Lizzy pushed Izzy up and said," It's ok we just got carried away a little looking at the stars, right Izzy. Nothing Captain Rivets sir just admiring the view and we got a little too romantic, at least we have our clothes on." Lizzy giggled and said to Izzy ," Hey remember we got in trouble for that before, sorry I started it, lets just relax for a bit and look out into the black and admire it's beauty."

  Rivets rounded the   Felrite  fighter that was  closest to them, one of the last ferite  fighters left .

 he  strode like an arrow  to the  pair  near the m static   filed.  His  anger   was  pure, his  face   almost as red  as his hair...  Didja  even think...one  gods  be damned   moment, of other   then yer ownselevs!...

 Voice lowering   as he  got  near,  his teeth clenched so tight that  it looked like the cigar he  chewed on would soon give up the host.   Though his voice  was hushed, and  anger   would  , all but  peel, the paint from the Bulk head.

 Me own people, lost some  friends  an' lovers,  the pilots lost a few of thier  own. Ain't  nothing wrong  with a hug or a kiss  in greeting, but ye  won't be rubbin' me peoples  face  in your  lack of control...

his eyes  went to Lizzy,You have  Control, Ensign, or do i haveta call the LC...

 then his eyes shifted to the bags   stacked where the shuttles berth is...that's  'bout  2/3rds... the rest are in Med tech gettin' put back together, or slipped inta   bags there...There   is  here  Ladies.. ain't  nothing' you can do ta change that...'cept  kill a bunch of the bad guys.. then his eyes  settled on Lizzy, waiting for an answer.

Sir, I... I need to apologize sir. I screwed up. Lost it out there...
Stavros does as told and pulls up a chair. Somewhat hesitant he sits down.
I damn near splattered myself and my Skeeter all over the bridge of the Hermes. Snapped out just in time to pull up but took down a few antenna... I... I put my wingmates at risk sir and they are rightly mad at me. I'm sorry.

 Lizzy listened and then felt really bad, " I have control Sir, yes I know we lost people and if things went bad we could have lost more. No need to call the LC Sir, we will just sit and talk and wait to see what we will do next, I am sorry sir and I apologize I didnt mean to offend anyone."  Lizzy looked hurt she was just so happy she didnt loose Izzy, but Rivets was right not here, she thought they were out of the way more but they were seen.

" It wont happen again Sir." Lizzy thought a kiss was ok, but Izzy pushed her down and someone spoke up, Lizzy didnt have time to react before others did. Lizzy looked embarrassed and upset she got Rivets mad at her.

”see that is what I mean, even rough mission had beds, showers and catering…in Finland we were in field for weeks at a time often under bombardment or threat of air strike, sleeping in tents or foxholes…showers, hot or otherwise were dream” she said with a shake of her head suspecting that a lot of her former comrades would have given their right arm for a posting like this.

Hearing the sound of raised voices Tarja would turn to watch as a pair of women hurriedly straightened up with red faces ”ah now that I remember!” she said with a laugh ”…it’s funny how different people deal with stress, I had girlfriend for little while, we were in foxhole together during heavy bombardment and one thing led to another, fire team were nice enough to look other way…it didn’t last long” she said with a chuckle as she turned her gaze back to stars.

   Rivets listened to   Lizzy. his eyes   shifted to Izzy. His   voice  was soft, but   you couldn't say 'kind'. I remember your  disrespect  for Washington on the hanger  Dec. This  Dec  is  my Home, inside   my bigger home, what you do her , affects me, and those under my direct command. You failed your posting. , you rubbed  alot of wrong people, the wrong  way since you got here...'little'..things like this..are....NOT...alright. Now behave yourself  or you'll find yourself posted   on The Pit as a  COM contact  officer.

  Rivets didn't say another  word, ad  he  went  back to the   scattered   aircraft, called out orders and grabbing  Tools to pitch in

.......................

   Looking  down the line, Andruss, shrugged,Gotta use  you head, right? Think about your shipmates. Some folks don't  give too many damns about others.

  so? Girlfriend  Huh? Its a good thing that got  rid of that head case  pilot. she was jumping in bed with anyone  who said her  name correctly... he chuckled.

.....................

