Entering a few moments after the rest of the squadron, Volsung paused at the entranceway and scanned those in attendance before making his way to the bar where the other newly-minted Captains had gathered. He smiled and offered a hand to them and the unfamiliar woman, "Volsung. We had little time to speak in the Ready Room; the Angantyr is an assault boat. But Captain Karsen is right, its a sharp knife we're wielding"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:11, Wed 22 Jan 2020.

Zazan had walked to the lounge with Arne and Oscar but turned away upon seeing the lounges trappings, muttering something under his breath as he did so.

Diana shook hands with Volsung, and now noticed that the unfamiliar woman was in fact part of their group, rather than someone she had previously assumed to be sitting nearby out of happenstance. She looked somewhat concerned.

- "...And yet, i cannot shake the feeling there is more to this mission."

She looked at the others, gently nibbling at a corner of her lip. The drink was ready, purple umbrella and all, and she plucked it off before gently closing it and placing it next to her drink. She then took a sip through the straw, and briefly closed her eyes in bliss. She then turned back to the others, spotting Zazan at the entrance, but briefly looked disappointed when he turned away. No matter, she could send him a message later.

- "After we've inspected our ships and crews, i'd like to have a small strategy meeting. Call it a hunch, but something about this doesn't sit well with me, and i would be remiss not bringing it to your attention. If we are going to work together, we shouldn't be afraid of sharing our opinions."

Gesturing to the barman for a beer, Volsung agreed with Diana's concerns, "It would be surprising if it was a cake run, whether deliberately or not... so I was going to suggest something ... tonight or tomorrow. I would welcome opinions on how we approach things and figured that poring over the briefing pack together with something greasy and full of MSG would tell us whether there were any particular lens we wanted to apply to ships and crew..."
This message was last edited by the player at 14:12, Wed 22 Jan 2020.

Diana hmmed for a moment, before adding her opinion.

- "Better tomorrow then. Today's likely going to be packed with ship tours and crew inspections, so we'll have a better grasp of where our strengths and weaknesses lay. Blueprints can only say so much."

Smiling, Oscar shook Mistress Santos' hand and returned the introduction. When Diana joined them, Oscar raised his drink. "The Harald Wartooth will keep our little group afloat," he said, taking a bit of a defensive tone. He was there to prove that he was more than a simple repair jockey.

Oscar listened and then nodded. "Agreed. Tomorrow for a strategy meeting. My ship is much smaller crew wise, but I have bunkers and stores to ensure they are in proper order. We need to make sure that we can support ourselves out on the frontier. But, that is a conversation for tomorrow!", Oscar said and took a drink.

Smiling and mumbling his thanks, Volsung took the beer from the barman and then turned back to his comrades and shrugged, "From our briefing, I had understood the Commander wanting us casting off shortly after six hundred tomorrow morning? At least, as soon as our ships and crews were ready?"

The young junior officer is of your rank, but perhaps not your courage and in any case, you bear the command bar above your rank marking you as first among equals, Masters of your own vessels. She sips her vodka tonic quietly nodding as she listens to you speak, curious about the new captains aboard the station. You gather from her short replies and interjections that she's been in the system aboard the Black Swan for some months now and that she operates the engineering department aboard that frigate. Currently the fusion core is undergoing a refit so they've been in port for weeks with nothing to do but polish their boots.

Diana gave a casual shrug in response.

- "Not a problem. After the inspection, we'll be leaving port, waiting out of the station's navigation lanes to get in formation and crawl our way to the edge of the system for jumping. Should take a couple of hours easy, more than enough to squeeze a meeting into."

Arne shrugs "I'm easy.  If you want the meeting shortly, we can.  If possible though, I'd like to meet my crew and walk the Sigfred before we have to face any dragons.  But that could also be when next the watches turn over."

OCC: 'Traditional' Watch schedule? Five-and-Dime? Two or Three section? Swedish Sixes?
 If I may, being a sailor, (though not navy) may I suggest a 6-18 schedule?  6 hrs on, 18 off.
 For a 20-man frigate, that means full coverage is 4 sections of 5, with ample room for rest as well as repair and maintenance.

Sensing the other Captain's preference for review underway, Volsung nodded. He would have preferred something beforehand, in case there were requisitions to be made or other adjustments, but he had time enough for a first pass of the material himself. He smiled and turned to the junior officer who had found herself drawn to their orbit, "... and how's the mood on Hallus, Lieutenant? You must be seeing ships and crew passing through with the Black Swan undergoing refit..."

Although she seems something between anxious and eager, she relays that other than her ship, most of the others have been here for a week or less at a time. Aside from crew rotations, store replenishment and refueling, most of the vessels bound through here are fresh and ready for battle.

The rumors are wild and varied: Some say there's a hidden Order of Brotherhood Crusaders who have rebuild beyond the Dead Zone and are returning in even greater numbers to destroy the Hegemony. The usual rumors are there too, some more credible than others. Bizarre alien vessels have been spotted by private prospectors, behaving in an impossible manner beyond Ultima Black and Farpoint. A new pirate king has emerged in the Dead Zones, rumored to be a long lost scion of the nameless House-in-Exile. Old Terra has returned and is seeking to once again reclaim all worlds that were hers with technology and weapons surpassing even the days of old.

As an astral officer and spacer, you know better than to put stock in such rumors. As long as there are bored midshipmen and spacer's bars, there will be outlandish stories of the Black.

