AWD #018: Resistance is Futile
Resistance is Futile
Summary: Maybe. Nico and Phin commiserate in pessimism, at least, as Afton moderates.
Date: 01/24/2013 (OOC Date)
Related Logs: Nope
Afton Nico Phin 
Fitness Center — Deck 3 — Battlestar Orion
Smelling of sweat and grease, the Fitness Center is a place where individuals can come to work out or just work off stress. The area closest to the entrance is taken up by two very large sparring pads with a pathway down the center, each pad removable to reveal a Pyramid court beneath. The walls beside the pads hold lockers for everything from pugilist sticks to boxing gloves to rubber guns, though deadly weapons are strictly prohibited in here except by authorized personnel such as on-duty Military Police. Standing goalposts for Pyramid are also kept against the wall. Past the pads are a vast number of nautilus machines as well as free weights to lift. At the back of the room are workout bikes, rowing machines, treadmills, and stairclimbers. There is an entrance to the pool at the rear as well as a locker room to the side.
AWD #18

Afton is still breathing rather steadily as she stands on the mats, bare knuckled and a bit frayed. Fight? Must have been but then there's not gloves, no blood and that might be a good thing. She sighs, stepping off slowly to the side as she scrubs a hand over her hair and along her neck. She lifts her fingers and starts to unbraid her hair, flopping down onto the bench to stretch her legs and study the floor.

Nico's walk into the gym is not entirely without grace… but mostly, it's without grace. It's as though his movements are a little cautious, like he's wounded or otherwise fragile. He stops when he gets to the gym itself, and then takes a moment to look the place over. When Afton falls into his line of sight and he raises an eyebrow, "You kick its ass?" The tone is neutral, as though he's not sure if it was an 'it' whose ass was kicked, or a s/he.

Phin comes out of the changing area. Dressed in sweats, minus any indication of rank or assignment. Ready to rumble. As it were. He's headed in general toward the heavy bag area, albeit without a ton of evident enthusiasm. He offers a general "Hey" to Afton and Nico, whose general area he ends up in, and sits down to start stretching. Nico is eyed a little curiously. Unfamiliar face. But he tries not to stare.

Unfamiliar voice and face register as something and then Afton grins as recognition sets in. "Sir…good to see you up and about." Afton holds up he rhand to him. "No, it was a draw and my partner stalked off angry. I think she needed to vent against me and wasn't getting any satisfaction." She nods to the Ensign beore looking up to the other man. "Petty Officer Afton St. James…got you off that rock, sir. Welcome to Orion. Seems the doctors did wonders already." Her hand falls back to untwining her braid.

"Hrm? Oh… yeah." Nico nods his head, and then scratches the back of his neck, "Thanks. I was joking to Dr. Nadir that you guys have something that belongs to me, now.. but I've decided to let you keep it. Lieutenant Nicodemus Gallo… but you probably either know that, or you're going to pretend you remembered." He smiles thinly and accepts Afton's hand to shake, "Yeah. People gotta vent, they gotta vent." He shoots Phin a casual nod. "Really clean up here. Hard to remember when I saw something so clean."

Phin goes through a few stretches, before meandering over to the boxing equipment and getting started on wrapping his hands. "Uh, welcome aboard," he offers to Nico. Politely, but with a good deal of puzzlement. He perhaps wants to try and pretend he wasn't eavesdropping, but eventually his curiosity gets the better of him. "You one of the survivors? From the colonies, I mean. From the attacks."

"Yeah, its amazing what time away from a warzone offers for a clean environment." Afton says with a soft sigh and lets down her hair before smoothing it back and tying it into a ponytail. She runs her hands along her cheeks and neck as she sighs and then glances up and over at Phin. She leans into her knees, elbows planting as she lets the two talk, a faint smile on her lips for the time.

Nico nods his head, "Yeah. Something like that. Part of the resistance on Picon. I'm an ECO… though lately it feels more like I'm a bomber co-pilot." He gestures to Afton, "PO St. James over there interrupted our sandbox to save some lives. I think they've got an exhcnage program going right now. We bring you our wounded, and you send us back in one piece. So… they did that with me. Not sure I'm staying with my squadron, though, at this rate." He nods to Afton and then smirks weakly, "Anything not covered in dirt and mud looks clean to me at this point."

