One Marine to Another

Posted on Sat Apr 2nd, 2022 @ 4:49pm by Captain Natalya Markova & Captain Calypso Skyie

Mission: Pirates! (Or Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle Of Yum)
Location: Captain's Quarters

ON

Nat leaned back in her chair, staring at the ceiling. Pretend to be a cargo ship. Get ambushed. Don't know the fire-power. Don't know the full scope of enemy tactics. If this were a ground mission, she'd give them 10% chance of coming out in one piece. In space? She just shook her head. It was finally time to try and speak reason.

Getting up, the Marine left her office and headed for the turbolift. It was late, but she hoped not too late. The ride to Deck 3 was a short one, and Nat made herself walk to the captain's quarters. She still wasn't sure what she'd say, but a personal meeting, after hours... it would allow her to be more free with her words, and hope the captain didn't drop on her like an anvil.

Standing outside the door, Nat's hand hovered for the merest of moments before she tapped the chime. No turning back.

Cally looked up blearily from the couch she was curled on and realized that she’d drifted off to take a nap. She was just so bloody tired all the time right now, which was what the docs said would happen as she recovered. She sat up and stretched as seconds passed and she realized what had woken her was someone at her door, “Enter?” She called out, glancing down to make sure she was decent, the Federation Marine Corp sweats she tended to lounge in just… Comfortable.

Nat entered the room, and almost stopped cold when she saw the other woman, on the couch, in ... the corners of her mouth quirked into a half-smile. Marine sweatpants. She didn't even know the replicators had them. Good to know. "Captain, my apologies, I didn't realise you were resting, I could come back some other time...?"

“Nope, nope, really don’t have the time to just sleep the day away.” Cally shook her head slowly, “Too much to do with Alex helping out Engineering, plus figuring out tactics for what we’re going to do. The Federation doesn’t use Q-ships and most of the other navies don’t either, except the Ferengi, but they’re very different in their goals. So grab a seat, feel free to grab a coffee or something from the replicator, then start talking.” She smiled as she tucked her bare feet under herself, “I promise I won’t fall asleep on you!”

Nat got herself a de-caf coffee - she really didn't need the added caffeine to her system - and took a seat, wondering where to start. "I wanted to come and talk, Marine to Marine." She took a breath, and let it out slowly. "With all due respect, Captain. You need to seriously listen to me when I say that the Q-ship idea is the worse of the two plans. Yes, they are both dangerous, but the one we are walking into is infinitely more dangerous." She had started, and her words were almost falling over the next to get out. "You were a ground pounder for what? Three years? As an enlisted. Corporal, when you moved to being a pilot."

This felt like too much of an interrogation, tearing apart a respected career. Nat shifted tactics. "I'm sure you heard about Yarrick. An entire Regiment wiped out in less than 4 hours. Marine casaulties, pilots from the 'Robert Jackson'... over two-thousand died." 'Why did I live?' Nat pushed the thought aside. She had to stay focused. "Dexic. I advised putting all of the Marines on the planet." Her voice was getting louder now, the fresh pain making her angry. "I bloody well said we needed to secure the Away Teams. I was over-ruled. One of 'my'-" she emphasized that word "-Marines was murdered on the viewscreen right in fucking front of me."

She turned, facing the woman who could end her career in a heart-beat. Bring it. She was done pussy-footing around. It was about time someone put a stop to this insanity. "You claim that pretending to be pirates puts us in more danger. By who's metric? I've planned ambushes - I was bloody well in the middle of the worst of them." Twice, if you count the bar-brawl in London. "My Officer training was for a Rifle unit. Platoon, Company. I was training for Company XO. I know what we're walking into." Desperation was rising. She couldn't lose anyone else. Couldn't send any more letters to parents. "I'm 26 years old, and I've lost more fucking friends and colleagues than anyone on this ship has even had in their lives!"

A sound caught in Nat's throat. "All I do is clean up the mess after a shit-storm rolls through my life. Captain... Cally. Please, don't send us into an ambush."

