Day in the life of Marines - New Recruit

[Mr. Moon]

Alexander #1

B-4, the main bastion of the Marines in the West Blue was getting closer with every minute as the large Battleship was finishing it´s several weeks long journey from the Headquarters. Standing close to the taffrail, Alexander was watching the majestic looking fortress, making notes about it´s position, gun placement, main defensive points and possible weakness. Not that he would be planning any siege, he was simple bored as Captain Zachary, the commanding officer of their ship forbid him to help the crew with steering the ship, claiming it wouldn´t be appropriate to let guest do all the heavy lifting.
“Guest my ***”
The Seaman recruit cursed silently. He was soldier like anyone else on the ship. But order was order and he couldn´t go against it. So he was standing still, watching the scenery with his stern, slightly frowning face. Even for someone of his age, this was something new. As all these years from his already long life he spent on Grand Line, fighting wars in his fathers name. Being send to serve in one of the Blue, which arguably filled with much weaker warriors and pirates felt little underwhelming. But perhaps it was for the best. After all, these years in retirement made him a bit rusty and he wanted to climb his way up from the very bottom after all. So was there any better place to start than this?
The Battleship arrived into it´s dock and squad by squad the Marines on it´s deck start leaving their vessel. Alexander was one of the last one as Captain Zachary gestured to wait for him.
They were strange duo, one that surely draw some attention. Alexander was large man in his early fifties, with height slightly bellow three meters and robust musculature that was seemingly defying his otherwise obvious age. He has gray hair, stern, naturally unsmiling face and eyes that apparently saw their share of violence. Yet he was dressed in the most basic uniform of Seaman Recruit, composed of dark blue pants and white shirt with marine insignia on it, complemented by simple pistol, cutlass, long knife and rifle he was carrying across his shoulder. Next to him was young man in his early twenties, with short light brown hair and optimistic eyes. Although he was tall for a human, his head was barely reaching to his companion´s chest. Yet as apparent from his uniform, he was the senior officer there with his rank of Captain.
“Alright Seaman Recruit Dorn, we are here. From what I heard service here is quite peaceful. Well at least compared to the Headquarters, but perhaps you will find what you are looking here.”
Alexander stayed silent. Only assumed position of attention and saluted to his superior.
Zachary laughed.
“Ah man I swear the gods, if I ever hear you to say more than five words I´ll be worried…never mind...hey you Seaman!”
He addressed someone in a crowd of local marines that was moving around them.
“This guy over here is new recruit I brought you here. Be so kind and show him the base and your commanding officer...that´s an order.”

[Mai Kobayashi]

"Ahh, Captain, Just a moment, I'll be right with you."

The marine he addressed offered him a rather casual, halfhearted salute from exactly where she was standing. She was writing down a few notes on a clipboard as she brushed a lock of fiery orange hair behind her ears. When she finally looked up she tossed the notepad across the crowd, hitting another, poor, unfortunate marine square in the forehead, causing him to disappear in the crowd along with the notepad.

"Phillipe, Let the Master Chief know that FM2 and FM3 need replacing, and you finish the inspection. I'm being reassigned by our guests."

'Yes... sempai...'

The groaned reply came from somewhere in the crowd of local marines that was scurrying around the docked ship. Some were securing additional ropes to the anchoring points of the ship, others were laying down improvised plank bridges meant to help them load supplies onto it while yet others were like her, simply walking around the ship taking notes.

The slightly tubby girl approached the offbeat duo of old newbie and young officer. She herself looked barely more than a teenager and the standard seaman uniform was ill-fitting in places, a pair of large glasses perched on her nose that made her large grey eyes look even larger and dopier than they actually were. Around her waist was a belt with an affixed gun holster that held a single flintlock pistol but at least now she stood in front of them she offered a proper salute before crossing her arms, without dropping her position of attention she locked her eyes on the captain and began to cheerfully if somewhat casually report her findings thus far.

"Captain, The full report on your ship's battle readiness will be forthcoming but for now you are looking at at least a 6-hour layover. The second and third cannon in your forward battery are showing stress fractures and between now and the next 10 shots those cannons won't hold out."

Despite the casual manner in which she informed him, her tone of voice was rather self-assured and containing a hint of enthusiasm. Whatever her job was, since she had failed to actually introduce herself or explain that, it was obvious that she was at least spirited about it.