  Shadow looked   towards Rivets  anger at the other Bulkhead  door  and shook his head, his shoulder straightened a bit  as he fou7ght off the anger. he turned his attention to  Stavros..

 Ok , Stav?.. I'm going to lay all this out for you.  because. I'm the LC..that's  My job.. I'm also a Pilot..that's another Job, and  then i have the    jobs of  WC of  The Hermes  Wing, and  WC of the  whole damn fleet.

 Now? because of all this,  i don't take myself too seriously...but  gods be damned, if i don't hate it when folks fuck up when i tell then 'not to fuck up'...

 That being said, I can tell your  scores of  stories   i did  as a cadet at the academy.. I can tell you stories   of what i did as an LT... I even did  a stunt  as  an LC, when we  had the second action of the  Battle of  The Field for Matterhorn,

 The Academy?  I went to the Mast more times then  any one in history. Some where for stupid  things, that i got caught, some were harsh things , where i set things  right, since the rules wouldn't do it...but there are lots  of stuff  i didn't get caught....and in the   end, most of that  stuff , helped  my mates..... out here, The first time i Flew through a largran Hange dec, i did it because i wanted to... it was a challenge , it was stupid,  and it didn't  put anyone else in danger. The  second time i did it was
 to get rid of traitors  who tried  Kill The Captain and  aid the Lizards and Bugs.

 not long ago, we had  some Greek guy come on board..real piece of work, I rammed him on E-1  after  we were leaving?.. no harm, no  foul on of a pair of  crap..right?

 so? you wait   until you understand  what's going on out there, before you try any tricks....now the blackout thing. I'd  ground you in a heart beat  except  for two reasons. One? we need  everyone who can  sit in an aircraft right now. then he smiles,and? how can i stop you  from getting a chance  at torching Angels?

 Go get food, and rest... if you black out  again, you land your damn aircraft. you can be  putting your ship mates  at risk.
This message was last edited by the GM at 03:59, Fri 10 Mar 2023.

She nearly fell asleep, but she breathed deeply to wake up gently.  Getting to her feet she pushed herelf up with Haley snoozing a bit.  Hefting her a bit she picked up the mess around them and tossed it all into the garbage nearby.  retrieving her helm she headed to Docs lab.  once there she let Haley nap a bit longer and near the Briss "Hey Friday.  Watch my girl." she smiled and gave Friday a wink.  then returned to the hangar dec.  She walked to her 'Skeeter' and looked over some of the damage and ground crew notes. Popping her gun cam she took the disc out to take to Morris.  She noted several panels needed replacing but was still space worthy.  she ordered and loaded more 37mm in case of another abrupt battle.  If the Paradise angels showed up she wanted to be topped off to give it to them.  She didn't want to be caught with her pants down, plus the exercise would get her blood and oxygen up.  once it was loaded, then she would take it to Morris.

===> Morris's shed

Roy nodded acknowledgment of the orders, looking over to Captain Morris and giving a nod to verify that they both understood.  He thought, briefly, about just giving the dropship security directions to remove the cabinets and ship them over to Hermes, unopened...but the vials hadn't been packed for transport in the cabinets, and he'd rather risk a few vials going missing to the overly curious than mass breakages.

Telling them it was a medicinal compound that needed to be researched should be enough to prevent anyone from trying to self-medicate with it...anyone who did would regret the experience, he had no doubt.  Getting shot with a popper full of buckshot, in the stomach, had hurt less than the full-body spasms induced by the Angel meds.

But when you had to be back in fighting trim in less than a day, there was no substitute for the stuff.  Or if you were lingering on Death's doorstep, it was the surest way back from the edge.  It would either cure you or kill you, depending on whether your body had enough strength left to endure the changes it caused...

Yes, they needed to get into the cabinets...but they needed to understand the materials collected were potentially hazardous.

The turnaround time for the Morningstar was brief...his ground crew was proficient, and there'd been no damage other than some cosmetic scrapes from the Angel metaglass windows he'd blown out.

Karl had gone and grabbed some food while the crew busied themselves with swapping out the ammunition modules that made up the bulk of the Morningstar's mass.  As he ate, he contemplated ammunition concepts...there was the idea for the ion rounds that he had in development...those would need to be kept under wraps, for now, as the whole idea of weaponizing the residual dust from ion cannons was, to the best of his knowledge, still a secret known almost exclusively to the old-timers on the Hermes, along with a handful of ex-Hermes personnel that had gone back to Earth.  One of them, supposedly, had come up with the idea...and by all reports, it was viciously effective.