At two points during the rant, Calypso had opened her mouth to interrupt, but hadn't. Finally, she'd just focused on the other woman until she'd run out of words, then in a voice as cold as ice and just as sharp as a broken shard, pointed at a chair, "Take off your jacket and sit."

Nat stood, she set her commbadge on a small side table, and removed her jacket, folding it neatly. Sitting back down in the green undershirt and trousers, the woman looked at Cally, waiting for the bomb to drop.

Cally closed her eyes and exhaled, going through a brief mental exercise to calm herself, then opened them to look at the hazel ones of the brunette in front of her. "You're right, that aside from a single person on board this ship, you've lost more friends and well.. Colleagues is the right word for everyone. You lost just shy of two thousand just at Fort Yarrick." She shook her head slightly, "A tragic loss." Cally admitted, "But you're wrong about me, I was in the infantry for just over a year and a half and of that, only two of it was on the actual front lines." She paused for a moment, "At the start of the Dominon War."

She exhaled again, pulling up memories, "Company C of the Fifth Battalion of the Fourth Marines, I was a skinny eighteen year old Private First Class when we were deployed to one of the first worlds in their path of invasion. The Fleet fought theirs to a stalemate, but they'd gotten their troops down before both sides backed off. Intelligence later discovered that they used this planet as a testbed to see how their Jem'Hadar would fare against us. We were in honest to the Four TRENCHES when they attacked. Imagine being there, eighteen on your first deployment with a phaser rifle in hand watching thousands of enemies running towards you, heedless of losses, some with disruptors, others with just blades. The Gunny was next to me, but he died after they got to the trenches. Corporal Masters next to me took a disruptor bolt to the face. I died there, or should have, when one of them jumped down into the trench right in front of me. Pissed myself in terror, but that was how the Gunny died, taking that one down." Cally shook her head, "We got pulled out of the line a couple months later, and I was assigned to the sniper teams, primarily as a spotter. And that was my ground combat role from then on."

Cally sighed deeply, "We suffered nearly 100% casualties on that planet, counting the replacements we'd gotten in. They tended to be the first to die in the attacks, so about six hundred there, though I can't say I really knew any of them. Then I became a pilot, assault shuttles. Sure we lost a few here and there, but as I told you when I met you, I'm a Betazoid and back then I was just about your age the second time I got shot down. Was supposed to be a cold landing, but the separatists had modern anti-air missiles. After we took a few losses in the first minute, we went to our secondary landing slots, I was ordered to take the lead, running down what was supposed to be a protected valley, because sensors didn't pick anything up. For the record, slug-throwing anti-air weapons don't show up worth a damn on sensors. First few shots hit the shields, then the canopy, then Jeremy, an eighteen year old kid on his first drop, exploded in the copilot's chair. Then the entire company in my drop bay bought it in an instant. I. Felt. Them. Die." She let that hang in the air for a second.

"I survived that with a leg injury, should have died there. So after that, I went into fighters, lost some squadron mates there before I crashed after a particularly nasty fight, lost my leg and got dumped out of fighters to recover. I'll spare you the details of most of my career when I changed from the Marines to the Fleet to fly starships, but my last assignment we were chasing pirates on Perseus, Akira class. We'd all served together for most of two years, Captain Taylor and I, her Exec, made a name for ourselves hunting pirates. We went after one of them, Damien Penweather, a former Defiant-class CO who was drummed out after Second Chin'Toka, and cornered him in an asteroid field after taking out the rest of his little group. He mined asteroids and used them as weapons, destroyed Perseus, killing three hundred and sixty-one of my crewmates, including my best friend in the world. Tara Jikanassi was a talented hand to hand fighter, died shrieking with her guts hanging out. At least Mark Lassiter got decapitated at the helm, probably didn't even know what happened. Hank Broadman, our Science guy, well... He got splattered across the back wall with the rock tat barely missed Halcyon Attixx, the only other survivor from the bridge. Marjorie Taylor died when her chair flailed her chest, but I was unconscious when it happened. I only survived because Captain Mahmoud, our senior Marine, sent some of his troops to the bridge to look for survivors."