"You came from the Grande Line, right? Did you get into a fight with a Seaking while crossing the calm belt? If not, you should remind your gunners that these older model cannons require at least 90 seconds between barrages to let the barrels cool down to prevent the build-up of stress fractures in the metal. Those G10A models are still less than 3 years old, they shouldn't be at their material limits yet. I can tell they have been well maintained so I'm guessing your forward gunnery crew is your ship's best, even if they can reload the cannons faster, firing protocols exist to maintain the reliability of your armaments."

She remained standing at attention, her hands behind her back even as a tiny sweatdrop started forming on her brow. Her spirited explanation or rather a lecture wasn't so much the issue but.. holding this position was exhausting... Finally, she couldn't hold out and put a hand on her tight as she leaned forwards slightly to take a bit of a breather. Even so, her lack of physical fitness did not seem to leave her so winded her mouth stopped working either.

"That said, you are in luck. We just received a shipment of 11B's that are allocated for priority vessel repair, as a vessel assigned to headquarters that is you guys. We can replace all 3 cannons at once if you are willing to wait."


She motioned towards the ship and then vaguely at the group of soldiers scurrying about as if that would explain everything.

"Ahh, by the way. I can't make it an order like you can, as a superior officer and all! But you really don't have a choice. This B-4's reputation would suffer if we let you sail out with cannons that won't see you through your next engagement after all. Well, you can try our Cooks famous spice-fried chicken salmon while you wait. It's really good. Why don't you come along, I'll take you both to the commander... You can lodge a complaint about me trying to boss you around if you like, but you'll still be stuck here for the next ten hours, I'm only telling you what is going to happen once she gets the report after all. But, whichever you like!"

[cowboyjotaro]

“The B-4 base boasts fifty heavy cannons, seventy five mobile cannons, and two hundred gun turrets! At any one time, as many as ten battleships, twenty destroyers, and twenty scouting craft might be stationed here at B-4, where fifteen thousand Marines take up residence.”

Crunch.

François sighed as he listened to the overeager subordinate’s spiel about B-4, though he hoped to drown it out with the noise of his teeth sinking into the fruit he held in his right hand. If there was one thing that truly made him uncomfortable, it was genuine enthusiasm. In his own jaded state, he had assumed a position of superiority over other Marines without the same severity or sadness. They were like him before the world had opened his eyes, naive and excited for their careers.

“As you can see Captain, everything here at B-4 - the Pride of the West Blue as we like to call it! - is state of the art!”

Crunch.

“Oh, right. How about, you know...all of that?” Taking his index and middle fingers off his half-eaten fruit to point rather than remove his left hand from his pocket, François gestured vaguely at the extensive portion of B-4 that seemed to be in disrepair. No, perhaps that was unfair. Rather than in disrepair, it was more accurate to suggest that destruction had caused the white chateau to be rebuilt in places, stronger and shinier.

“Oh, that…? That was before my time. I was only just assigned recently you see. But even in my short time here…” François stopped paying attention. Before his time - typical. No wonder he could ignore what the fractured architecture of the base represented: it was all he had ever known.

With each hollow footstep of François’ oxford dress shoes, he passed another Marine who turned to politely salute. Even through the tint of his round sunglasses, François could see the expressions on their faces as his Marine justice jacket trailed in the wind behind him and he passed each subordinate. Their shoulders relaxed, their unwavering gaze reduced to a squint, and their thoughts lingered on a single question: “He is a Captain?”

Though a good looking young man, François appeared as though he had just risen from sleep: his dark gray suit and tie seemed to have been put on hastily - the former barely buttoned up and the latter in need of straightening - his hair was scruffy and slightly greasy, his eyes were obscured by his sunglasses, though that was typical, and he was loudly chewing on a fruit that no-one could quite place.

In the distance, more chatter and eagerness was afoot. A shorter, orange-haired recruit was explaining something or other with aplomb to a boring-looking captain and a large man with a face as hard as stone. “​​...This B-4's reputation would suffer if we let you sail out with cannons that won't see you through your next engagement after all...” Blah, blah, blah. Did every B-4 recruit have this same attitude?

As François had come to the Marine Base with the mission of finding a squad for additional patrols in the area, he would surely be assigned members such as these. He shuddered as he contemplated having someone like his tour guide or the orange-haired girl with him. Hell, even the old stony-faced gentleman seemed a bit much. François’ judgement of him could be succinctly summarised in two words: “too serious”.

Crunch.

“And there we go with the basic information on B-4.” What, all of twenty minutes was basic? François recoiled. “So, hopefully our facilities will be enough for your mission.”

“Ah, yes! The mission. You see, I need - “ The Captain began, but was cut off.

