"Where's Minato Aiko?" Finley demanded once a stunned Beau Callahan had joined them on the platform.
A surprisingly tall Japanese woman with bright blue hair tentatively raised her hand from a few rows behind where Callahan had been standing.
"Well, come up here. You're Chief Science Officer."
The stunned young woman stared at her for a few seconds before the soldier next to her pushed her into moving.
"Walter Harriman?"
Silence.
"Walter Harriman?" Finley said again.
She was answered by the sound of someone smacking someone else.
"Oh shit!"
And then a very surprised, grey-haired NCO was scurrying up to the platform. "Apologies, ma'am." He was easy fifteen years older than anyone else on the platform.
Finley waved him off. "You're Chief Engineer. Doctor Henry Rubenstein?"
A man with a head of dark curls jogged up.
"Chief Medical Officer. Brandi Marx?"
Brandi had served under Finley in the Usaley and she was the first Federal Finley had called up to the platform. She had bubblegum pink hair in a long wave of ringlets that fell to her lower back.
And she could talk for HOURS.
"Chief Communications Officer." Brandi gave Finley a flirty wink as she took her place on the platform.
Finley winked in return. Brandi's candy-like appearance hide a whip smart woman who understood the intrinsicses of communication in a way few did.
"Joe Bob Beamont?" A tall reed of a boy who'd only recently become a man and had only one service bar on his right arm.
He legged it up the platform like he was on fire and nearly brained himself in the process. Beau and Russo managed to catch him just in time.
"I'm good. I'm good! Thanks. Sir. Sirs."
Finley looked far to amused. "Senior Weapons Officer."
Joe Bob's jaw dropped. "What? Really? I mean, yes. Ma'am." And then he stood there until Beau snagged him by the sleeve and pulled him into line.
Finley turned back to the formation; hands tucked comfortably in her pockets because she already loved to flaunt what she thought was the stupidest rule in the new military handbook. "Akemi Leroux."
Descended from a long line of Kenyan sprinters, he made it from the back of the formation to the platform in half the time it had taken everyone else. He was also a foot and a half taller than Finley when he stopped and saluted her.
"Senior Deck NCO. And Lhasa Ookami, Senior Deck Officer." She waited for the woman with a head full of brightly beaded braids and Asian eyes joined them on the platform. "Sven Heddren."
As pale as the previous two had been dark and another person who somehow managed to have a foot on Finley even in her heels.
"You know, they put height in your profiles, but it never really computes." Finley muttered as he took his place on the platform. "M. Timothy Grey."
One of the very, very few posh Brits left. They hadn't done well in the years after humans had moved to space.
"Chief Supply Officer."
He didn't salute when he walked past her on the platform, but Finley didn't seem to notice, she just continued on. "Beth Martinez."
An elegant South American woman with a pixie cut and who was, to Finley's pride, a few inches shorter than her.
"Senior NCO. Rajesh Patel."
A young Indian man hurried up from the front row.
"Chief Life Support Officer."
Once he was standing with the others, Finley clapped her hands, the sharp sound echoing in the huge bay and making even the people who watching her as she did it jump.
"I am Captain Finley Fearghail. This is First Officer Evan Angel and Chief Security Office Russo. Welcome to the United Earth Sphere's first mission beyond the Light Wall. Ever."
Sickly clapping greeted her announcement. The small chunk of Federals who'd volunteered to come back.
Finley had never let little things bother her. She'd have been dead and buried long ago if she did. "We are your command team."
"Can we turn it down?" Minato Aiko's hand actually went up as she asked and down when Finley said, "No."
A voice rang out from the back of the Republican side. "Why is a Federate Captain? We beat you."
"You never beat me." Finley didn't miss a beat. "I'm still undefeated. Do you know how many battles I've fought?" She didn't pause to let anyone respond. "497. Anyone else come close?"
Evan and Russo raised their hands.
"Besides you too."
Their hands went down and no one else's went up.
"238." Beau suddenly said.
And then someone with a similar accent shouted, "294!"
"311!"
"312!"
"Fuck you!"
"401!"
Finley laughed. "Quite the variety of experience we have. It will serve us well. Our mission is unique. How many of you remember that last Star Trek?"
Because that was one of two 20th century of shows that was still getting made.
Star Trek.
And the Simpsons.
Finley didn't get it, but she and Evan were the type of weirdos who watched scientific documentaries and Russo only watched horror and military fiction.
"The very first one made way, waaaaay back in the 20th century. Their mission was exploration. Granted, in a drastically idealized universe where apparently humans don't fight with each other just with a bunch of made-up alien races. We made first contact four hundred years after we moved to space. How long after that did we fight our first space conflict?"
"Two months!" A voice that sounded way too young to be a veteran.
"With who?"
"The Alari!" Another too far young voice.
"And who were out longest standing allies, before that stupid wall went up?"
"The Alari." A much deeper voice.
"That's right. We humans have a complicated relationship with conflict. It's an essential part of us, but maybe not always a healthy one." She got a few weak laughs for that one. "The war is over, whether you agree with the way it ended or what's come of it since, doesn't matter. You can be as angry and as outraged as you like, but everyone in this bay is in the same boat. Literally."
She paused then, as the mood plummeted.
Because there were times when she could be a bitch because she wanted to and she didn't believe in bottling up feelings about anything, Evan thought. He wasn't sure it was the right approach.
But what was?
No one had ever tried to put soldiers from two different sides of a war in a ship they can't escape together and sent them off into deep, unknown space
In the vastness of space, they have, ironically, nowhere to go.
Finley probably grasps the enormity of their situation better than the rest of them, so used to thinking on such a grand scale. Hopefully, she's got a plan that involves more than just reminding everyone how much their situation sucks.
"You know they're counting on us to fail, right?"
~ tbc