Calypso gave a slight smile, "But those are the highlights of my own losses. Maybe your right, you lost more if I don't count the rest of the Division. But every single loss we take gets engraved on my heart, not just yours." She made complete eye contact with Nat, "Corporal Pedro Hernandez, Serial Number 834-498-HH, twenty years old, had a girlfriend back home, was waiting to get married before they had kids. One brother, two sisters, both parents still alive. He was due to transfer before we went on our primary mission so he could stay home." It was the name of the Marine that had been executed, "Ensign Hilda Parker, security, just out of the Academy. Chief Petty Officer Barry Goldman, security, eighteen years of service. Sergeant Julian Oriskany, Marine, was going to make Staff on his next review." The three people from the honor guard in the shuttlebay that had died.

"I wrote and recorded those messages and sent them." Cally didn't let the words linger, watching Natalya's reactions, "I screwed up on Dexic, Natalya, me, myself. I didn't want to provoke the protestors by sending down what they could perceive as an invasion, and that was MY mistake. MY fuckup. No, I'm not a ground commander, never have been, never will be. I probably don't deserve to call myself a Marine anymore, being honest about it." She gestured to the sweats she wore, "And I'm not shy about admitting my mistakes. By the Four... I wish you'd spoken a bit more directly at the staff meeting, but I need more to go on than 'don't send us into an ambush.' Believe it or not, I CAN control that situation unless they have a reason to bring in all of their ships. Any single ship of theirs, unless they've got bigger ones I don't know about, I can take. Any two of them, I should be able to handle."

Nat sat, and listened. This woman had let her rant, it was fair she got her own. When she was done, Nat took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. Sometimes it is easy to forget I'm not the only one who has lived through Hell. The Dominion War was..." She waved a hand, she had no right to comment, she had missed it, thank fuck.

"You didn't deserve my anger. I am sorry." She was. Of all the people on this ship who could understand her, it was this woman, who had walked through fire and come out burned, but alive. "I just..." She stopped, words now failing her. "Okay, you need more than just my ..." Call a spade a spade. "You need more than my pleading."

An idea was starting to form. "Starfleet Intelligence is working off reports, ideas, and pieces of data. You need on-the-ground information..." Nat sat up, her eyes bright. "Fire me. With my record, it wouldn't be hard to believe I was way too insubordinate." Fuck did she toe that line tonight. "Fire me, kick me off the ship, I can find these vastards and get you the information first hand." It was still coming together in her mind. "Only I have to risk my neck playing Pirate. I can get in, be a bitch to keep my cover, and get what we need."

“No, I don’t think…” Calypso trailed off as she digested the idea, leaving the apology unremarked. Silence filled the room as her unfinished objection lingered, then she shook her head, “You want to walk into the lion’s own den? By yourself? There would be no backup, no extraction plan, Natalya, no way to escape if they decide not to take chances. I’m sure we can get you in touch with them, in fact Intelligence knows where they recruit from, but I won’t know where you are, hell, I could even kill you myself if you’re on one of their ships!”

"You said yourself none of us chose Starfleet because it was safe. We chose Starfleet to protect those who can't." Nat had remembered the speech in the staff meeting. "The mission is dangerous. No matter which way we slice it, we will face danger. Risk, danger, it is the life we chose." She looked away for a moment. "Please don't think I'm being rash, and throwing myself into the fire." Well, not entirely, anyway. "I want to damn well make sure that the Chimera has the best possible odds of coming out in one piece, and with all crew still on board." She wouldn't be on board when the ship went in, but that was a mere technicality.

