Not Easy Being Green

Posted on 28 Mar 2019 @ 12:29pm by First Lieutenant Eleanor Hargreaves (Dec-Jan 2389 - TRNSFR After Gorn War) & Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Walken

Mission: Ka Hakaka Maikaʻi - The Good Fight
Location: Lounge
Timeline: T-5 days to Canterra

Kyle Walken had just finished running last minute drills with some of the people that would be joining him with the Frog Squad mission. After the others had left he stopped himself from returning to the barracks, he had had a drink since before he was a POW. A dangerous mission was coming up for the Sergeant and he had some free time, figured it was now or never to have some liquid courage.

The trip to Canterra was requiring its own form of endurance - endurance at waiting, endurance at consuming every relevant record Hargreaves could get her hands on pertinent to the Gorn conflict ten years prior. She'd been there; she'd fought Gorn, she'd seen them in action. But a decade was a long time. And besides. She hadn't been an officer then.

So she was thoroughly sick of the array of PADDs she'd brought with her down to the lounge, because it was easier to concentrate when there was hubbub around her, oddly. But with enough hours of it she did need a break, and finished rubbing her eyes in time to spot Walken's arrival.

She didn't make a show of it. Raised a beckoning hand in greeting, pushed the chair across from her out with a foot. Gave him that welcoming look that wasn't really a smile, but suggested that might be her expression if she were more prone to it. "Sergeant; join me, if you'd like. You look worn and I could use the distraction."

Kyle was already thinking of his flask he keeps in his footlocker when he noticed someone gesturing to him, it took him a few seconds to notice the rank on her collar as a First Lieutenant. He knew better than to keep an officer waiting. "Worn out? Not yet, all I did was show people how to walk like the Gorn. But I have been told I am a good distraction, what can I do for you L.T.?"

"I've no intention to pry," she said sincerely. "And it's good to see you're getting back into work, and that we have your expertise to call on. I think most of our Marines hadn't fought the Gorn before the Battle of Xavier. It's easy to underestimate them." Her lips thinned as she thought; she hadn't meant to make this a purely professional observation of a superior. "I wanted to make sure you were settling well after your ordeal."

"Hey as long as you are not ordering me to the therapist as the others have, I've gone." He laughed softly as he sat down. "To be honest I didn't really get to fight them or have much intel on them, I was a captive who at least I think scared them away because they couldn't break me and I fought back." The Marine never broke eye contact with the Lieutenant. "Settling well, most of the Marines seem happy to have a new person in the barracks. Personally, I think they like me because I haven't really barked any orders."

"Clearly, you and I have subscribed to different schools of sergeant-ing," Hargreaves observed wryly. She sipped her drink. "And you don't need to have fought the Gorn to have some understanding of them. I find the inexperienced assume them either to be dumb, or monstrous. Underestimating our enemies or turning them into bogeymen is unhelpful. Anything that helps shed the troops of these illusions is invaluable."

Kyle noticed the L.T.'s drink before he looked back into her eyes. "Only a fool underestimates any enemy, anyone can be dangerous when backed into a corner. But I shared everything I knew, if anyone still thinks they are dumb meat heads then I would second guess having them deploy down there."

"They're learning," Hargreaves assured him. "They've fought them, now, and they're listening to Marines with more experience. It's just part of the battle we have to fight before we even disembark. Half of war's about our own heads, anyway." She hesitated, actual doubt crossing her face now - not at her words. It was a more human flicker, a hint of social anxiety that she'd cornered him when it hadn't been her intention. "If you wanted to get a drink - if you had elsewhere to be - I don't mean to keep you, Sergeant," she said, with the slightest stumble on her words.

"Trust me L.T. I'm just a Sergeant, I don't have anywhere to be right now." Walken did stand up. "But I do hear a glass of whiskey calling my name so I shall return in one second. He was gone for just a short time before he returned with a glass of whiskey, he sat back down and took a single drink. "So L.T. what can I do for you? Or is this an informal meet and greet?"

"Informal," Hargreaves admitted. "Despite the boarding mission I haven't clocked that much time with my team. Running as many exercises as I can so we gel without burning out has kept me busy, and there's still plenty of background reading to do ahead of more contact with the Gorn. I was trying to wind down up here." She looked at the stack of official reading she'd brought up to the lounge with her. "I may not be very good at it."

Walken listened to her words and really thought about them, "I take it you were enlisted and then took part of officer's training later on." He was curious as to if he was right. "Well if you were not good at what you did you wouldn't be here right? So in my mind, you are right where you should be ma'am."

There was a moment where she watched him, eyebrow quirking, before her expression cleared. "I meant I'm apparently not very good at winding down," she said, and at least sounded wry, amused. "But you have the right of it, Sergeant. I was enlisted for six years before going to the Academy. And I appreciate the vote of confidence." If anything, she sounded a little embarrassed; it was hard to tell with someone who emoted as little as Hargreaves.

"Well then I can look up to you L.T. I plan to do that one day, go back for officer's training. But until then I shall just keep doing what I must and for now it's leading this Frog Squad op down on the planet when we get there." Walken took a large drink from his whiskey as he set down the glass, the waiting was the worst part to him he would rather just began the drop already.

"That's a hell of a job that needs doing," Hargreaves accepted. "I'd say it's the kind of op that looks good on your record when it comes to putting your name forward for officer training. But it looks best if you walk away from it alive. How's the team?"

"I guess yes, but right now the important thing is to try and get my team out alive," Kyle spoke softly. "Completing the mission is the goal but I'm shooting to get everyone out alive."

"Always should be," she agreed. "Brass's sticky fingers are all over this campaign. There's probably someone safe behind a desk in San Francisco looking at how unpopular Starfleet are for 'letting' this invasion happen as hard and fast as it did, so they're pretty hungry for a hard and fast victory on our side. Sometimes that makes brass value hearts and minds at home more than keeping down the Purple Hearts." She clicked her tongue, expression wry. "But I wouldn't still be here if I didn't think we can win this. You're just right; we have to look after the troops while we're at it."

"Brass for the most part only cares about the results, they don't mind if a body counts if left at the base of the hill as long as what remains is standing at the top," Kyle spoke almost in a whisper as he took another drink, he didn't always agree with military brass but he was enlisted it really wasn't his place to talk bad about them. "I plan to keep them alive, at least to the best of my ability."

The corner of Hargreaves' lips twitched in an approximate hint of a smile. "That's the best we can do. We can't promise it, we can guarantee nothing." She sobered. "But at least make sure, if worst comes to worst... neither we nor the team dies for nothing."

Walken raised up his glass, "To making sure that we all get through this alive."

Hargreaves shifted her grip on her drink, and thought of Corporal Biggs. And others, more than she cared to recall, some of which whose faces and even names had slipped from memory over the last twelve years. She lifted the glass. "I'll drink to that."