The Flagship [OPEN]

[leafonthewind]

Wash rarely went anywhere but the bridge of the Quarter - the whole thing felt creepily like an Alliance ship and the bridge was a smaller space, easier to deal with after Serenity's tight places.

Not that it was much better on the bridge. Wash sometimes felt like he was in a vast fishbowl, standing out on the end of the bridge. It was built in the thrust, three sides surrounded by air and railings. Luckily the consoles were high enough that no-one was likely to get vertigo.

Wash went straight to his station, running his hand over the console. Even in a ship this high-tech they knew that the pilot had to feel her to fly.

"She's not my first love but she's well enough," he said.

Comments

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

It doesn't take Eva long to figure out where she's going; she scoped out the outside if the Quarter ahead of time, so as to avoid looking like she's incompetent right off the bat. She's no friend to most technology, so despite her enthusiasm she is nervous, and she hasn't felt uncertain about a job for many years now.

The Quarter is large, larger than Edriss' Empire Ship, possibly as large as the Pool Ship, which Edriss had never explored in its entirety. A mile, maybe? Hard to figure by sight alone. Eva finds herself oddly comfortable on it. It's been a while since she was in space but elements of all ships look familiar, and she has to make herself useful somehow.

"Morning, Ensign Washburn. Have some nice gloop for breakfast?"

[leafonthewind]

"Nice isn't the word I'd choose most readily," Wash said. "You don't have to call me Ensign, either - at least not while the Captain or the General aren't here. It's Wash, please."

Ensign Washburne gave him enough of an uncomfortableness when either of them said it. He didn't need everyone else using it too. "How was the head talk session?"

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Wash it is then, Wash." She looks around at the bridge but doesn't touch anything, compulsively tapping a beat against her hip with her fingers. She doesn't especially feel up to discussing the evaluation. "Doctor Samson and I talked about literature, which was nice. Who knew med school left time for poetry? Anyway, where do we start?"

[leafonthewind]

"Well, welcome to the Quarter first of all. She's Starfighter Command's flagship and spacecraft carrier and the General just about explodes with pride every time she says 'flagship.' Even though I don't think we have a flag. That's the Captain's chair - he's seven feet tall and blue, you can't miss him. Tends to be terse. Here's where I stand, and everything else is some kind of communications, tactical or systems administrator."

There were a lot of other seats on the bridge. "Most if it we don't use because we don't have an internal crew."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Well, I'm not all that sure we could get everyone on Stacy to agree on a flag for the flagship, anyway. So, without an internal crew, what's the position that makes the most sense to fill, tactical, systems or communications? Systems?"

[leafonthewind]

"Systems will run themselves for the most part. How do you feel about Tactical? Shooting and flying at the same time is a lot of multitasking to be doing." Especially when your ship had as many guns as the Quarter did.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Sounds like my sort of job. I noticed at least beam turrets on the outside of the ship, but I assume there are other weapons I didn't recognize enough to count. Most of the Yeerk ships used Dracon beam weaponry, but I can learn any of it. Walk me through the controls?"

[leafonthewind]

"Beam turrets are mostly what we've got, besides the main cannon." Which was a highly destructive and awesome weapon in its own right. Wash walked over to a station to the right and back from the pilot's station - this one had a chair, something Wash might have appropriated for his spot except it was bolted to the floor.

"We'll get more in depth when we move the the Sensoriums. This is the main tactical display - when you select a target, the computer is programmed to choose the turret with the clearest shot. The ones you're not controlling will auto-target the Ohm - we're putting a beacon in our birds so we don't shoot ourselves down. We need the human element to decide which targets are priority."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

She nods and pays clear attention to everything Wash tells her. She does seem a bit relieved when she hears about the auto-targeting. She's much better at the quick-draw intellectual side of things than the actual action. "Then this really does sound like my sort of job. We're going to assume that our enemies will be predominately or exclusively Ohm, right? Is their danger mostly numbers, firepower or both?"

She's heard about the firepower.

[leafonthewind]

"It's been exclusively Ohm in all the sims we've run," Wash said. "So far it's mostly the numbers... the main cannon on the Ohm mothership isn't exactly shabby though. They swarm when they attack, but that's been working against them with the Quarter in play. Our main cannon can take out a sizeable chunk of them, you just can't fire it like you can the beam turrets."

