MD #329: Talk like a Marine
MD #329: Talk like a Marine
Summary: Palermo & Adeliza get together for a drink, some serious talk and dancing.
Date: Saturday 3/Mar/2018 (OOC Date)
Related Logs: http://battlestarorion.wikidot.com/and-briefly-pie
Palermo Adeliza 
No Man's Land - Stalk - "Mother" Ship
On the edge of a deserted area of the ship, there is a makeshift airlock with a sign on it that reads, "The only escape pod you'll need." The main compartment beyond opens up just inside, made larger by the gutting of adjoining spaces. Immediately to the left just before the bar, there is ladder and hatch leading upwards with a sign that reads, "Cellar." The bar is made from repurposed consoles and behind it is a sign with the various brews available. Emergency oxygen masks line the counter just below the bar top and look curiously well maintained. At the far end of the space, a small stage is bathed in light that spills down through a large gaping hole in the ceiling. The raw metal edges of the hole look as if they've been chewed away by some kind of explosive carnage. Small cargo containers and crates haphazardly line the stage while larger ones are communally arranged along with two triad tables. Embedded in the walls along the opposite of the bar are six old escape pods with the hatches propped open to provide more private seating.
Tue 18/Sep/2049 (IC Date)

Still riding the high from a successful NO ONE DIED meeting with Gen. Frazier, Renee had put out the invite to buy the first round. She'd even changed into her favorite t-shirt and most comfortable (if not actually ratty) jeans. And, as she got here first, the first round was ALREADY down the hatch.

The shrimpy little Lieutenant that had faced the General with Palermo had gone back to her rack for a bit. Then she took a shower, and pulled on a hoodie with her jeans and flats. Leaving her hair damp, it's taken on a slight wave that she's tucked behind both ears. When she arrives, she sidles up to her cousin. "So impatient, you just couldn't wait for me to get here," she teases and nods to the 'tender to have whatever Renee's having.

"Considering how badly that could have gone if Frazier's people hadn't held it together," Renee replies as she slides a shot glass to Liza, "a drink or twenty seemed right. And," she sighs out a breath, "I was having a hard time not wanting to kick Frazier's teeth in. As that's neither professional NOR acceptable, I need a drink or twenty to take the edge off."

"Well, it's a good thing you weren't with us the first time when we needed to hand over our weapons and everything we were carrying," Liza tells Renee lightly. She lifts one shoulder. "When they let you guys keep your rifles, I wasn't as worried about getting out alive. Just concerned about screwing it up and not getting the General's cooperation." She takes her shot glass and lifts it towards Renee, then downs it. After giving an open mouthed exhale, she sets the glass down. "What were you expecting from a General in charge of what's probably been a losing fight for the last twenty years?"

Gesturing with the shot glass she's holding, "That is a good question. I wasn't sure what I should expect OR actually -be- expecting. If I were him, I'd be .. even more unwelcoming and grimly cynical. So no, I wouldn't trust us or anyone else who offered to put boots on the ground and 'help'. How do they know they can trust us, how do they know that we aren't planning something else. Which we are, but it's ultimately so that they can get up off of the mat themselves and win this for themselves. Bah," she tosses the rest of the drink back and signals for a refill.

Adeliza chuckles as Renee takes the General's place, and takes that down her own personal road. She signals for another round, as well. "Well, then, I'm glad that it was General Frazier I had to deal with, and not you. He was much more reasonable." She turns and leans her back against the bar, looking around to see who all is there, and peruse the Mother's people that are hanging out there as well.

"You did good, Shrimp, real good," Renee says in a quiet voice pitched for her ears only. "Seriously. You stood your ground, you didn't give an inch when he did his whole macho man thing. You stood in the lions den or on the sands of the colleseium in front of the lions and the watching crowd. And you didn't blink," she reaches out and slings one arm around Liza's shoulders and snugs her close for a brief squeeze of a hug. "I'm proud of you. Damned glad to have been the boots on the ground as part of your team."

Adeliza looks up as Renee lowers her voice, and smiles lightly, just lifting the corners of her lips. Her cheeks get a little pink as the Marine goes on, and she leans into the brief hug. "Sure you're not just saying that because I'm your cousin?" she asks with a little chuckle. "Knowing you had my back kept it straight, Beanpole."

"If you weren't my cousin," Renee replies as she taps the side of her shotglass against the one in front of Liza, "I'd still be calling you a navy puke and an intel weenie and not buying you drinks OR hugging you," she reminds with a grin. "You did good, shrimp, don't let anyone tell you different."

"Thank my lucky stars, then," Adeliza says with a chuckle, picking up her shot glass and tapping it on the one in Renee's hand. She ducks her head with a little blush and takes a breath. "Means a lot, Ren," she murmurs, just loud enough for her cousin to hear. She lets out a breath. "Kind of like being team captain all over again, but with higher stakes."

"Yeah.. the other team is armed and they absolutely will shoot you, not just wish they were armed and could get away with it," Renee agrees with a laugh of her own. "Benning held her own, too. She is absolutely coming along just fine. I'm proud of her," she admits in a wry tone of voice. "She's just a kid and absolutely NOT a kid at the same time."

Adeliza nods. "She is doing well," she agrees slowly. "We may need to help her learn to talk like the rest of us, though." Her brow furrows. "General Frazier may be open minded about her presence among our ranks, but others…" she hates getting to serious talk in the middle of drinking. "Well, I think you know quick people can be to jump to conclusions. Maybe you can have a chat with her. I saw how nervous she became when he noticed her accent on the tapes." There! She passed the buck to Renee. She grins joyfully and looks for an actual drink this time from the bar.

