Sweet, delicious blueberry pancakes drowning in copious amounts of syrup; that’s all Cassie really wanted. She had waited very patiently in the chow hall line, holding her little plastic tray with anticipation, and shuffling through at an agonizingly slow pace. She had bonded with her fellow breakfast-seekers around her and had even gained an invitation to sit and eat with them. She had turned her charm on extra high so she could sweet talk the cook serving food into slapping an extra pancake on her plate. She had waded through the mass of soldiers swirling through the seating area to her table, protecting her treasured food as though the fate of Libra itself depended on it. All of this she did for glorious, perfect stack of flapjacks that now sat before her. Or almost perfect. The only thing left to do was to dump a few gallons of syrup on and enjoy.

But then… Sirens. So many sirens.

Cassie grimaced so hard that someone could have easily thought she’d popped an entire lemon in her mouth. The troop sitting next to her bumped her elbow as he jumped up from the table, immediately disregarding his own food he’d worked so hard to obtain. “C’mon Snowflake, it’s time to go fight a war!” The group of soldiers she’d befriended had bestowed that nickname on her. It made sense, seeing as she was in WARG, which therefore designated her as a ‘special little snowflake.’ She thought it was hilarious and it earned them the names Fodder, Sponge (As in bullet. A bullet sponge. He sponges up bullets.… Ah, nevermind), and Grunt from her; they had laughed seeing as all soldiers had at least some sense of morbid humor.

“But [i]pancakes[/i],” she countered even as she lifted herself from the table. She gave the plate a meaningful look, shrugged,  said “Fuck it, I’ll take it to-go,” and then proceeded to down one of the tiny of cups of syrup like a shot. All but one of the pancakes were then unceremoniously shoved into the depths of one of the cargo pockets of the black combat pants she wore. The last she picked up and bit a chunk out of, planning to eat it on the way over.

The guys laughed and waved her along to follow them toward the dropships. “Oh, wait,” Cass said as she trotted up next to Sponge. “I have to grab my sword from my room. Just a little detour,” she added and took the lead as they dipped into one of the smaller corridors that would take them to where her team had been bunked. Luckily the other three had had some foresight and brought all their gear with them, so they’d only need one stop. But to be fair on that point, it was a lot easier for them to carry around a slung rifle than it was for her to lug a giant buster sword. 

As they moved Cassie thought that she didn’t much enjoy the interior parts of the dreadnaught, as some of the less heavily populated areas could have some awfully small hallways, but at the same time being in the belly of the beast and surrounded by aircraft off all sorts was pretty awesome. Her eyes arched over the hallway they were currently traversing, some maintenance panels open along its length to reveal the inner workings of the [i]Nautilus[/i], and couldn’t help but wonder at the sheer complexity of mechanics that made the giant chunk of metal fly. So cool. Maybe after the mission she could get a tour of the engine rooms or something. Maybe get to touch one.

By the time Cassie had finished the dry pancake in her hand they’d reached the stretch of hallway her team was bunked in and she ducked into her room quickly to grab her weapon. Even with just the short time that they’d been on the ship, she’d somehow managed to make the space look like she’d let loose her wind spirit [i]Tornado Blast[/i] on it; A duffel bag worth of stuff strewn haphazardly around the room. She hopped across the debris to her baby, switched the electromagnetic coils on and off to make sure the accelerator could rocket back and forth through the blades uninhibited, and then popped back into the hall.

“Damn, Snow,” Fodder exclaimed as they started moving again. He lightly touched one of the sword’s edges. It was sharp, really sharp if the tiniest of red lines welling up from his finger was any indication. “You compensating for something?” All she gave him was a sly smirk and a wink.

Once they reached one of the larger halls again, the little group had to speed up to a light jog just to keep with the flow of human traffic. Cassie found herself having to hold her sword at the most awkward angle behind her back and grip it by one of the spacers in the middle of the blades so she didn’t cut someone open on accident in all the hussle. The ship was in what Cass could only describe as a controlled, precise chaos. Nothing about what was going on around her looked organized, not even remotely, but still every single individual knew exactly what they needed to do and moved with profound purpose. Like bees. Lots of big, white and black clad bees. The UDF was a crazy thing.

It didn’t take them long to reach the where the “Dan” was waiting, and Cassie veered out of the human stream with her new buddies in tow, a big grin on her face. “This is me,” she said and indicated the dropship with a jerk of her head before offering her hand to Fodder, Sponge, and then Grunt. They all clasped hands in a strong, warrior handshake and then went to turn their separate ways.

“Hey!” Grunt yelled at her back, “Stay safe out there!”

Cassie waved a hand over her head but didn’t turn around, “Wouldn’t dream of it!” She heard their laughter taper off before being dissolved completely into the loud drone of noise that filled the loading area as she approached the vessel. A sergeant, who she could only assume was the crew chief, gave her the worst stink eye as she walked by but she decided to out blatantly ignore that fact. Instead she gave him the happy greeting of “Morning Sar’nt” before traipsing up the dropship’s cargo ramp to join the rest of her squad already waiting inside.

She couldn’t have said exactly what had transpired there before her arrival, but with a quick glance at each of her friends there she could make a pretty good guess. Aurelia’s face was redder than all of Hong Desa put together and pretty much everyone else had some sort of smirk going. That was really all she needed to know to figure out what she, herself, needed to do. So, without missing a beat, Cassie pulled a hunk of blueberry pancake from her pocket and held it out to the other girl. “You look like you could use some pancake,” she said sweetly, employed the most shit-eating grin she had in her arsenal, and shook her hand holding the aforementioned food a few times so that it flopped up and down a bit in what could be considered an enticing matter if one were a dog.