rebuilding to replace whatever Raiders and Centurion we were taking out. About how they might be making use of Colonial industrial spots, like Scorpia and all the scrap that's left of the shipyards. But, I mean. It's like Captain Holtz is always saying. They've obviously re-engineered themselves over the last forty years. Gotten better. Made new model Raiders. These aren't totally different than the Cylons they've still got in museums from the first war, but they aren't quite the same. And from there…they must've made them somewhere, right? And the only place they could've is over the Armistice Line."

"I agree." Zachary says. Phin may be more nervous than a cat in a room full of pit bulls, but he's enjoying his food, and he gives a nod. "This is what I want you to do, Ensign. This is your pony, I want to see how you dress her up. There should be pre-first war maps in the library. Want you to go through them, get with CIC if you need my blessing, you'll have it. Find us a good place to jump, and I'll secure us the cruisers and wing so we can take the fight back to them." he says to the young man.

Phin blinks. Twice. That he wasn't expecting. It does nothing for his comfort level. "Umm…" It takes him a second to come up with a coherent response. But you don't tell your CO no about something like that. "I mean, yes, sir. I can get directly on that. It'd probably be good to do with with someone from Tactical, though. Maybe one of their intel guys. They'd be the experts on any black ops or information we might have about what's gone on over there. If you really think it'd be worth pursuing, sir." And he's both flattered and clearly surprised that someone might think it would be.

"It is clearly worth pursuing or I would not have assigned you to it, Ensign. If you need tactical, or such, I'll sign off on the appropriate paperwork. I'd suggest talking to Captain Rozzen, she's good at this stuff as well." he says. "Also, I will bring you with me when we brief the TACCO on this." Zachary says. "But make me one thing clear. This is yours. And if you get it done wrong, I'll take the blame, you don't need to worry about that."

Phin pales a shade. But he nods. "I'm not trying to get out of responsibility or anything, sir. It's just that most of the tactician stuff I know is academic, so I wouldn't have the best idea of where to begin with it. One their people would. I was a History major back at the Academy, so I got more into the old pre-war and war-era stuff than some guys did, but that's all on paper." About the TACCO. Another bobbing sort of nod. "Yes, sir. I'll…umm…have a properly typed-up report by then. My spelling is really good, I assure you." Randomly. At least he doesn't babble more about his editing skills.

Zachary takes out a sheet of paper and scribbles a note and hands it to Phin. On it is a name: Captain Moira Rozzen. "Track her down. She's intel and a sucker for mission planning, she's been on me to let her in since I became DCAG. I think she'll be perfect to assist you. If she tries to take over the project, let me know, and I'll keep her in check." he says as he nods in satisfaction. "Excellent, I look forward to seeing your presentation, Ensign. We still haven't heard from Janitor yet - soon as we do, I already asked to have a cruiser on standby for the rescue - the info that you and Knox assembled will assist in that and I expect you want to be a part of it."

"Yes, sir. I totally will, sir. Get in touch with her, I mean, sir. Thank you, sir." It's probably a near thing that Phin stops himself from saluting again as he takes that note. It's folded neatly, and tucked in a uniform pocket. Mention of Janitor sobers his mood considerably. He nods. "If there's a place for Vipers on the ex-fil, Major, certainly." He just nods, when it's said they haven't heard from Cole. He plainly doesn't take it as //good/ news, but he tries not to look overly pessimistic.

"Very good. Is there anything else that you need, Phin?" he asks as Zachary finally starts to wind down on the meeting and pay more attention to food and drink.

"Uh…I don't think so, sir." The use of his first name makes Phin blink again, but at least he doesn't flinch too much. "We're, like, technically off-duty, right?" Asked before he reaches for one of the stouts.

"Yes, the meeting is done if I use your first name." Zachary chuckles, and passes him the stout. "To good planning and better hunting, Dolly." he offers the neck of his bottle in a salute.

"So say we all, sir." Phin is apparently not so much taking the opportunity to use a remotely more familiar term than 'sir' with the D-CAG. He does manage a grin as he raises his bottle in a half-toast. Before sipping. "This is really good. Makes me wish I'd thought to buy some of the local micro-brew packs when we were on Virgon. Before…" The whole end of the worlds thing.

"You and I both. This brings me down to four. Eden doesn't approve of me over drinking, so these may last a while." Zachary admits, and then smirks. "Maybe I should head down to the planet tonight. Bond for a little while and then head home to see her. You interested in taking the rest of the night off?"

"Umm…" Phin does not seem super-enthusiastic about the idea of bonding with his boss. But there is no good way to flee from it. So he doesn't. "Sure, sir. Sounds…fun."

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