18:00 January 9th, 1648 AC Batavian Standard Meridian Date TimeHMCS Bonaventure (DSC 013), Green Squadron ready room
After the customary winding-down period after an intense simulator exercise, the pilots of Green Squadron were back in their ready room., Cassandra looked over the gathered aviators as she walked to the front of the room and took in their expressions. She saw some that looked annoyed, feeling tricked by the sudden change in the battle. Others were pointing their gaze anywhere except at her. Others seemed just stunned, unsure of what to think. They probably realized by now that the battle exercise wouldn’t be just a few outdated fighters, a bunch of frigates, and one of those rickety scone boxes that were nicknamed Starfighter Tenders.
Perhaps some even noticed that this was based on the battle of Cadair Idris, but she hoped that they realized it too late to attempt to ‘metagame’ the scenario. She also hoped that this would show them the necessity of being prepared for anything—especially ambushes.
They weren’t ready, but then, Cassandra hadn’t expected them to be aces in their first simulator battle in Stars-knew how long. On the other hand, with the reserves being activated and assigned to a deep space carrier like Bonaventure, there had to be something really, really bad going on.
Cassandra let out a sigh as the chatter toned down.
“Alright, ladies, gentlemen. I hope you all saw what happened?” she said as she made a wide gesture over to the holographic projector which was replaying tactical overview from the battle, showing the moment the lights symbolizing Green ‘Wing’ flickering out across the screen at a rapid pace after the ambush began. She recognized multiple pilots from Lime Squadron wincing at the sight of their demise.
“We’ve been rendered combat ineffective after an ambush we could have prevented caught us off guard, sending most of us to heed the storm’s call and a bill counting trillions of sterlings to the Commonwealth House of Commons,” she said before tapping the speaker stand. “That is of course, if it was all real. We are lucky that it was a sim. But this, ladies and gentlemen, is something we have to change.”
Secretly though, Cassandra needed to admit that Green Squadron surprised her. She expected much more losses from the initial clash against Screwballs and Tornadoes. And she expected much more losses from the initial clash. Even if her old squadron did technically better than Green Squadron, her old squadron couldn’t try again to improve and avoid such an ambush again.
At least not most of them, she ruefully thought.
She was also especially surprised with Lorelai. She wasn’t able to handle missile targeting under pressure quite as well as she should, but her handling of electronic countermeasures, decoys and spotting that opening on the second frigate was quite a good job.
“Now, I know that the ambush wasn’t included in the brief, but if we ever run into something similar, there won’t be a brief either. So we will train to avoid being taken out like this again. Standard operating procedures are good, but you can’t apply them to every situation you come across. For now, those of you who were acting as squadron leads in the exercise, will review the footage with me after the de-brief and make plans with me for training with the people in their provisional squadrons. Focus on things that went wrong first, iron out your flying and we’ll work on flexibility and ambushes later. But this…” she gestured over to the holographic display again. “... is what we should be able to handle in the future.”
She let out a final sigh and straightened her back.
“Dismissed,”she finally said, releasing the rest of the squadron before heading over to her stateroom together with the provisional squadron leaders. Cassandra had a lot of work ahead of her before the green squadron would be ready for the trials to come.
16:48 January 10th, 1648 AC Batavian Standard Meridian Date TimeHMCS Bonaventure (DSC 013), Cassandra’s state room
Cassandra looked straight into the smug expression of the bean shaped dragon plushie, allowing herself to look away from the holographic screen of her work station for a moment. The lazy wink on one eye and the cat-like mouth made it practically impossible to take it seriously as a dragon, but that wasn’t the purpose of this squishy companion. Cassandra stared at it, her mind elsewhere, lost in the charts and the readiness reports for her reservist air wing. Going over the list with Leclerq and the rest of the senior pilots wasn’t a pleasant experience. A lot of her people still struggled to shake off the rust which had built up over the years they spent in the reserve.
