Ingram chuckled softly to himself as the Officer’s Lounge erupted in conversation and light hearted joking. The squadron seemed to have received the new girl fairly well at the very least. The Savonains welcomed her about as warmly as he expected them to- that being just a short welcome before no doubt delving into whatever tangents they always got into, but in Savonian. Ingram could make out bits and pieces of their conversation, but had long since given up on attempting to understand everything they said. Ingram had requested that most topic-relevant conversation be spoken in the galactic standard, but there was no harm in otherwise keeping their culture alive. Gansu did what he always did, and handed the new pilot a good luck token. Ingram was never sure where Gansu got them all, they sort of all just seemed to appear out of thin air. 

Ingram turned to look at the gaggle of pilots he called his squadron, particularly at the Savonians, who were bickering about something. Abigail- their squadron’s youngest, yelled at him, complaining about Aleks not granting her leave. Again, he didn’t know the extent of what was said between the two of them, but he caught enough to understand the gist of the conversation. With an amused look, Ingram couldn’t help but shrug.

[color=lightblue]“Well, Abi, try asking again tomorrow?”[/color]

"Good idea, sir." Abigail nodded once and reclined in her beanbag chair. That was that.

[color=lightblue]“And Aleks?”[/color] Ingram added, with a short sigh as he rubbed at his temple, [color=lightblue]“Please refrain from calling members of the squadron cock suckers.”[/color]

Ingram’s understanding of the Savonian language was still relatively rudimentary, and he couldn’t speak it. But he could understand enough to generally understand what the Savonians were saying. Though he could never be certain with his translations. He turned back to Clara as she finished introducing herself to the squadron. 

[color=lightblue]“Well Clara, I’m sure you’ll fit right in. Probably.”[/color] Ingram said to her with a slight grin and a shrug [color=lightblue]“If you haven’t already, stop by the med bay and get your tac-cor’s recalibrated to the Roanoke’s”[/color] he added, gesturing with a finger to his eyes as he did.

She was a test pilot, new to military squadrons, so Ingram wasn’t sure how aware she was of typical protocols. Most, if not all pilots had a suite of implants applied to them upon joining the military: At the bare minimum, a set of contact-like tactical corneas to allow them to read/interpret information much like a helmet HUD, and a basic neural-link to allow them into interact and interface with most simple UEE tech.

[color=lightblue]“The Roanoke’s not a big ship, but if you get lost you can have a map or path displayed to your tac-cor’s, just ask Eva-”[/color]

[i]“Yes, LIEUTENANT COMMANDER SHAW,”[/i] A voice interrupted him, and Eva’s physical avatar appeared before them, [i]“what would you like to-”[/i]

[color=lightblue]“-Nope, shut up Eva.”[/color] Ingram cut in with a quick wave of his hand. The Roanoke’s VI Hub had been taken a near hit during one of the last missions, and since then the VI had become overly responsive, and had the habit of popping in with as little as its name being mentioned.

[i]“Very well, LIEUTENANT COMMANDER SHAW.”[/i] The avatar nodded and disappeared.

"Am I able to do anything with Eva yet or are we still keeping her as a portable search engine after that mishap in the washroom?" Abigail asked, scratching her scalp idly.

Ingram gave her a look, and the lack of Eva responding to her name being spoken gave the rest of the room enough of an idea that Eva was generally not responding to Abi’s voice- as had been deemed by Ingram.

[color=lightblue]“Its been less than 48 hours.”[/color] Ingram told her as a reply. Half the time, he was unsure if he was in command of an elite military squadron, or a gaggle of schoolchildren. Perhaps somewhere else in the universe there was a teacher being overwhelmed by straight laced and extremely studious students.

"That it has," Abigail agreed. "I distinctly recall cleaning it all up when I realised what was going on." Again - she just...dropped the matter entirely. She acknowledged his response then sunk back into the chair once more. She finished her Froot Skwurt.

[color=lightblue]“Anyway.”[/color] Ingram continued, [color=lightblue]““If there’s nothing else, we can call the meeting here.”[/color]

[color=lightblue]“7th Squadron.”[/color] Ingram called out. There was the scrape of chairs as everyone stood up- or at least came to a semblance of attention. 

[color=lightblue]“Dismissed.”[/color]

There was another loud puff as Abigail collapsed right back into her beanbag chair and started chewing on the tab on the juice pouch, sprawled out and watching the other pilots tidy their things.

[hr]

[color=lime]Horizon Point Station
Communications Hub[/color]
From its view on Horizon Point, the planet below looked blue and peaceful, beautiful even. The thick layer of fluffy white clouds almost managed to cover the cratered, scarred, and war torn surface of the planet below. Cerol had been fought over and nearly destroyed half a dozen times over the course of the war, its resources raided and razed, but from up here, one could almost ignore the destruction down below.

"Lieutenant Barret!" called out a voice, young, clear and bright. Looking up, Barret saw a fresh faced young man- almost a boy- approaching him. His face was full of youthful enthusiasm and his dress uniform crisp and freshly pressed, the shiny silver bar on his shoulder marking him as an Ensign in the Imperial Navy. The nametag on his chest denoted him as a man named Sika.

"Did you hear anything about our orders?" Sika asked.

"Nope, nothing's changed since the last time you asked, 15 minutes ago." Barret replied with a shrug as he began walking off, motioning for the young ensign to follow him.

"Its a relief though, this has been a long time coming." Barret said with a relaxed sigh, as the two made their down well populated halls of Horizon Point. "We won't get another chance like this, not for a long time."

A pair of Imperial soldiers met the two officers at the airlock door that led them into the station's UEE branch of the communication hub, the Empire's own personal communications center for military use on the otherwise civilian station.

"C'mon Sika, keep up." Barret called out towards the lagging Ensign. "We're still on the clock."
[hr]