Something that vomited out the firepower of a small reactor core needed some time to reload before you fired it again.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Swarming. Huh. Doesn't sound too different from Anati blister tactics." And she'd been far more lucid for the attacks on the Anati system than many of the events on Earth. "You mean recharging, right? How long does that take and are their limits on the amount of usage?"

[leafonthewind]

"I'll have to take your word for it," Wash said. If he hadn't seen some examples of alien life aboard the ship, he still wouldn't believe it.

"I'm not sure how much punishment the reactor can take before it overloads. That might be a good thing to find out in the sims. As for the cannon, we can't fire it more than once every fifteen or twenty minutes."

Which in a space battle was an eternity.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Good lord, with that kind of lag, why not just send somebody out there to build a brand new one out of scrap metal and toothpicks?" She shakes her head, a bit surprised. Then again, it must be one hell of a cannon. "So pretty much, don't go pushing that button without a good shot. And that probably is a good thing to find out in the Sensoriums rather than while we're getting shot at. This is all manual control, right, not telepathic connection?"

[leafonthewind]

"No creepy brainwave stuff, thank God," Wash said. "The targeting display is touch screen, the command buttons are on the console." So she'd probably look like she was playing a strange video game when she was operating it in battle.

"The main cannon helps us more when we're blowing holes in the side of their mothership than against the fighters, but it can clear an initial path for our guys if we're getting fenced in. It doesn't have the kind of auto-targeting safety that the turrets do, though, so either the Captain or whoever we get to man comms will have to warn everyone to clear the path."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Ooh, touchscreen. Much nicer than mental interfacing. I like to have something to do with my hands," she says. "I'll make sure not to spill any coffee on it."

Well, the lack of auto-targeting is a dampener. "What kind of maneuverability and speed do our guys have, compared to the Ohm? And on that note, what kind of maneuverability and speed do we have?"

[leafonthewind]

"If you manage to find coffee on this ship and don't share it you know that's considered insubordination." Wash smiled - he was totally joking. Maybe.

"The Quarter steers kind of like a whale when it's in carrier mode, but after we transform we're much faster, much more maneuverable - I can turn on the spot. The X-wings and the VFs are your standard dogfighter - maneuverable things. The Gundams are slower but they'll get out of your way well enough."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Don't I know it. God bless the Sensoriums and their ability to whip up a nice Colombian blend." She'd probably hogtie and batter someone over some actual coffee. She smiles back - good to be working opposite someone else with a sense of humor.

"Transform?" Not something she was aware of. "How long does it take to get our guys in the air once the order's given? And do any weapons go on or offline during transforming?"

[leafonthewind]

"The General is always on them to deploy faster. Every time we run a sim they get better at it." Wash grinned hugely when she asked about transformation. It was his cry favorite part of flying this boat.

"This ship turns into w giant robot for close combat." He would never not he excited about that. "Unfortunately the weapon systems go offline when we do it because we have to route the reactor power to the shift. Transformation clocks it at about two or three minutes when I don't screw it up."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Eva almost laughs at that. "A giant robot? Really?" When did her life start sounding like one of those cartoons Marco watched a decade ago?

"Do the weapons systems come back on while we're a giant robot, or do we just...I don't know, robo-punch the Ohm in that form?" Not that robots aren't ludicrous yet cool, but this is definitely not something the Yeerks did.

[leafonthewind]

"Punching?" Wash's face fell. "What? No punching when the paint's still shiny."

His hand tightened around one of the joysticks that were his flight control. "The cannon comes back on once we're done diverting power."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Fine, fine. No robo-punch. You boys and your toys." Wash reminds her of her husband, in a way, but comes across like he'd be more competent under fire. "And the other weapons systems?"

[leafonthewind]

"Same as when we're a carrier," Wash said. "Not much changes as far as Tactical is concerned. Flying her is a whole different story, though."

He grinned. Flying a giant robot was the most awesome thing that had happened to him on this ship.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Goodie for me, then, it's only one array of weapons to learn and a standby mode. I take it flying a giant robot is living the dream for you?"

[leafonthewind]

"The only thing that would make it better was if it were a giant dinosaur robot," Wash said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "With laser eyes."

Who was twelve years old? Not Wash.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"And wielding samurai swords, am I right?" It's not like Eva doesn't have her own inner geek. "Is there anything else I need to know before we try me in the Sensoriums?"