Arne chuckles lightly; "Ah, the Pirate King one.  I've heard that before.  I've always liked that one.  Still, I'll take the 'under'.  A pirate or three, sure; could be some Brotherhood that 'ran away to fight another day' and are now just lost in the Black.  But aliens? Fairy Queens? Old Terra?" he sighs.  "Well, it's as good as any for divertissme.  I prefer armored slamball though; I think the Serpents (Black & Blue forever) have a solid chance this year in the all-worlds. We're going to miss the championship, but I'll take the Sigfred as my championship trophy any day of the week."

Oscar laughed at Arne comment about slamball. “They are going to to have to get past the green and gold of my Ironclads first! Divisionals are always the true test for a deep run. Lots of teams get bumped off then,” he commented and took a drink. He refused to finish in one slug, however and instead shifted topics.

“How about a bet on what is out there? Ten credits on rogue Brotherhood. Seems the most likely scenario. Arne, your take? Anybody else? Does the Black Swan want this action?”, Oscar asked with a grin and raised eyebrow.

She laughs nervously, perhaps not used to so much attention. She declines to place a bet on anything as she thinks they're all just stories, but she says that if you insist, she thinks this whole thing is part of some sort of readiness exercise to test the strength of the fleet since the war has ended. The Novarchy and the House Leadership wants to see what the impact of the war was on experience, discipline and of course what the quality of the newest recruits and captains are.

She suggests that perhaps it's posturing in preparation another inter-house war, either to prevent one or encourage one. Ultimately, she shrugs and says she's not sure, but she really wishes they'd get underway soon.

- "Nah. My money's on pirates, maybe flying ex-Brotherhood ships, but hiding out in the Dead Zone either way. Not much in shipping, but my guess is they're broking ships and weapons on the black market."

Diana took another sip of her drink as she gave her opinion on what they might run into. She didn't think the Brotherhood was that much of a threat anymore, but that meant they had a lot of ships they could no longer afford to maintain, and a lot of those would have been sold off to dubious sources.

“I have to say, I like Santos’ action.  This all could well be fleet readiness.  Not a bad angle at all.  Fairly adroit, and I kinda wish I’d though of it. Still, a bet’s a bet.  What do you want on that 2:3? 4:5? Shoeshine? Dinner?” Arne’s smile was friendly, non-hostile, but yet...

Declining to bet himself, Volsung smiled and shrugged, “I’m just pleased to put on the Ship Masters stripe and it not be a shakedown cruise in Havenspire”

"Excellent point.  Ah well, probably best not to bet anyway.  I'm going to freshen my drink and introduce myself to some of the others.  I'm ready when you all are for a quick strategy session; provided that I've had some time to meet my crew and go over the mission parameters on the Veritech. Cheers."  Arne raises his drink and heads off to mingle.

Oscar said a farewell to Arne and looked at his own drink. With still some in it, Oscar looked at Diana. “So, what were you doing before this assignment?”, he asked.

Diana looked at Arne, placing her drink back on the counter to avoid spilling it over the pants of her uniform.

- "Me? Not much, had most of my education at a smaller academy orbiting Bothislia. Made Ensign without a hitch, spent a year working my way up to XO on the Destroyer Thakun and... well, here i am."

She paused for a few seconds, before smirking.

- "Okay, so i made that sound way more exciting than it actually was. The Thakun is a great ship, but it's owned by a House that's been in decline for a while now, so they've signed a partnership with that Academy to use it as a training ship. Keeps it affordable for them while also saving face. Most of its crew are Ensigns leading a rotation of underclassmen these days, so they can train students as well as let their graduates gain a little experience at the same time."

She took a deep, audible breath before taking a quick sip and turning back to Oscar.

- "So, nothing all too glorious i'm afraid... How about you?"

There is a small group of other officers that look approachable, other young men and women who seem more approachable. It occurs to Karsen that actually, there aren't that many senior officers in the whole club at the moment.

Oscar nodded his head as Diana told her story. When it came time for his reply, Oscar looked at his drink. “Nothing as exciting as second in command of a destroyer. House or not, that is a great accomplishment. I just finished a tour as the commanding officer of the salvage team aboard the Diving Bell, an Iridium-class Rescue Tender. We spent the tour extracting the cruiser Lestate from an asteroid. The ship had a drill mishap and emerged with a majority of her neatly embedded inside the asteroid. By the time we cut her free and removed the debris, we could fire up the main reactors and let her coast on internal power. She will need to be in the yards for a year to refit, but the Lestate will serve again,” Oscar finished.

He looked around, “I have to say, I’m looking forward to doing something beside simple repair and recovery. I have been doing that long enough. If we get into a scrape out on the frontier, I want to be able to say I wasn’t forced to the side lines.”

- "Hey, like i said, most of the excitement was serving on an actual Destroyer where most were expecting 'Vettes and private sector ships. And the second in command was technical, it would be more accurate to say i was one of the graduates apprenticed under the captain, and since the other teachers were department heads they could still overrule me. Like i said... Academy ship. But hey, bragging rights~!"

Diana picked up her drink, and motioned it at Oscar after he was done with his own tale.

- "See, you've been in a cruiser, and you've seen action outside of simulations. Most exciting story i got was one of my roommates in the Engineering track going nuts on designing her own ship, blueprints and everything. She was pretty hyped about the possibility to design the ship she would end up serving on. All hobby level, of course, but if i spot a ship of the type name within the next ten years or so, i know it'll be hers. Got to have a dream, right?"

She took another long sip, and placed the glass on the counter again.

- "So, you just want to see some action, or do you have a dream to chase beyond that?"

Listening politely to the chatter between the other Captains, Volsung sipped on his beer before excusing himself after a time - seeking out the other small huddle of officers