In the end they were able to transfer the most capable of reservists, for now, into the provisional Sage Squadron. Everyone in the Sage Squadron was, at least on paper, capable of functioning at the readiness levels which Radish required for anyone who would use the flight deck. As vexing as it was, she couldn’t say that she didn’t agree with him; anyone who didn’t meet those absurd standards of his would be putting themselves in danger on the frontline. Worse, Green Squadron also had to gain experience, somehow, in flying from the deck of Bonaventure. Another headache was that she had 24 Typhoons… and enough pilots and WSOs to operate 29 of them. A standard fighter wing in the San Batavia Republic and the Commonwealth had 16 of them, with spare crews for three or four more. At least for now, she had to split her squadron’s Typhoon crews informally into two groups assigned to twelve Typhoons each. It was a mess, but she hoped that in the end, she’d have at least those twelve aviators ready to fly on departure from Wijtschate.
She idly poked the dark brown horn of the plush creature in front of her. Its round, bean shaped white body was reminiscent of a dragon in the same way that a potato could sometimes resemble a starfighter. There was also a little dark red maple leaf that hung from one of its horns, and dangled every time she moved it around. She poked it again, shifting it on the table, looking over its dark green ridges and tail spike, the dark gray and stubby legs barely prevented it from rolling over as she adjusted its spot.
It looked like a very content bean as she observed it.
She let out a happy sigh as she patted the smug bean—before suddenly, she heard a buzz as someone pressed the door bell. Cassandra jolted to attention, straightening her posture in her seat before looking at the angled screen on the side of her work station.
She activated the screen and looked at who was standing outside. There was a young looking, amber eyed, brown haired, average-built girl in a navy-blue jacket with white stripes standing at attention on the other side. She was wearing a full battle kit, with body armour, the identification patches of the San Batavia Republic Korps Mariniers, a helmet with hearing protection, and she was armed, too; a battle rifle was slung across her chest. That was… unusual at least. She didn’t know there were marines from the rest of the Republic aboard the ship.
“Come in,” Cassandra said, shuffling the content looking plush to the side of the table. Hopefully the marine wouldn’t mind the little creature…
The door opened as she disengaged the personal lock with her Ghost and the visitor marched in. Now that she was inside of her state room she could take a closer look at her gear. The woman wore the usual tall boots and navy blue pants, with pieces of black body armour with white markings and the San Batavia Republic flag on one of the pieces of kit. It was impressive, especially since it contrasted with how small the girl looked in all her gear.
She had a distinctly stern expression as she saluted Cassandra.
“Majoor Heidi Braun reporting, ma’am,” she said quickly. As with most marines, every movement was according to the book. To the letter even.
Cassandra saluted back and the girl took a parade rest, legs slightly apart with her hands resting behind her back. The girl had quite a soft voice with a subtle Batavian accent. There was a little something else… perhaps she was from one of the other Batavian diaspora worlds?
“Ma’am, if I may, I’ll need you to accompany me to the Habitation Sector of the star fortress. There has been… an incident,” the girl explained.
“An incident?” Cassandra asked, taking a sip from her coffee cup, taking a moment before elaborating. “Can you tell me more, Majoor?” Cassandra asked, giving the girl a nod.
“Two of your pilots have been detained by the port security after a brawl in a bar during their leave, Commander. As the person put in command of the reservist marine company aboard Bonaventure, I was told I should assist you in regards to discipline of the reservist pilots.” While she explained, the expressionless mask she had for a face melted into a more human expression for a moment when her amber eyes darted towards the smug expression of the bean-like dragon beside Cassandra.
Cassandra let out another drawn out sigh, one of her hands moving up to her temple, rubbing it in the pattern of a little circle. Just what she needed, extra work.
“Do you know the names of those troublemakers?” She asked briefly while looking at the roster of Sage Squadron, still displayed on her holoscreen.
“Yes ma’am. Those two are Lieutenants Casey Schaars and Andy Soerjadi,” she reported immediately. Cassandra felt another bite of mental pain as she spotted both names on the list of Sage personnel.
“Static and Java,” she said with a pained groan. The two were some of the better pilots in Green Squadron, but it felt like they took her words about matching the regulars a bit too literally and decided the first thing to master was the attitude. She sighed, checking her holster with the blocky shape of the standard navy issue sidearm and taking her jacket from the nearby locker before walking over to Majoor Heidi.
“Lead the way Majoor. We’ll bring those two idiots back,” she said as they headed out of her state room.
“Yes ma’am.” The marine saluted and followed after her.
Somehow the squishy bean dragon seemed very smug about this encounter.
17:04 January 10th, 1648 AC Batavian Standard Meridian Date TimeAsteroid Fortress “Wijtschate”, Habitation Sector, Marchaussee detention cells
Cassandra simply couldn’t believe the situation she found herself in. It was less than a day since she stressed the importance of hard work and catching up with the regulars to her reservists.