"If I'm on one of their ships, wouldn't that be a good thing? I can sabotage weapons, I can fuck with a shield subprocessor, I can steal a fucking shuttle and fly back to the Chimera." She gave a half shrug. "Done it before - sure, I won't have an Engineering Ensign next to me this time, but that's a small detail. Cally... I see I can't change your mind on the plan, fine. I can make damn sure no one on the crew dies because we lacked information. How many times have Marines been screwed by bad Intel? Not this time."

That struck home straight to Cally’s heart. Whenever Intelligence had been wrong, or incomplete, Marines tended to fall. For a moment, she relented, but felt it should be her going instead. Her taking the risk. But, she couldn’t, she was the Skipper, it wouldn’t be believable that SHE was wanting to becoming what she’d been known for hunting. “You can even lead them straight into an ambush of MY choosing, if you can convince them of the right information. And you’ll need something to prove your bonafides to them, some sort of information that they’ll immediately need to act on, that will get you to their higher ups.” She mused aloud, “It’ll take you three days to get to Medron from here, where Intelligence says they get rid of some of their cargoes. And no one can know of this, literally you and me, we don’t want to risk any sort of information leak because that would get you killed on the spot.”

"That'll make things fun when I get back." Nat was thinking of the Class-1 fit the Gunny would give her. If she got back. There were no guarantees in this. "Well, if there's nothing else, I should probably go pack my stuff."

“Not if this is going to be believed.” Calypso disagreed, “I need to get dressed and we need to figure out how to get YOU into a fair heap of trouble so I can shitcan you in public for cause. You’re going to be a pariah for a while, but we will fix that when you get back, you have my word.”

"I could hit on Rei." Nat had never once got a ping off the woman, and there were so many regulations against it.

“I’d pay to see that one!” Calypso laughed, trying and failing to blush, because she’d been guilty of that sort of thing, but usually with the guys, and with success, “But not good enough.. I did hear, though, that some of the station security types at one of the bars were saying that Marines were only good for shooting out of airlocks to the tune of some pipes.”

Nat raised an amused eyebrow. "I could get drunk and start a bar fight. Wouldn't be all that suspicious either. Hell, it's literally in my record."

“And I do believe that the assumption was that if you got in another fight, you’d get kicked out on your ass.” Calypso said brightly, “So if you give me an hour, or would two be better? Either way, that’ll give me enough time to get all spruced up and look awake and need a stroll on the promenade of the station, just in time for you to get into said fight and we can make a big spectacle out of the whole thing.”

The Captain paused for a moment, something was missing... "Before we do that, though... You need something too valuable to pass up..." She mused for several seconds, "Three weeks from now, we'll convoy to Dexic. Our cargo will be humanitarian supplies and an economic package to entice them to join the Federation instead of remaining independent. We're keeping it quiet, because we're short on escort ships. Think that'll be enough for them to bite on?"

"Cargo, and possibly keep a new planet out of the Federation, isolated, and easy to pick?" Nat nodded. "I'm sure that would be if interest. I'll head over to the Starbase in about an hour.." She slid her jacket back on, picking her commbadge up from the table. "Two things." She added, before putting the badge back on. "First, I really hope you can square this with Command when all is said and done. I'd hate to still be fired after all this is done."

"Oh, you'll be welcomed back, especially if you succeed, but I'll make sure that they're aware of what happened and why after the fact. I don't want any sort of information leak putting you in any more danger." Calypso agreed with her.

"The second... Once you're a Marine, you're always a Marine. Never doubt yourself on that. Semper Fi, Captain." With that, Nat gave the woman a nod, and headed out, mentally preparing for what she was about to do.

Cally managed to wait until the door slid closed behind Nat before she exhaled deeply at that last statement. It meant a lot to her that Nat thought of her as still a Marine, more than she could say. But, there was still some preparation for Nat's mission and Calypso picked up a blank PADD and began to compose a message, information on where she planned to take the ship, even the name she was going to run under, and as she typed, even more of an idea, one to give Nat even more of an edge.

Now... If it would only work.

OFF