But it might not have done much with the Bridge attack.  The metaglass was thick enough that even the shaped-charge warheads under design for the ion rounds wouldn't have made it through.  He pondered for a bit, thinking about older options for rounds that were designed to defeat armor.  It was, he realized, ironic that centuries-old Earth technologies were, in their more refined current form, actually more lethal against most of the races they were fighting than the newer pulse technologies...and he let his mind roll around those ideas while he ate, looking out the static field at nothing in particular.

It wasn't until Rivets blew up at a couple of people near the field that he even noticed they were there, and while he'd been looking right at them, he hadn't noticed what they'd done that had induced the riot act being read to them.  He did recognize the flowing red hair, though...and that gave him some idea of what it might have been.  They hadn't been involved long, and there'd been no expectations of it going anywhere, but he had some familiarity with Lizzy's proclivities, although the other pilot had apparently found someone...a star to whom she was looking to hitch her wagon, by all reports, in the form of the diminutive comm specialist that worked with Beth.  He didn't know her, except by reputation, but if she was what Lizzy wanted, he was happy for them both.

He gave a grunt as he realized his train of thought had drifted far afield from questions of ammunition designs, and he turned instead to watch the small army of ground crew and flight techs getting the fighters repaired and rearmed, ready to go into battle again...

Thank you sir, Stavros accepted  the slight reprimand, actually happy it wasn't worse. For now he didn't press the matter of Shadows mentioning the Greek again. He had to keep a clear head, thinking more of his brother wouldnt help at all.
If you'll excuse me sir I'll go get my Mosquito ready!
And with that he was off, almost at full sprint, to prepare his replacement ship.

  Shadow   w waved   Stavros  away,  and   absently   rubbed Larry's  noggin. The Larg  appeared to be dozing. As  Shadow  looked over the ships he could see, trying to spot , doors that were further away, to see if he could tell they were .

..................

  Roll sat  by the Tower, o the other side  of the Tables.   Gregor was curled up near him.  Thor  was   fussing   as    Roll held  him from  walking around  and getting tripped over  , or  stepped on.

 Vorse  sat  with him, the   larg  master  were  dozing a bit  down the  may, most of the Largs  seemed to be  doing the same,  a few were sitting up, watching all the hustle and bustle.

 Val  was with Henry. as she  drank  a soda,  and   nibbled on a sandwich.

.............

 The Admiral  left the Hanger  dec  for the   elevators.  Hennings  was more or less in charge  as he left.

 AI  were  working on their  suits, mostly , reloading , there were some  'soft spots' that needed fixed  after  repeated  hits  from Heavt Pulse  rifles.

 The QM   and his people   were  hustling,  getting ammo to the shuttles, and  fighters,  while  cataloging  weapons brought back form the fight. The extra Angel  steel weapons  would boost their  arnroy  alot.

Mila came over and laid her head on Val's lap.

 can  sat  down  by  Val, and  petted  Mila. Haly   was  taken   away by her  Mommy person?  Rols is   eating?  can  I sit  with him with my sandwich?



....................

 Shade   found  Shadow and  Larry, he sat on the  crate that Stavros used, he began to bleep.

 yeah?  it  worked pretty good, right about now, beth's  coverage of the battle  has already hit  Those  folks on the Homeworld...and they should know  that paradise  3, now belongs to   the Skyth..that has to scare them

Henry smiled at his son.

"Of course you may, if you wish. Or stay here with your mother and Mila."

In reply to hanger Dec (msg # 891):

The naturally cool look on Tarja’s face would turn a few degrees colder as Andruss spoke of people respecting fellow crewmen ”I agree, that crew chief could have had quiet word, instead he causes the scene and much upset, that is not acceptable and if he tries that with my people he and I will have brief but painful chat” she said with her placing rats and jobsworths in the same category as Russians.

