Corporal Shy
Posted on Wed Jan 6th, 2021 @ 12:01pm by Major Cornelius Tremble & Corporal Andrew Shy
Edited on on Sat Oct 2nd, 2021 @ 4:56pm
1,191 words; about a 6 minute read
Mission:
Episode 11 - Family Matters
Location: Marine CO's Office, USS Pioneer
Timeline: MD001 1100 hrs
Neil looked up as the annunciator sounded, which activated his comm and saw Corporal Fray’s visage pop onto his contact’s Head’s Up Display.
“Sir, Corporal Shy is here,” Fry said. For the first time, Neil put together that he now had two marines with kinda the same last name: both of which were corporals.
That made him snicker just a little for some reason and he coughed to cover it, then said, “Thank you Corporal. Send him in.”
Seconds later, a well turned out marine half marched into his office, stopped the prescribed distance in front of Neil’s desk and saluted.
“Lance Corporal Shy, reporting as ordered. Sir!,” the dark skinned, burley looking man said.
Neil regarded him for a moment, taking his first measure of the marine in person before he returned the salute with a waive of his hand and gestured toward one of the chairs.
“At ease, Corporal Shy,” grab a seat, Neil told him and then regarded the man who returned the gaze, waiting. Between his jacket and what he saw in front of him, Neil was suitably impressed with him.
Now he just had to see if he’d been right.
“Welcome to the Cure, Lance Corporal. Have you checked in with the Gunny and gotten assigned a bunk yet?
“Yes sir, he was my first stop and it appears Corporal Fry and I will be rooming together, so he’ll get me settled after this.”
Neil nodded and said, “Good. Speaking of Fry, I think you two had a conversation and your appearance here tells me you’re on board. Up to that point, do I need to clarify anything?”
“No sir,” came the dark skinned marines reply.
Neil mused over that for a moment, then activated a series of controls and the lights in the room automatically flashed red and the door to his office sealed. Once the lights came back up he checked the feeds and said, “Ok. I’ve got a bug stomper up independent force screens are running a diagnostic pattern that should mess up any skulking devices that may be in place. The place was swept this morning but…”
The marine captain shrugged and said, “Anyway, we should have about five cycles or so. What I’m telling you right now is to be considered Classified: Yankee Sierra. Only myself and Captain Malbrooke will be aware and anyone else aboard who asks anything doesn’t need to know anything. Anyone off ship, refer them to us. I’m guessing the XO will be read in at some point but even he’s out of the loop on this until the Captain gives his blessing. Read me?”
“Five by five sir,” Shy confirmed. “What’s next.”
“Right,” Neil said, gathering his thoughts and then continued. “Pioneer has it’s own in house intel clique and of course the SCIF. However, the Captain broached the fact that what Fleet might be feeding us might be always the complete straight dope. So, he asked if the Cure might access Corp resources and run some independent analysis of things so we could do a side by side analysis.”
Fry took that in for a few beats, his shoulders easing as he slid in the chair slightly, slouching comfortably as he said, “Sounds bad sir. Distrust at that level…the Corp gets a large chunk of it’s intel from the Fleet…”
“Aye, I know. I rummaged around and talked to a few S2’s and the G2 of FMC-Beta 6-2-7. I trained some of those officers and if not them, then people in their staff. I was enlisted a lot longer than I’ve been warming this chair and I know about the backchannels that the Commandant has wired in. I was part of both…”
Shy took a chance and cut the Captain off, “Recon and Pathfinder teams before your questionable love for high impact ordinance followed by your decision to take a commission confirmed their worst thoughts about you, sir?”
Neil bristled slightly at the Corporal’s tone and bearing change but caught himself and skewered him with a look. “Alright, you’ve been talking to someone, Corporal, so I’ll let dipping your toe into insubordinate waters slide…”
“Major, soon to be light bird De Angelo, sir,” Fry said straightening back into his chair and grinning as he spread his hands. “Sorry, but the Major said you’d pick up on it sooner than later. He heard you’d been sniffing about and had a word with me. “Since he want’s to keep contact minimal between you, he told me to tell you the challenge is, Bubbles.
Neil blinked, taken aback and his mind flashed back twenty years before he said, “Raven. Alright, so we’re on board. Tell me about your end.”
“Aye aye, sir,” Fry said, “Pioneer receives large packets updating your MARVEL-EAS suits every other day or so, I’ll get piggy back noise on those updates and that will be intel updates. We’ll work something similar into the routine signals we send back on the performance data. Since all that is hyper encoded and the Fleet can’t look at it because it’s all need to know, and they don’t, we should be good. He’s set up dedicated crypto people to get him the info, which will all be compartmentalized stuff that he won’t see either and it’ll get sent on. About five people will be in the loop on this, off of Pioneer.”
Neil nodded and said, “Nice. He held up a finger, closed his eyes and shook his head, clearing the security protocols from his HUD and said, “For your end, you’ll be learning the MARVEL-EAS on the job and cross training us in the niceties of the the Chameleon suits. For right now, we’re limiting that training to our Recon element, Gunnery Sergeant Flarn and myself. Then we’ll see how the Corp feels about the rest of the Cure getting trained in. You’ll be functioning as a systems tech on the suits as well, given your comms/crypto rating.
“Any questions,” Neil asked as he took the measure of Fry once more.
“No sir,” the marine said simply.
“Alright,” Neil said. “I’ve covered what I wanted to. Get yourself settled and check with the Gunny for your duty assignments. Welcome aboard, Corporal. You’re dismissed.”
The corporal snapped to and gave the expected hand salute before turning on his heel and marching from the office. Watching him go, Neil sat back in his chair and sighed.
“Somehow, I don’t think things are going to get easier,” he said aloud to no one.
“Please restate your request,” the Computer responded.
Scowling, Neil shut up and went back to work.
A Joint Post By:
Captain Cornelius Tremble
Marine Commanding Officer/Second Officer, USS Pioneer
Corporal Andrew Shy
Tactical Systems Specialist, RFT 2, USS Pioneer
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