[center][b][u][color=white][h2] The Arcadian - 24 September 2190 - Bridge Deck Companionway [/h2][/color][/u][/b][/center]

[center][b][u][color=white][h2] Major Kashvi Sikander Sadek [/h2][/color][/u][/b][/center]

0500 - Revile
0515 - Breakfast
0545 - PT
0700 - Range
0845 - Basic Zero G demolitions
1100 - Boarding Exercise
1300 - Lunch


“Top, we wont break for lunch, have the mess send hotboxes so we can eat without breaking the exercise,” Kashvi Sikander Sadek declared as she scrolled through the itinerary for the next day cycle on her PDA. First Sergeant Charming made a pained expression.

“They are going to love you,” Charming opined as he made a note on his wrist mounted PDA. The two soldiers were striding down the central companionway, the crewmen  flowing around them like water on rocks. Partly this was due to the sense of purpose projected by two military professionals habituated to violence, partly it was due to the fact that Charming was still wearing his powered battle armor that made him look like a boxy, brutal insect. Kashvi was wearing her second class uniform, dove gray with scarlet piping on the seams, an electro motive pistol hung in a holster at her waist and a non-standard PDA was strapped to her wrist. She didn’t bother to consult it, instead turning to face her First Sergeant as she reached the bridge hatch. Two of her marines, Bashasville and Chang, were standing post beside the hatch. They were in gray battle dress and carried their rifles at port. Both snapped to attention with almost mechanical precision. Kashvi touched her brow in an abbreviated salute but kept the frown from her face. Too many of her men were parade ground troops, men and women who had checked all the right boxes but had never seen any real action. They were badly in need of whipping into shape. Charming at least had seen the elephant, no one made master sergeant if they hadn’t spent some time putting rounds down ranger for real.

“I’ll tell you what, why don’t you have them get together and take a vote on it, then remind them that they are in the Corp and beat the democratic impulse out of them,” she suggested. Charmin’s face went Marine Corp blank and one of the sentries stifled a snicker. Kashvi spun to glare at the man, her cold eyes boring into him. The man went pale and swallowed hard at what he saw there.

“We will train every minute we aren't fighting Top and we will train until I’m satisfied, and when am I satisfied marine?” she demanded of the pale sentry. 

“Never ma’am?” Bashisville asked uncertainly.

“Never ever,” she confirmed.


Kashvi stepped through the door and onto the bridge. For a moment there was an overlay of another bridge, this one depressurized and with the arti-grav gone, globes of blood and burning debris. Kashvi’s body flushed cold and her fingers twitched for her weapon she needed to... and the bridge of the Arcadian was back. She fought through the tingling after rush of adrenaline as she moved across to her station. All was 4A. No problem. She nodded to the Captain, she didn’t salute, it wasn’t appropriate if they weren't wearing head gear and people who worked and fought in zero-g quickly learned to limit unnecessary gestures. The simple body language learned in the gravity well would give you reflexes that would send you spinning off in unpredictable vectors if you weren’t careful.