Chapter 61: Front 30.75 – St.Aardig’s Day – Part 3/3

The rest of the night would proceed far smoother - Soon the party goers became collectively drunk enough that any further tension was put down with ease, or at worst the odd bloody nose.
 And so it had went on, into the small hours all the way until the sun rose - Or atleast rose somewhere.

Scarlet had enjoyed herself all told - Aside from a brief conversation with Sabban whom she also discovered was running errands for Kolme, "This once I owe him one." - He had mumbled, she had mostly avoided her squads-mates for the rest of the evening, instead mingling with strangers and drinking far too much - By the end of proceedings finding herself leading a traditional Abhailien sing-along or two.
 When she thought about it, it only made sense things would go on for so long - The Tristain Flotilla had ultimately spent less than three full days in Bannerman, meaning more than half the crews of the three ships hadn't had any time off at all - Add in the free booze and people had alot of steam to let off.
 At one point she had even passed someone called 'Patrick' (Who looked vaguely familiar) drinking straight from a small beer keg as his colleagues cheered him on.

But now at last, people were being ushered out - Those from the Curadh to be begrudgingly dropped into a shuffle back to their home - While most of the IAFS attendees piled into the canteen and break rooms, collapsing to sleep or finding kebabs.
 Only a few dozen stragglers remained now and already staff had entered the room to begin the arduous task of clean up - While two large men from the Curadh stood tall as the last bastion of the party, holding a raucous karaoke session to fill the room's airwaves.

For her part Scarlet scaled a large mountain of metal crates that were stacked against one wall of the large space. They had originally been filled with alcohol and all the other party supplies - Now almost entirely empty.
 After some careful scaling, she reached the tallest of the stack and sat herself down facing the wall.
 It was a fairly boring metal wall but she could peak over her shoulder to get a view of the whole room below if she choose and it made a good place to soak in the sounds of the dieing party.
 It was also where her mech would normally be stood, even now she could easily picture its single mechanical red eye staring back at her - That eye had also been a companion for many years now and she spared the old thing a thought.

After a few minutes, her quite space was suddenly interrupted by the sounds of an old man groaning as he pathetically climbed the opposite side of the containers, before coming to a stop one row below Scarlet, on the other side of her place.
 With a sigh, she look looked behind her shoulder, past her long crimson hair, to see Kolme Nilas sitting below.
Slightly more surprising was the sounds of another person scaling the boxes and taking a place a couple metres across from Kolme. A few moments later, this person's voice would answer the question of 'who';
 "Hey there." Major Moncha hummed politely.

Kolme was next to break Scarlet's peace & quiet - "Ah Moncha glad I could catch ya before you went home - I was wondering, This Falc person I heard people chatting about, saying they wish she'd been allowed to come - She wouldn't happen to be your Fortress's pilot would she?"

There was a long pause, "It seems I may have underestimated--"

"You said that once before!" Scarlet sniggered.

Stopped in his tracks, Moncha could only shrug in Kolme's direction, the two men suddenly developing an instant feeling of comradery in the face of Scarlet's usual sharpness.
 For her part Scarlet closed her eye and crossed her arms behind her head - She was slightly impressed with Kolme's deduction, in fact she had been planning to tell Hoki something similar the next time she saw her.

Like, she presumed Kolme, Scarlet had given a quick look over IAFS's data on the Curadh before tonight - Of course it was all a few years out of date but it listed the Curadh as having three pilots; Major Moncha of course, but also two wingmen, 1st Lieutenants Yazan & Gemon - None other than the two currently singing bad karaoke down below.
 Having seen the two in person, it became a simply case of joining some dots. The boy Helt had also pertained pilot's wings, and finally there had been the odd mention throughout the night of a girl called 'Falc', who hadn't been allowed to come to the party - Her name frequently coming up in conversations about Moncha's release or Helt's earlier stunt - All lead one to be able to atleast guess the girl might be the fifth pilot of the Curadh.
 Add in a couple strange mentions of the girl being a 'fortune-teller' and it wasn't a strange to guess that this 5th pilot was the Magi they had faced off against back at station 9.

It wasn't rocket science, but even Scarlet had to admit she was a little impressed Kolme had also picked up on all this.

The silence between them dragged on for a bit until the sound of Kolme shuffling through his pockets filled Scarlet's ears - Next was the small-tink of a lighter and a moment later the first wafts of smoke from a decent brand of cigarettes floated by. It was soon followed by Moncha wordlessly accepting one too.

Scarlet waiting patiently for all of 30 seconds before speaking up; "Well?"
 Without another word a cigarette floated into her periphery vision followed by the lighter.
 'Graciously' she accepted it and took her first puff of the thing - She didn't generally smoke much as a rule and the taste didn't mix great with the abundance of alcohol in her system - But it was simply what she felt like doing right now.

"Ya know, we actually fought together once." Moncha mused allowed.

"Who me and you?" Kolme said back.

"What? Oh no, sorry pal - I meant Red."

Scarlet rose an eyebrow, that didn't sound likely - She could count the number of active-TSU members she'd been so much as polite to on one hand.

"It was, well half a decade ago now I suppose." Moncha continued, "Against-- Ah actually that's still classified, but against a rouge machine, gaint golden mech - You and me fought it side by side. That said we've also fought each other too.
 It was only recently I checked, see my Helty kept talking about some crazy red mech attacking him back when we had our little skirmish at the repair ship, Clover I think it's called right?
 So anyway I did some reading and seems I fought against what was probably 'Thee Scarlet Scourge' all the way back during the Remembrance incident - Funny how that works eh?"