“A squad! Well, I’m very pleased to let you know that the squad assembled to deal with the heightened criminal activity in the vicinity will be composed of only the most highly motivated Marines…” the tour guide winced, unsure of how this newly arrived Captain would react to his news.

“...since Captain Arashi tells me you’ll have to ask for volunteers.”

[Mr. Moon]

Alexander #2

The large recruit was standing in attention the whole time, as no one ordered him to relax yet. He was using this time to listen and to form his own assessment of the soldiers he will serve on the base with.
As far as the seaman in front of him went, he was less than unimpressed. She failed to provide her name and rank to a superior officer, talked endlessly about things no one asked about and what was the worst, didn't even have the stamina to stand in attention for few minutes. The fact that she was very young was no excuse as he was already waging wars at her age.
Fortunately for her, however, the veteran wasn't in a position to speak his mind and so he remained silent. He wasn't the only one displeased with her behavior, however. Although for completely different reasons, captain Zachary became quickly annoyed by her speech. For a man, who already saw himself eating his lunch it was simply too long.
"Seaman…"
He started with a silent sigh.
"My ship will stay here for two days. So I am pretty sure someone as...dedicated as you will manage both, showing this new recruit his new home and replacing some broken cannons on my ship. Now, with all respect, I didn't travel all the way here, just for my men to eat all the chicken sandwiches, so if you excuse me…"
With that, he saluted them and headed to the cafeteria, leaving Alexander behind. The giant of men frowned, looking down on the seaman in front of him. It was hard to show any respect to the person who so obviously lacked discipline, but she technically has higher rank although barely so he saluted, each movement precise as if done by machine and not human.
"Seaman Recruit Dorn, assigned to Marine Base B-4, reporting for duty!"

[Mai Kobayashi]

"Lina Drake, Seaman first class of the Blues Marine Base 4th Branch, 3rd Logistics Division and special maintenance attache to the first sharpshooters unit."

She returned his salute, with a proper one this time. Rather than the sloppy mess the visiting captain had gotten, she showed proper pose and though not quite possessing the same clockwork precision as the really rather old recruit, it seemed that she could do it after all if she tried. That alone was probably enough to sour Alexander's opinion even further because it meant that she had not just shown a lack of discipline but a lack of respect for a superior officer just now.

"You can stop saluting me now recruit."

There was however a gentle tone in her voice as she told him it was alright to relax a little now. He wasn't the first new recruit she dealt with and likely wouldn't be the last either. Though she had never seen one quite this old or so stoically precise before. It made her a little bit curious as to why someone like this got send here from headquarters with no rank to speak off. It seemed a little bit odd at best. Well if he was some kind of inspector that wasn't really her problem and if he was demoted as a punishment well.. either way, he'd probably have some trouble here.

"If you are going to be a member of this base's staff I'll give you a rundown of the most important rules. The primary one is that your job, no matter what it is, is assigned to you because it needs doing by the officers who run this base. Headquarters has been downsizing our staff for the last two years and we do not have the manpower to spare to entertain the whims of every officer that passes through here with four times the amount of people working on his ship than we have for any given task. If a visitor orders you to do anything, its priority is lower than that of the order you were given by your direct superiors. If that bothers their sensibilities the base's commander will listen to their complaints but you are still going to do the job you were given first."

That was sure to rub him the wrong way, she did get that. One look at the man's crisp clean uniform told you that he was used to order, discipline, and stoic adherence to the rules. She had been a lot like that when she first joined. Her father was after all pretty much the same type of man she saw standing before her now. This base, however, was bleeding out, it was a training center that was supposed to be self-sufficient but these days 90% of the recruits that were trained up here were drafted by headquarters to serve on distant front lines against this growing 'age of piracy'. There were not enough hands left to keep the place running as it once had. As patched up as the base looked from the outside, the people serving there were in much the same boat. There was a shortage of time and people to put on an air of pristine discipline. the small niceties and rituals were forgotten to chase the core of why most of them had become marines.

"In essence B-4's 'Justice' exists to protect the civilians of West Blue, to that end we will work twice as hard to make sure this base keeps running. Even if headquarters would rather focus their attention on the grande line and the new world, the amount of pirate and criminal activity we contend with has risen just as much. So just because a captain who arrived 5 minutes ago thinks your job is non-essential that doesn't mean it is. You may be used to being a face in the crowd up there, but expect every officer here to know your name and skillset within a week."

