Mardy Bum

Posted on Sat Oct 17th, 2020 @ 5:51am by

Mission: The Thorion Conundrum Mission Brief
Location: 2LT J. Bailey quarters
Timeline: Mission Day 6

“There are 15 minutes until the start of your day Lieutenant Bailey.” The innocuous voice echoed over the comm system.

Joseph let out a begrudging groan. He’d already been awake for 20 minutes, but had spent the time conducting his morning routine of putting off getting out of bed and opting to tell himself the lie that he was slowly waking himself up by staying under his duvet and reading frivolous and innocuous social posts by the crew of the ship on his PADD.

“Thank you Sergeant.” He replied politely. Having a Sergeant from his unit calling him with wake up reminders probably wasn’t the most professional act but needs must. It had been less than a week since he’d reported for duty on the Leto, his first proper posting since completing his officer training, and he’d been settling into the role with some teething troubles.

Sitting upright and swinging his legs out, off the side of the bed, the young marine rubbed his eyes and ran his hands through his thick, brown hair and ruffled it in an attempt to jolt some energy into himself.

It had been years since he’d left his old, carefree and lazy lifestyle behind and whilst he’d put on a decent enough show at officer training in terms of vigour to not be thrown out, old habits still die hard and years of having the opportunity to get out of bed in the afternoon if he wanted to still haunt him as a privilege of a life now over.

Mustering the energy to step out of his bed, across his small officer’s quarters and into his en-suite bathroom, the marine picked up his toothbrush and absent-mindedly started his morning routine, thinking of the day ahead.

It wasn’t the posting he’d expected so far. Having come out of officer training, Joseph had been assigned to Starbase 50 for further reassignment as and when the necessity arose. He took this as whenever a ship comes in that’s had a skirmish out there in the dark, murderous void of space and had regrettably lost a marine officer onboard, it would be his ticket off the Starbase as a replacement officer.

It had only been a matter of months that Joe had been idling at Starbase 50, there wasn’t too much to do by the way of actual work. He’d taken some seminars on combat leadership, anti-piracy ship securing tactics and the like, but being on a base as a new officer in a detachment of untold hundreds of marines meant you were never first pick when something comes up, which was rare anyway.

Months of firing ranges, holosuite scenarios, classroom-based lectures, they were all things to get out of the way before having his downtime, which was the real perk of life on a station. It wasn’t a starship where there’s only the same 300 people milling about month-after-month, going to the only two lounges on the ship and being wary of upsetting someone because it’s difficult to avoid them when you’re trapped on a flying tin can together for the next few months.

A starbase had a regularly changing set of faces as ships made port for a few days, a plethora of social options, was big enough to hide if you upset the wrong person and most importantly, wasn’t permanent.

However, it wasn’t that long until his unit’s CO had called Bailey in to talk to, at which point he was expecting a stern word for his socialising antics, but instead was issued orders to report to a Norway class cruiser for deployment. It was an exciting time, to actually be going out there.

It was at that moment he realised he’d been brushing his teeth for an excessively long time.

Cursing to himself he jumped into the sonic shower, now in a full-tilt rush to not be late, he had no interest in receiving a dressing down from the MCO. He was a tall man with a formidable forehead, and it was apparent he was a commanding officer keen to have his unit as the best in the fleet.

There had been days of drills and holosuite scenarios, the same as before, but also the occasional odd moment. On his first day they were performing complex parade manoeuvres in front of the ship’s command staff while singing Sam Cooke songs, although Joe had always been partial to the Otis Redding version himself.

Then they had a talking to from the angriest First Sergeant in the quadrant. An older man with a glorious moustache, a flair for verbal abuse and the lung capacity of a man that had made a living from making loud and intimidating noises. The picturesque vision of life out amongst the stars that they show teenagers to entice them into service this was not.

“Lieutenant Bailey there’s 5 minutes left.” The Sergeant that Joseph had charged with being his chronometer called through again.

“Yeah, no worries, I’m already on my way!” The officer lied, scrambling out of the shower. He’d already placed his uniform next to the shower door in anticipation for this scenario happening and rushed to get clothes on. It didn’t matter if they weren’t done up, that wasn’t a prerequisite for them staying on him when he ran to his station.

Quickly pulling his boots on and swinging his duty jacket over his arms, the soldier sprinted out of the doors as he tried to look down at the zip of his green department shirt, conscious to not knock any passerby over while attempting to do up the zip but failing all the same, knocking a poor unsuspecting crew member’s drink out of their hand and all over them.

“I’m sorry!!” Joe yelled, not stopping to check back on them. There was no time. The last thing you want is First Sergeant Old Father Time shouting in your face that you should have been given away at birth, first thing in the morning.

Luckily making a turbolift with it’s doors open and heading down to what was known as Marine Country,’ even though it was nowhere near the size of a country, the 2nd Lieutenant fixed his gold bar rank insignia to his collar as the doors slid open. Breaking into a full sprint to the doorway, he subtly slowed to a casual walk as he entered, so as to hide his tardiness.

“Made it.” Bailey said with a self-satisfied look on his face to his helpful Sergeant. “Never any doubt, I am the picture of focus and punctuality.”