Johann glanced at his hand, looking at the cards before eyeing up the others around the table they had set up out of the way. None of them were on duty right now, and with any taskings assigned to them between watches and sleep taken care of, they found a way to entertain themselves. A tale as old as time, playing cards and gambling, in this case poker. Johann preferred blackjack, it was easier to track numbers that way, but the rest of the group knew better than to play blackjack for anything other than fun around him. They had  this little ring of gamblers set up for quite awhile, and he tossed a candy bar into the pot, drawing wary glances from the others. For their stakes, it was a large raise, but most of them matched it with varying items of value. Nothing monetary, it was a house rule among them, but valuable all the same. Grinning, he laid his cards out for all to see.

[color=lightblue]"Looks like this one is a full house, anyone got better?"[/color]

The general bickering and half hearted complaints around the makeshift table, a repurposed cargo crate, told Johann all he needed to know. His 'winnings', which included an untouched pack of smokes among a few different candy rations from various packs, were his to safely pack away for a rainy day. Mind you, said rainy day was to perk up one of the poor sods after a mission gone south, but they didn't need to know that. Taking another sip from the coffee cup, the deck was starting to be shuffled again while new talk of bets and the like resumed. It was a common pastime of his when not on duty, cleaning up at cards was far from a tricky thing, in fact it was something he was quite good at. The faces around the 'table' either didn't realize that, or did and hedged their bets to see the new blood get cleaned up. As the next hand was dealt, he glanced at his cards. Two of Spades, Six of Hearts, and he gave the assembled few a warm smile. The more seasoned among the group probably took that as a sign of a very sore beating they were about to get, metaphorically speaking, and Johann's voice practically dripped with anticipation. Of course it was all a massive bluff but given how previous hands had gone, they wouldn't believe that even if he told them.

[color=lightblue]"So, what's the call for this round, friendly or we starting another...."[/color]

[code]"General Quarters, General Quarters. All hands to battle stations. I repeat: General Quarters. General Quarters..."[/code]

Johann tossed his hand in, the group scrambling in experienced movement, slamming back the rest of his coffee as he caught his helmet being tossed to him by one of the other card players. The duo, Johann and the technician who tossed him his helmet, took off at a brisk run, both heading for the hanger bay. Johann knew the drilled time to be ready to depart the moment General Quarters was called away, so they always set up their little gambling den within running distance of their stations. Dodging the other crew and pilots making their way to their own stations, regardless of where they were, was something that came with experience, and Johann was confident in his movements. He kept the way clear for the technician as well, both of them making good time to the hanger bay. From there, Johann was mounting up on his MAS, handily the largest machine in the hanger by no small margin, clambering into the cockpit and settling in as the technician down on the ground did final prelaunch checks before green lighting his end of things. Johann, for his part, strapped in and had his helmet sealed and in place, going through the motions with practiced speed. No needless rushing, of course, it wasn't like he was racing anyone else to the ready position, so he focused on making sure everything checked out as the information crawled across his various displays, the sound of munition storage whirring and systems priming a sound that would never get old.

[code]
> Confirming Pilot Assignment: LT CMDR JOHANN VON BRANDT_
> ...Pilot Confirmed
> Initializing systems...
[/code]

[color=lightblue]"Oh they finally got my name spelled correctly, that's a drink I owe to admin, only took middle shelf to make that happen..."[/color]

[code]
> Reactor: Online_
> Life Support: Online_ 
> Shield Generator: Online_
> Weapon Systems: Online_
[/code]

[color=lightblue]"Reflex Shield looks good, she was drawing more power than usual last drill, looks like the lines were patched to fix that."[/color]

[code]
> All Calibrations Complete
> All Systems Nominal
> Standby for Launch
[/code]

Johann glanced at his watch, just at the 90 second mark as two of the other pilots started shouting and bickering. Lt. Laurent and Lt. Vess, seemed they had been racing each other to ready conditions. The back and forth would be amusing to let keep going longer, but he waited patiently for the two to make their reports before chiming in as well, pleasantly professional and, by comparison to Lt. Laurent, practically sedate but far too energetic to match the defeated Lt. Vess. [color=lightblue]"This is Rhino, pre launch checks are green, ready to deploy. Don't worry Hex, there is always next time to get yourself in ahead of Rabbit."[/color]

Comparing himself to the other MAS units prepared ahead of him, Johann wondered if it was worth doing the math to see if they got close to his tonnage after combining them into one. Probably not worth the effort, given it was patently obvious the roles each of them served would be vastly different no matter the details of the operation they were about to embark on. Glancing at his own readouts, he began double checking each of the reported statuses of his equipment and systems, especially since the amount of armor he had on his MAS, even compared to other like models, would strain lesser reactors. He kept an ear on the comm chatter while he fine tuned and tweaked even the minute, otherwise inconsequential load balancing and power distribution throughout his MAS systems. It was an old habit from being a test pilot, fine tuning even the smallest detail during down time to make sure the Secutor could handle the various systems loaded onto it for testing purposes. In this case, it wasn't for testing purposes but for combat, but that was fine either way. It gave him something to focus on while waiting for the brief and deployment.