It was then that he would pass comment on her having had a girlfriend, and a former crew member that Tarja had never met and so had no interest in ”hardly” she snorted, making it clear that there would have been no chance of that happening ”…we were together for week tops, long enough to realise that neither of us were that into girls and that pure terror was poor reason to be with someone…but it was fun while it lasted and we became close friends” she said with a wistful note in her voice as she wondered what she was doing now, with her friend having gone career last she’d heard.

After taking another bite from her sandwich she would give him a mischievous look as she asked ”you not getting jealous are you?”

Izzy would keep her mouth during the entire ordeal with a protective arm around Lizzy. From her vantage point Lizzy would be able to see the look in Izzy’s eyes and feel the arm around her tensing; subtle signs that she would recognise as her fiancée quietly seething.

She would wait until Rivets had left until quietly speaking to Lizzy ”I think it might be best if we go somewhere else” in a voice taught with tension.

  Andruss   gives  a shrug,ahh well.. I won't  fault  Rivets. he has his rules, and common sense should  take care of the rest, Since i have been here, i have never seen him lash out at someone who didn't deserve it

 When she  asked  about being Jealous  he   grinned shyly, looking at the wrapper , that no longer   contained a sandwich.

 Maybe? There alot of  folks  on this ship  that either have some one, or is looking for someone... the he added,..or? Looking for  a port in the storm.

................

  Eckles     was walking past.  Lizzy and   Izzy, she  crouched  down, a bit of a grin on her  face, Boy<, you guys? Isn't this  the second  time you got caught?..and..you know...not  counting the  audio on the  Officer's dec?   Look? Just use your heads, right? you got quarters..use them..

 she turns  her  head,  the woman who had  called out  was wiping her   face with her  sleeve as she  torqued   some skid  bolts  right..her   Boy fried  was   turned to pudding when that   Bomber nose   came through the   static  field.  Rivest  has a right to be angry... but you notcie one thing? She's  still working...as the the saying goes... she winks,,,get a room... she   smiled  slightly  as she headed through the  scattered  fighters to  find hers.

.............

  Shadow, Shade  and  Larry  sat  but the  bulk head post.. watching shuttles  and Tender scurry  around.  getting   big chucks of  scrap, and pulling in   Pods.. The Fleet had  moved   up a 100,000 miles to  'claim the   area that they forced the Angel's  retreat.

 Shade Bleeped and pointed  at the planet.

 yeah?   you'll be going after  more  ships... everyone  we capture. becomes a   Gun Platdform...everyone we capture that can sail, will be given to some one, maybe even the Fleet... and if we have to blow them to bits....we blow them to bits.

 Lizzy was done and said," Yeah we went a little too far on Rivets Hanger dec and he is right we need to think of others. Lets head to the OB dec, still close enough to run back in case we are called back ok Izzy." Lizzy got up and offered a hand to Izzy to help her up.

----------->>>>>>>>>>> To OB Dec
This message was last edited by the player at 16:52, Sun 12 Mar 2023.

Finishing his sandwich, Karl got up and went to find his crew chief, who told him who was in charge of maintaining the munitions they were using.  Very few were made aboard ship...his rounds were much smaller than the torpedoes they used in the Mace, which were in turn smaller than the torpedoes they used for the ships' guns, and with the limited space aboard, it was more effective to have the tooling for production located on one of the support ships, or to have the rounds shipped in as part of the regular resupply shipments that came from the carrier stations and planets.

But what he had in mind didn't require full production facilities.  "I want to recreate an antitank round they used in the late 20th century..." he explained.  He began drawing out a diagram as he explained what he was looking for.  "I can get you specifications," he added, as he detailed the High Explosive Squash Head round, "but you're still going to need to modify the specs, because the largest gun they ever fired them from was a 120mm, and the only gun I've got that would fire them is a 155mm, so the weights and dimensions are different."

As he continued, he drew out rough illustrations that showed the effect that the rounds had on the all-steel armor vehicles of the time.  "They stopped using them because everyone started using composite armors, and the different layers of different density materials messed up the effect.  But if I remember correctly, metaglass is a single compound, that's just made in varying thicknesses, depending on what kind of durability you need.  That's EXACTLY the kind of thing these rounds were designed to exploit..."