The crux was that every dedicated B-4 marine, from the lowliest Seaman to the Captain commanding the base dedicated their time and effort to doing their jobs with zeal and pride. As she had said, no ship that came here for resupply left in bad shape. No jobs were left for tomorrow that could be done today. Everyone pulled their weight and sometimes that didn't look pretty but there was a fierce pride in every marine that served her about the fact that they still did their jobs even if they were a little more rough and tumble than the usual.

"If you want to think of us as undisciplined frontier hicks living in the boonies I can't really blame you, but that's the reality of life out here. You may not think that that life is quite as exciting as it might be up there, but you will be expected to pull your weight all the same."

The orange-haired girl lead him through the halls as she spoke. She pointed out the signs of the various facilities they passed with a quick motion of her hand. She did not think she needed to explain what the loading dock they arrived at was used for, or the mess hall, or the kitchen, or the armory they passed. Each in turn was self-explanatory and he neither looked nor gave the impression of being a clueless teenager that needed everything spelled out for him. Instead, she had chosen to elaborate on the less obvious aspects of life on this base. She halted outside what was labeled as the 'training center' and stopped to give him a glance. Deciding she needed to know after all.

"Well... with that out of the way. Who did you piss off?"

[cowboyjotaro]

Volunteers. Volunteers? Volunteers! As in, François would have to go out of his way to seek out Marines in this clearly very busy and understaffed - not to mention huge and rebuilding - Marine Base. Just thinking it was giving him a headache. He was hard-pressed to imagine a situation wherein a commanding officer simply let eager Marines leave their command for a visiting stranger without repercussions.

François sighed. On top of it all, he had reached the end of his fruit and was now holding the core awkwardly, too lazy to seek out a disposal bin, not bold enough to let the fruit core fall and litter the ground beneath him. Despite his apathy, he was a guest and knew his image couldn’t bear to suffer much more than it certainly already had.

“Ah...uh…” François hemmed and hawed, searching around him for a place to dispose of the offending core, which his tour guide took as displeasure at the current situation.

“Sir, please understand, we have a limited personnel and we’re currently dealing with a wide variety of West Blue divisions docked here. In fact, you’re not the only Captain we have as a guest at this very moment.” More Captains? It was practically the highest rank one could achieve in the Blues. What could the West Blue possibly have to contend with? Then again, François had been reassigned temporarily to B-4 for a reason, despite the tour guide’s boasting about the base’s fifteen thousand men still fresh in his mind. Suddenly, being forced to ask for volunteers seemed like a slight against him.

“No, no, that’s all well and good. You know, asking for volunteers seems tiresome. How about this. Starting with the nearest officer, do the following. Have him or her choose a subordinate, and have that subordinate choose another subordinate, and so on and so forth until we have a squad of a reasonable size. That sound good? I don’t care. Let’s make it happen, eh, with that stellar B-4 efficiency I’ve heard so much about.” François winked and patted the tour guide on the back, who swallowed nothing but air and then scurried off to try and relay the Captain’s instructions as best he could.

Another Marine approached and held out a hand, pointing towards the base’s interior. “If you’ll follow me, I can direct you to the mess hall where our cooks would be more than pleased to show you a good meal.” François found he was decidedly not hungry. Maybe eating that fruit was a mistake after all. Without anyone noticing, the fruit’s core had disappeared. Instead, the way the two Marines had come, there was a small trail of ashes and smoke.

[Mr. Moon]

Alexander #3

With captain Zachary leaving, his fellow seaman showed the proper discipline by not only saluting him, but also by giving her name and rank. Well, if she thought, that this would impress Dorn, she was sorely mistaken as this demonstration of lack of respect towards the captain only raised Alexander´s ire.

“So it wasn´t lack of discipline? But rather lack of respect towards captain Zachary?”

Mixing personal feelings with one´s duty was unworthy real marine, especially when one didn´t salute the person but their rank. However the elderly marine didn´t voice his opinion on that matter as doing so would violate the exact code of honor he was upholding. And so instead, he lowered his saluting hand, without relaxing even the tiniest bit, almost as if this stiff, always serious mode was his preferred state of existence.

As Seaman Drake in the end decided to follow her orders, Dorn walked two steps behind her, his heavy boots hitting the ground perhaps a bit stronger than they should as he was trying his best to adjust his stride to her much shorter legs.

Walking through the base he was doing his best to put all of it´s important parts and corridors into his memory, so he wouldn´t get lost when his first independent assignment will come, almost completely ignoring her words. Not that he wouldn´t be listening what she had to say, but to his ears it all sounded like a simple excuses. Every army and every unit he ever saw was understaffed. Lacking the right amount of people for the job at hand was basically the definition of army life. So if they had to work twice as hard just to do the necessary work, they should work three times thrice that to do so with proper discipline!