"Resistance? So it's, like, organized?" Phin gives up trying to be polite. "That's awesome. I mean, I'm sure it's not awesome for you." He flushes. "We haven't heard many official reports back from the colonies yet, beyond what our initial Raptor fly-bys told us. I wasn't sure how many people were still alive down there, or what kind of shape they were in." He extends a hand to Nico, for shaking purposes. He's a righty. "Ensign Phin McBride. I fly with the Lucky Strikes, one of the Viper squadrons aboard." He looks over his shoulder at Afton. "Are you guys getting a bunch of people back from the colonies, Petty Officer?"

Looking up at the voicing of her rank, Afton returns to the here and now and smiles to Phin, "Ensign, I am not sure. I know Picon is viable, but the other colonies are not yet explored for that. In time, maybe. Some are too lost, but Picon. Picon we can try to hold and stave off the attackes. I worry though, we do what we do and that will draw attention. We have to start picking off basestarts to make a difference." She admits and then pushes up. "Granted, what you are doing on the ground is great, but they get nine of those things in orbit…gone."

Nico shakes his head, "What we're doing on Picon's going to get some refugees off world, and then the rest of us are going to die down there." He sighs, "It's organized, yeah. THey didn't break our backs yet, but it's ugly." He regards Phin with a nod, "111st Suicide Jacks. Good to meet you, man. No, it sucks down there. We've got the sky at ten thousand feed and below. After that, you go higher and you're going to pay for it in blood… or your ship. It's why I might be staying longer than a couple of days. My unit's low on birds. More crew than craft, so… whatever."

"You got names, of the people who're still alive down there?" Phin asks. "I did my flight training on Picon. At Hermes base. I've still got some friends there. And lots of people on the ship have family there, and…" He makes himself stop talking. "Sorry. I mean. I don't figure you've got, like, a census or anything. But if the guys in charge of your people know…" He trails off, shrugging. The description of the situation makes his momentary enthusiasm fade. "Oh. I gotcha, man. Maybe the battlegroup can start evac'ing people, if you can hold them off a little longer." He blinks at Afton. "I mean, we obviously can't just leave those people there to die."

"I agree entirely, Ensign." Afton says with an even tone. Her eyes flit to Nico and she slowly rises from the bench she was sitting on. "It's still something, after the destruction elsewhere to see the people of Picon holding on. Nothing wrong with that, things might turn, as far as I hear there is more of the fleet hiding somewhere because of these letters that were rumored about. So we are not the only ship out there. Its a matter of not being too obvious…and for Picon not to draw too much attention too fast. Level the playing field if you will." She tugs at her ponytail and offers them both a grim smile.

Nico shakes his head, "I got no idea, Ensign. There's more than five, if that's what you're asking." His chuckle is a little haggard and strained. "We're fighting a land and an air war. Or they are. I'm still waiting to see what they do with me. I spoke to Lt Col Petra, and he was making noises like he wanted my ass to stay put. The brass on Picon won't be too happy with that one, but he's got a point. Either way, it's just how it is. Nobody's planning to live through this. Just get people off the planet until we get killed. You know… if you guys don't mind me asking… how the frak did this ship even survive? As far as we knew on Picon, we lost the entire fleet."

"Uh…" Phin looks uncomfortably at Afton, as if he's asking for permission. Despite being the officer between them. "I don't know how much they want us saying. I mean, you're here, so I figure the colonel and others will brief you but…" He shrugs. "The ship was part of a classified project, which I guess means the Cylons didn't know about us. We weren't with any official deployment when they hit the colonies, or the other battlegroups. Letters?" That last to Afton. Puzzled again.

Glancing at them both, she goes quiet at Nico speaks and then glances to Phin. "Deep mining project, so we were away when they hit. We heard through our weekly letters.." She explains and then glances to Phin and once more to Nico. A shrugs of her shoulders is made and then she runs a hand up along the top of her head. "If you are going back, likely the less you know the better." The Jumper admits. "There are supposedly other fleet ships out there still too, not enough debris for all of them, or so that is what intel has been saying. But it could be off. Not much time to inspect what's floating out there in orbit."

"Huh. That's why the doctor kept changing the subject every time I asked. Started talking to me about the colonies instead. 'Deep mining project'." Nico makes quotes in the air with the fingers of his right hand, "Hey, whatever. I don't need to know, and it doesn't matter much either way. Just that the ship's around. Though if Gizmo knows you're around, it might change their tactics a little… I think they figure there's nothing left to punch 'em anymore."