He paused, realizing he was getting a little breathless in his excitement for the idea, and looked at the munitions officer.  "So, the question is...how fast can you modify some HE rounds?  I would love to try this idea out, and if we can take out an Angel bridge crew with high-velocity spall and leave the bulk of the bridge otherwise intact, we're cutting down turnaround time to put the ships back on the line, AND we're also making it easier for our assault teams.  If I can slam the bridge with a few of these before they even start cutting the hull, the command response is going to be massively slower...maybe even non-existent.  And the Angels have never faced a weapon like this, out here...probably have no countermeasures for it.  But there's really only one way to find out."

He grinned, and asked, again, "Can it be done here onboard?  How long would it take?  Could I possibly have four or five before we hit the Angels again?  Just enough for proof of concept...if it works, we can get a munitions plant working on them for us."

 Watching the   sketch,   his eyes  followed  as he listened.well?  we have the  Casings., we can modify the war head, for   the weapo we have  now.. we can  , certainly   get a few rounds  before next  jump off.. we  might   get  one  load out  for sure..., But?  that will slow down the Normal  Round  production the Tech's  do, so its  a trade off, but  it will get them  in yoru  machine  sooner. If they work  we can  ramp up on variant  or the other, .. when get any kind of  down  time, we  can  switch the  runs  off and one for  each one, if they don't  work out here, they may come in Handy for ground support?

 he was already  tapping out  COM Text to the   tech Lab foreman.

Karl nodded.  "I don't want to start production on them, in earnest, until we've actually seen if they'll work the way I hope they will.  If you can get me five or ten before we get sent back out, I can try it on the next Angel ship I fly by, and that should tell us pretty quickly whether or not we want to try production."

He thought for a minute, then nodded.  "Have them set aside the ion rounds for now...I'm still interested in pursuing those, but these should have a more immediate payoff for us and be more broadly applicable."  He grinned, and added, "If they can get me five, I'll see about scaring up a bottle of century-old whiskey.  If they can make it ten, I'll push for a case."

  The Man Chuckles,we'll see , eh? Captain.  Its a damn good  thing  that Brass gets   caught. reloading  them and recycling the bad ones  saves alot of time.., once  we get that warhed  configured, everything else  should  be easier. anyway? beats starting from scratch.

Karl nodded.  "The warhead for these is a pretty basic metal shell...just needs to be enough to hold its shape until it reaches the target.  It's like the opposite extreme from those ion rounds I thought up..."  The ion rounds were complex, multi-stage charges that had to go off just right to have the desired effect...and if they weren't built to specs, they could potentially cripple the Morningstar before it ever got around to firing them.

"Those guys could probably build something like this in their sleep.  The only thing I'm not sure about is the inert layer, but I'm sure they have a variety of options available...something highly viscous, so it doesn't just splash off the metaglass in zero atmosphere, and holds the explosive charge as it flattens out on top of it.  But otherwise?  This is going basic to basic round construction principles.  If anything, they're gonna think I'm crazy for even wanting to try it...and they might be right.  But if it works the way it did a couple of centuries ago..."

He gave an evil little chuckle.  "It's gonna be a really nasty surprise for bridge crews we run into.  And as long as we destroy or capture the ships we use it on, nobody should get a chance to discover what it is we're doing...not like they're used to metaglass spall flying around the bridge, so without survivors to explain it..."  He grinned and shrugged.

"But we'll see, I guess."

 He gave a Salute   to  Karl, as he  said.....On it! even as he jogged to the Labs, his COM was going off, and he answered on the Run.

 ....................

 others  moved  about,  some of the pilots  were leaning against the crates  and Barrels  ay the stern end of the hanger  trying to doze, or talk softly as they drank water or soda.

Tarja’s brow would wrinkle in a way that Andruss would recognise as Tarja trying to work out if she had either said the wrong words or mispronounced something leading to her being misunderstood ”no, not Captain he was little heavy handed but was doing job…I meant crew chief that thought it best to shout across dec and get them in trouble rather than have quiet word” she slowly explained feeling that the entire situation could have been handled a lot better and avoid the entire scene that had unfolded.

Upon seeing Andruss’ reaction to her teasing she would silently berate herself for forgetting that he hadn’t had much experience when it came to dating and that there was a very real chance that she was the closest he’d had to a girlfriend ”Well no one has come shouting for me…so…if you wanted to spend some time in your quarters we could do…” she replied, leaving it up to him to decide where and how he wanted to spend his time.