It was less than a bloody day and she already had a bunch of nitwits bloating her workload by pulling stunts in a bar. She even had to delay department head meetings with other officers of the reservist forces aboard Bonaventure just to pull their arses out of jail. They had less than 24 hours until their ship was expected to depart with very little slack, she had to get Sages in shape and those two decided to go off on their merry way and get arrested by the RMar? They got to be kidding her.
“Commander van Ness I take it?” A tall man in front of the detention cells asked her, looking over her waterproof navy-issued jacket. While it was similar to the jacket that Braun wore, with the white stripes of the San Batavia Republic, it differed with the addition of the black and silver field insignia of a Commonwealth Starfighter corps commander in the spot where the jacket was closed at the chest.
“Your two pilots are in cell 04. You can pick them up after you sign here,” the Republican Marchausse officer said with a sigh—it didn’t look like he appreciated the additional workload her pilots had made for him, either. “Please keep your pilots in check… We fast-tracked them for release because of your imminent departure.” Aviators were famous for getting in a lot of trouble on space stations and during shore leave, but this kind of stunt before departure? That was a new level of insanity.
As she took the tablet from him, adding her signature in neat cursive, she looked him dead in the eyes. “Do I want to know what they did?” she asked with her left eye slightly twitching. “I seriously didn’t expect my people would get involved with the Gendarmerie a day before departure,” she said with a sigh while returning the tablet to him.
“They are lucky the person hit with a thermos didn’t have a fracture. Apparently there was a serious concussion caused by the hit,” the man explained. Cassandra ground her teeth together as she walked over towards the cell in which two pilots, a tall white haired woman with short cropped, wavy hair and blue eyes, and a smaller man of Indonesian descent with military cropped black hair sat. Both of them were trying to feign a look of innocence which wouldn’t be out of place in the middle of an obvious crime scene.
On the bright side, she finally had an outlet for all of the frustration she had to deal with today.
17:14 January 10th, 1648 AC Batavian Standard Meridian Date TimeAsteroid Fortress “Wijtschate”, habitation sector back alleys
“Are you two daft?!” Cassandra exclaimed as her voice thundered off the walls of the alley. “We are dealing with a CAG that’s trying to kick us off the ship and some of my most experienced pilots… My very few experienced pilots decided to go on a Mary Jane adventure, drinking before departure, and gave a concussion to a fortress commander’s son with the coffee thermos they wanted to use to smuggle alcohol onto a Commonwealth deep space carrier? Is this your idea of a parting gift?”
The black-haired man put his hands behind his back as he gave his commanding officer a slightly contrite look, but the white-haired woman next to him merely gave Cassandra a nervous grin—that was quickly wiped off her face as Cassandra glared at her. “I’d expect something like this from Static. But you, Java? You should have stopped your pilot from doing something this stupid…” She finally got out of herself, but it was the drawn out sigh of exhaustion that finally got the pilots to stop looking at her like she was going to gut them while they made their way to the carrier.
“I need both of you to be able to fly, so I simply cannot ground you. By stars and tides, you are few of the pilots that have proper experience. Can’t you behave yourself for at least a damn week while I get more people that Radish will actually let fly?” She repeated, her voice still soaked in barely suppressed frustration.
Majoor Heidi simply looked away from the scene, looking anywhere except at the scene which was going on besides her.
“Hey, I am usually not that bad, Seraph. Me and Java simply thought that this was our last chance. No one told us how long this deployment will be, and we don’t know when—errm… when we will be allowed some alcohol again,” The white haired woman Cassandra called Static began trying to make excuses. What little sympathy that Cassandra had for both of them suddenly evaporated as she immediately loomed over her. She was about to give her a short speech about why it is a bad idea to tell your commanding officer that you were intending to find an illicit distilling still aboard a carrier, but her sentence was rudely interrupted by the crack of a gunshot and an impact of a bullet cracking a concrete wall just few meters away from Cassandra.
“Take cover!” Majoor Heidi Braun shouted, taking a knee behind a nearby metal trash bin and raising her battle rifle up, firing a few shots to suppress the attacker which just tried to kill Cassandra.
And Cassandra oh so foolishly believed that her day couldn’t get any worse…