Military Democracy

[Jayce]

Chief Petty Officer Glenn "Rattlegun" Hereford
Deck Crew 3, Maintenance, Resupply, and Refueling

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A not-quite-ancient, not-quite-young maintenance crewman stood, rather than sat, glaring daggers at the "chief" engineer. Someone might wear the rank, be addressed by the title, but they weren't The Chief, capital-T, capital-C, until the crew said so. Surrounding him was a sizable cadre of non-coms, a little elective body that had existed long before Augustus deigned to create his own. Every man and woman jack sported grease stained overalls rather than uniforms, and there was not a medal or shining bit of gold between them. The closest thing to a "decoration" any of the ladies and gentlemen of the Klaxon's flight deck crew wore were injuries. A missing eye, lopped-off fingers, scorched cheeks, singed hair, torn coveralls, even a prosthetic foot hastily assembled from whatever scrap wasn't already being used to repair the birds. For years, that had been their lot in life: sacrificing little bits of themselves to keep other people flying. What was a missed night of sleep, or a severed pinkie, or a torso crushed under failing landing gear compared to the glory of True Libertonian Values? Of Freedom? Of all The Things That Make Our House Great? Taking a step forward to survey the majority of the crew, Hereford spoke:

"Hell of a 'democracy' we're running. I see missing bodies, Cap'. Where's Stevens? Rosabel? Chora? Looks a lot to me like we're leaving out the little guys, or were my boys and girls left fueling the air group not important enough to bring along? And you..."

Turning to address Morgan in particular, the scarred, bedraggled man fixed the "chief engineer" in a withering gaze.

"'Strip the stars and stripes off the Klaxon ourselves'? That's what we've been doing for months, years now. Look at you, in your armor, spouting empty platitudes about honor and integrity, blood and sacrifice. I don't remember seeing you on the flight deck when we had to space Kikko. Remember her? The little Kusarian girl that crawled up into the engine compartment of a flaming Executioner to try and shut the reactor down? Saved the whole damn ship being gutted from the inside out. Yeah. Bet you don't, and that makes you one of the lucky ones. Hell, half of us are still trying to forget. She melted, right in front of all of us, and we couldn't even hold her while she screamed. Couldn't tell her she 'done good', that she saved every soul on this god-forsaken ship. Nothin'."

With a grimace and a barely-suppressed tear from his one good eye, Glenn spared a glance towards his crew, the young men and women he'd fought to protect from the ravages of space and time, from the Navy, the Security Force, angry snub-jocks, and the ever-furious CAG. Cally was still on crutches after an unfortunate run-in with the cockpit glass of a Liberator, set to auto-seal after some big-shot interceptor pilot decided to disembark early for a celebratory drink. The composite-reinforced shell nearly took the limb off, all so a glory hound could high-five his buddies two seconds sooner. Not even an apology. Just another incident report for the books. She was still wearing that damnable, slightly-crooked smile, despite it all. A little sunbeam in the cold black of space.

"Fuck it, I've already talked too much. I, we, say 'no' to the 'Sairs. That doesn't mean we should set a precedent, neither. We've all done nasty things in our oh-so-illustrious careers with the Navy, with the Commonwealth, with the 'Insurgency.' You ask me-..."

A pause, as a dozen and two chalk lines were drawn and tallied beneath the "no" column, one for each member of the incongruously-named Deck Crew 3, the last little family keeping fighters in the air.

"...We're not all that much better than the Cretans, and maybe, just maybe, we should lower our standards, just that little bit. My people have to eat, Cap'. We're not robots. I'll stick my dick in with half-decent pirates any day of the week to keep my people fed, but the Corsairs don't make a fuck in my book."



// I am not voting as 14 people. An agreement has been made with the "owner" of this roleplay regarding the Deck Crew.

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