Anchors aweigh...

Posted on Saturday February 22nd, 2020 @ 1:30am by Gunnery Sergeant Maximilian Pfaffenheim

371 words; about a 2 minute read

Mission: Shakedown Cruise
Location: Shuttlebay [Deck 6]
Timeline: Day 4, 0430 Hours

The speeches passed very quickly in Maximilian's perception, as most of his focus rested on his own platoon. More than two days of almost no sleep had affected him somewhat, especially since the sleep that he did have hadn't exactly been restful. 'I'll really need a lot of coffee to survive this day.', he thought to himself.

Him and his platoon were all neatly lined up in parade formation, each Marine in full dress uniform and with their respective weapons. Since his arrival, Maximilian had subjected most of the squads to quite rigorous drill training for this occasion, as some of the soldiers had been stationed on uneventful posts for months on end before their transferral. The only section of the speech where he paid full attention was that of the Chief of the Boat - experience had tought him that most Chiefs matched the drill instructors of the Corps in terms of their status as authority figures and their intolerance for sloppiness. When Payne ordered the crew to get moving, Max turned around to his platoon and mustered his most authoritative sounding tone of voice.

"PLATOON! ATTENTION!", he yelled as the soldiers, who had so far stood at ease, shouldered their phase rifles. "Ladies and gentlemen, get yourselves sorted out. Squads on their stations in 10 mikes at most. Am I understood?" "SIR, YES, SIR!", the platoon yelled back, as was tradition. "Excellent. DISMISSED!", he answered before the individual squads turned towards the exit and began jogging to the Marine bunks to get into their on-duty gear. Maximilian himself waited until they had all hurried out and the hangar was almost empty except for him and the Chief. "Master Chief, Sir.", he said as he turned around and gave the grinning Payne a salute, before leaving the hangar himself.

As he left the hangar and stepped into a lift, he took out his PADD, making notes. 'Pretty good.', he thought to himself. 'Better than expected for a grand total of two days of proper preparation.' As he closed the PADD, he felt his eyelids weigh heavy after a restless 50 hours. "Deck 4.", he told the lift computer. He really would need a lot of coffee to survive the day.

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