Phin half-smiles wryly. "Yeah. Deep space mining. Like I said, I'm sure the colonel will fill you in pretty soon. Or…yeah." He might not be sure at all, really, so he just trails off." He still looks curious about the letters Afton mentioned but, given her answer, he doesn't ask any follow-up questions. "So, the Suicide Jacks?" His brow furrows, like he's trying to place the squadron name. He does eventually. "So you were stationed at Euterpe? We did some exercises against the nuggets from that base, but I never spent much time around there when I was on-world."

Smirking at the quotation marks briefly, Afton nods to them both and starts for the hatch. "Get some much needed r and r while you are here," She tells Nico and then glances to Phin. "Sirs, a pleasure. I recommend the pool if you like clean things." She expresses and the PJ slips out for the head and a chance to get some rest before duty.

Afton leaves, heading toward the Recreation Hall [RH].

"Yeah. Euterpe. Did that for eight months, then it stopped being fun when the Cylons just busted everything up." He nods to Afton as she heads off, "Take it easy." and then turns back to Phin, "Gods… this whole thing is one big-ass clusterfrak. Can't stand this shit. Anyway… yeah. Jacks are mostly a ground support crew these days. A lot of low altitude stuff. We bust fuel depots, we bomb ground forces, we support the boots… we get shot to shit by anti-air. You learn to shit before you go out."

"I'll bet," Phin mutters. "We're gearing up for more ops now. Our crews have mostly been gathering intel since the colonies were hit. We jumped into Caprica just in time to see that they'd torched it and Gemenon. Got into with some Raiders there, but the ship's been laying low since." He sounds almost like he feels guilty about it, after hearing all that. "But, I mean, we're going to be going back in soon. Our D-CAG's told us they're sending us to Picon. Just not sure when."

"Egh. Hey, you do whatever the brass tells you to do. You don't drive the boat. Not your fault. And the guys who do are just doing whatever it takes. I'd rather see this thing fly far away and save us from genocide, to be honest. The colonies are pretty frakking bad. I thought Picon was rough, but then I heard about some of the other worlds. Just forget it, man. I swore to defend the colonies with my life, but this is something else. It's about people, now." Adds he with a snicker, "I'm real fun at parties."

Phin manages another half-smile, though not an actual laugh. "I'd be freaked out by somebody who was chipper the way things are right now, y'know? Yeah. I mean. I don't know. It just seems so…random. Like, you have places like Tauron and Gemenon that were totally glassed. But then, like on Aquaria they say they've still got the lights on, and just the spaceport destroyed. And Aerilon's got enough people left that they're fight back pretty hard. So…I don't know. Like you said. I don't drive the boat. I'll go fight where they send me, though. Hope we can help your folks out."

"You can. A little. But I don't care what anyone tells you. We're losing Picon. Get those basestars out of the way… maybe. Maybe. But we're not exactly winning this fight and everyone knows it. Not saying that winning the planet's impossible, but it's… not like we could hold onto it if they really wanted to take it back from us again, you kno?"

"Yeah. That's what blows my mind," Phin says. "How many of them there are. How many of us they wiped out at once. How they can just make more in whatever frakked up assembly line they've got across the Armistice Line and we…" He shudders. "You can give Command the real story about what's going on on the ground at least. I don't know what to do with what my CO is telling us. One minute they're telling us to focus and that we'll keep fighting, the next it's that our families and friends are probably dead, and we shouldn't think too hard about getting them back."

"Bet you the brass doesn't know what the frak to do, either. Can you imagine being in charge, in a situation like this?" He whistles low, "I mean in -charge- charge. There's some guys who drink a lot. Hell, I dunno. But it's true. Odds are, everyone you knew is dead. I just take it one day at a time and try not to think about it."

"Maybe." The idea of the brass having little idea of what to do doesn't exactly cheer Phin, but he doesn't look like he precisely disagrees. "Yeah. I mean. That's what I figured. I didn't have any…" He stops himself to correct. "…I didn't have much family back on the colonies, but I'm not counting on seeing them again." He's quiet a beat after that. "Anyway. I think I'll hit the pool for awhile." He has forgotten his ambitions to hit the heavy bag, apparently.

"Can't blame you. I'm just a regular bundle of frakkin' joy, aren't I?" He grins and bro-fists the Ensign, "Hey, good hunting, McBride. Cut some raiders to junk for me. Maybe I'll catch you some time when I'm not anxious as hell. I swear, I'm more uncomfortable knowing I'm going back down there than when I'm down there."

"More time to think," Phin suggests. "Anyway. Later." And with that, he's headed in to take a swim.

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