Scarlet didn't respond at first, there wasn't much reason to do so - She did vaguely remember something along the lines of that story but who knew if that was the whole truth of it or not. Something else however did cross her mind;
 "Oi, is the boy of yours, 'Helt' or whatever, did he come with your Casnel?"

"I'm not sure I follow..."

"Its simple. On the fourth there was a battle - There were two Casnels, I nailed one but the other got away - I'm guessing your Casnel is made from the one that escaped me, along with the leftover parts of the one I destroyed - So in that case, is Helt the same pilot who got away from me? He sounds and looks too young, but that ain't no proof."

Moncha sighed in her general direction - "Is there anything you two haven't worked out about my squad tonight?"

Kolme chuckled, "More than the interrogations managed."

The Major let go a second sigh, blowing a puff of smoke before giving his answer;
 "Sorry to disappoint but no - Well yes, but no. Our current Casnel did come with a test pilot, big angry bald-guy - But believe it or not, he died of a heart attack a day after arriving."

"No kidding?" Kolme added.

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"Yup, so sorry if you were looking for some sort of revenge rematch or anything but the dudes gone, apparently lived a life of drugs, alcohol and cheap food - Anticlimactic for you I guess."
 Scarlet didn't voice any response, simply scowling instead - It did atleast answer her question.

"You know, before tonight I thought it would be a toss between me and Red here - But now I'm thinking more a three way tie." Moncha stated, stubbing out his half-spent cigarette on the metal crate beneath.

"Tie for what?"

"Oh nothing real, just my belief - Superstition - But you know how it is in stories right? The mentor character always gets done in around the end of the second act. Well at first I thought me and your Scarlet were those mentors, but now - I think you might be more important to this ship then I'd given you credit for Lieutenant Nilas--"

"Just Kolme's fine."

"Sure, Kolme then. Tonight I spotted you subdue atleast a half-dozen fights, I don't just mean the thing with Helty, rolling out the good booze at an opportune time is easy - I mean all the more subtle ways you carefully unpicked other fights in the making throughout the night.
 Sure I might be something of a mentor or father figure to our Helty and Falc - And Red behind me seems to be one to those two girls in your squad - But I think you're a, what's that old Abhailen words?"

"Naikima" Scarlet grumbled.

"Ya that. A Naikima to this whole ship." Moncha finished.

Kolme looked unconvinced - "I don't know about all that. I've never been much of a' pilot, or much of a man - I just go with da' flow of things."

Moncha shrugged, "If you say so, but as I see it I don't think all three of us will make it for much longer."

Not opening her eye, nor bothering to remove her cigarette, Scarlet lost her temper - She got enough fatalistic crap from Kolme on a regular basis;
 "That's all bullcrap. Ain't no 'faith' to it, we go out there an' we fight, no more no less. Our roles, be it as officers or mentors means nothing - It's all a mix of skill and luck out there, unless you're a Magi but none of us has that in our favour.
 Like that test pilot you said died of a heart attack, who knows maybe Kolme will do us all a favour and fall off these crates to his death at any minute."

Silence fell again - The duo singing karaoke were finally done and being firmly escorted out of the room by some tired looking crewmen. There were now more people with brooms than cups of beer - The party was truly at its end - The silent unofficial vigil Scarlet, Moncha and Kolme were currently holding was no longer necessary.

"I'd rather hoped you'd be less nice." Moncha sighed.

Scarlet's scowl grew deeper, she pressed the tiny stub of remaining cigarette against the crate beneath her, then flicked said stub with remarkable accuracy into a paper waste bag at the foot of the crates;
 "Don't think it's going to be any harder for me to shoot you down out there just cause we shared drinks for one night ya hear!? You hesitate out there and that's your problem." She snarled.

Kolme gave Moncha a sympathetic look, "Errr, look - I didn't wanna bring anything like this up, I'm not gonna' be all crass and try any 'It's not too late to change sides' stuff - But honestly, most of the people here tonight and you especially, none of you seem like raging authoritarian fascists - So why are you with TSU-s?"

Moncha laughed earnestly, "I think Kolme, that it's me who's been overestimated. I mean I'm a damn good pilot, I know that for a fact being as humble as I am - But, what was it you said? I'm a good pilot, but as a man? I'm a pretty crap man, I just go with the flow of things you know?
 Maybe at first we thought by being in TSU-s we could make it better, set a good example from inside of it kind of thing..."

"Naïve."
 Scarlet scoffed.

"Seems like it." Moncha agreed without much hesitation - "But like I said, I'm not much of a man - I'll follow my Captain's lead as best I can, if she still thinks TSU-s is the place we need to be, than here I'll stay - She's usually right about these things, runs in her blood."

"I see..." Kolme murmured back.

They all three sat a little longer, watching and listening to the clean up crews at work.
 Moncha stood up, took a step towards Kolme and offered his hand with a smile;
 "Ya know the Curadh, she's an odd ship - Doesn't really play well with other kids if you get my meaning - I don't really get to speak with other vets all that often, thanks."

Kolme took the hand a shook it firmly, "T'was our pleasure hosting you these last few weeks - I'll see you get the room-service bill in da' post." He grinned.

Moncha laughed and turned to reach his hand over the crate in Scarlet's direction - She waved him off with a simple 'Mh-hmm' and tilt of the head in his direction.
 The former IAFS-POW nodded acceptingly and straightened up; "We will probably never meet like this again - So well, best of luck, may the best team win and all that eh."

Kolme frowned but spoke nonetheless, "Ya ah, good luck to you too." 

St.Aardig's day drew to a close.

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