"Make her talk more like a grubby marine, hmm?" Renee wonders, her head tipping slightly back at an angle as she thinks on this. "No. We're not changing our marines to meet their expectations. We do the job, we do the job damned well, and we've lost -everything-, just as much as they have. I'm not telling any of my marines to change who and what they are. Frazier and his people can just learn to deal with it."

"Well, then, maybe you better teach her not to get so jumpy, then," Adeliza replies flatly, her smile erased from her face. "She practically gave herself away with being all jumpy and holding onto her rifle like it was her binky when her accent was noted." She takes a long swig from her drink. "We aren't going to have a pissing contest as to who's lost more, here, them or us. No one's questioning how well you grubby marines do your job. Benning's already had it hard enough as it is, we don't need to make it harder on her just so you can make a point about acceptance or whatever it is you're sticking up for."

"Experience and, literally, boots on the ground and time in the field will get rid of the jumpy nature she has. She's still wet enough behind the ears to want to make a good impression. She wants to be a marine through and through. And I get that. I'm saying that telling her to talk different, act different, be what she isn't? isn't the marine corps way. The marine corps breaks us down to our most basic sense of self and builds us back up from zero point all the way out to specialist and beyond. But not by making us what we aren't," Renee's voice is both quiet but firmly absolute in her beliefs. "I'm still a Caprican marine. I sound like a Caprican marine. Nothing about what I am changes where I came from."

"Shit, Palermo, no one's saying you should change her completely, you make it sound like I just told you to turn her into a completely different person," Adeliza snorts a retort. "Listening to you, you'd think I just asked you to take her to a Line and have her head rearranged. I didn't say tell her to be what she isn't, I said that maybe you could help her lose the accent that makes her a target. Talking like a Caprican doesn't make you a target. Talking like a godsdammed Skath noble /does/ make /her/ a target. Hiding that accent doesn't change who she is, or make her someone she isn't. It's just… an attempt on my part to help make sure that she doesn't have to watch her back when among people that she needs to trust and she needs to have trust her. Benning doesn't need to be fighting friends as well as enemies, she's already had enough of that, don't you think?" Adeliza doesn't raise her voice at all, and keeps it mostly reasonable, as well as her concern for Benning being genuine.

"I don't like it," Renee says in a bluntly honest tone of voice. "I don't like it, and I don't like the idea of even suggesting it to her. But it's not MY voice and it's not MY accent. It's like the Gunny having to hide his eyes and his ears. Just because they're not stock human standard norm."

"Yes, well, sometimes we all have to something we don't like, Renee," Adeliza replies in the same, blunt, honesty. "We have to choose our battles and learn when standing our ground actually defeats the purpose. No one's saying you have to force her to do it, but, for her sake, you could suggest that you can help her with it. Especially if it will help her be less jumpy. You know as well as do that losing your confidence in any way gets you dead. So… work with her, whether it's helping her lose the accent, or helping her lose the nerves… don't count on that time in the field for her to lose her jumpy, because the next time in the field could be her last."

Resting one elbow against the side of the bar, Renee leans forward just enough to prop her chin into the cup of her hand, "Don't you think we're past this now? We humans haven't been alone in the Universe, ever. We may not have really all believed it or really all accepted it before now. But we aren't all that's up and walking around. One of these days we're going to rub up against sentient arachnid space faring spiders and we're all going to have to resist the urge to get a shoe and scream DIE DIE DIE in a falsetto."

For the first time, there's actually a hard, cynical, gleam in Adeliza's eyes as she sets her glass down on the bar. "No, I'm afraid we're not past it. It's the frailty of humans. Even in the colonies before we went missing, regular people still didn't trust Lines, or the Arpay. There was still skepticism and antagonism towards them. On Calumet there is that same kind of antagonism towards anyone favored by the Skath, and, from my experience there, it's well warranted. And if we ever run up against sentient arachnids, then many humans will shoot first and ask questions later. It's the dowside to free will. It would take Clerical intervention to get us past this."

"Well, that'll depend on how big the sentient space faring spiders are. I mean, if they're minuscule, that'll make taking them seriously rather challenging. If they're medium sized, like say the size of a small dog? Ok that'll be less alarming. But if they're huge? Like human sized? Seriously, there'd better be some serious diplomatic work done first - and remotely - before we all get into the same room. I'm thinking a giant can of raid could be weaponized pretty darn fast. I could do it in less than a minute, personally, all I'd need is a string, a bit of chewing gum and a lighter. I have two out of the three of those with me at all times," Renee's voice is earnest and actually serious. "Never know. And I don't think the clerics could kill that instinct in all of us, no matter how deep they go. I'll bring it to her," she moves one shoulder in a shrug, "and we'll talk to the Gunny to get his read on it as well. There's probably something in the marine basic training handbook that talks about how to teach basic linguistics."

"Fire," Adeliza nods sagely to Palermo on the subject of spiders. "Probably, or maybe even a razor, who knows. At any rate, there's a dance floor that needs two hot chicks showing them how it's done." She finishes her drink and stands up, raising an eyebrow to her cousin.

Palermo eyes the dance floor then prudently takes another, very large, gulp from her drink and pushes to her feet. "If I drink enough maybe I'll remember my left foot from my right. Maybe. Possibly. It could happen."

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