Their tour finally ended in front of the entrance to the training ground, with his guide finally breaking her monologue only to ask question he honestly didn´t know the answer for.

“With all due respect Seaman Drake, you will have to specify your question, for I acquired many enemies during my lifetime.”
While saying this words, his voice was as usually hard and strict, completely devoid of all unnecessary emotions.

[Mai Kobayashi]

"I meant to ask, which commissioned officer's puppy did you throw overboard to get demoted back to seaman recruit and sent all the way out here from New Marineford at your age?"

A soft chuckle escaped her as she clarified what she meant. It didn't take a genius to read from this man's body language he rather wanted to be anywhere but here, talking to anyone but her. She didn't think an attempt at humor was going to lighten the heavy atmosphere hanging over them any time soon but at this point, she just chalked this one up into the long column of recruits that passed through this training center and went on to do better faster than her and look down on her as a grease monkey who wasn't a real Marine the entire length of the way.

"But, it's not really any of my business and I have plenty of work to get back to anyway."

She shrugged her shoulders and motioned her thumb over her shoulder towards the sign that blatantly said training center and then used both middle and index fingers to make a double-tapping motion towards the hall that seemed to continue heading left for quite a while.

"Well, over here is the training center. You probably should report to Lieutenant Barclay that you've arrived. I'm still not sure why the Captain who brought you here thinks the Base Commander has the time to greet every new recruit herself but if you are adamant you wanna go bother her, her office is at the end of the hall over there."

She adjusted her glasses and gave the man another once over, it was clear that she wasn't really any keener on staying where she wasn't wanted than he was on having her around, but whereas his stoic words just grew cold, it was plainly evident in the way she spoke.

"I doubt she's going to be there any time soon either, but if you insist you are welcome to wait outside I suppose. Personally, I'd go back to the mess hall and get something to eat or talk to the personnel officer like any other recruit but hey. We don't get special transfers hand-delivered from headquarters every day either so what do I know."

[cowboyjotaro]

François was directed to the mess hall by another officer as his previous tour guide scrambled to fulfill his request. He wasn’t sure they were going to, either, so he supposed he would take the time to scan the mess hall for potential recruits - but as of now, no one really caught his eye. The trek down the hall showed him more of the innards of the B-4 base. It was obvious from the architecture that the base had seen some things.

The mess hall was a large room with lights hanging from the ceiling, and windows to one side illuminating it. Notably, François noticed that the higher the rank, the more likely they were sitting in the sunlight. Previously, he thought snacking had cut his appetite, but upon smelling the aromas of food from all around him, he found that it had been whet once again.

After fetching a plate and sitting down to eat, François removed his sunglasses so they wouldn’t get in the way of his food. In doing so, he further exposed the scar that ran down his right eye and onto his cheek. He wasted no time. Clasping his utensils in his hands he began shoveling food down his gullet as though it were his last meal in the world. Others turned to view the visiting Captain who was eating in such a juvenile manner, but he took no notice.

Meanwhile, out in the hall, as François came face to face with his meal, Melina and Alex would come face to face with something entirely different. An unknown officer, seeing them in heated discussion, stopped in front of them, smirked, and declared, “You two will do. Follow me, under Captain’s orders.” He had no desire to go against the new Captain’s orders, but he had made it clear that time was of the essence, so anyone would do.

Rice, mushrooms, chicken, bread. Rice, mushrooms, chicken, bread. François almost finished with his plate when he heard someone just over his shoulder.

“Sir! It is I, your tour guide, Sir. I did as you requested and found a few men for your squad. Here they are.” The sounds of savage scarfing ceased, and François froze, as if immobilized by Medusa herself. His head began to swivel slowly to the back as he sheepishly observed his new audience. Staring back at him were the tall, stoic statue, and the excited flash of orange.

GULP!

“Ah, uh, yes, so just these two then?” François pushed his tray aside and wiped his mouth, giving them some time to introduce themselves.

“All right, well, we have our patrol assignment. Let’s walk and talk. Tell me a little bit about your skills.” Hoping to push their most likely embarrassing first impressions of him aside, François walked at a bristk pace towards their launching point.

[Mr. Moon]

Alexander #4

The elderly recruit raised his eyebrows on otherwise stone cold face, which was probably the highest form of surprise he was able to express, before he shook his head.

“I am sorry, but you are mistaken Seaman First Class. I wasn´t demoted. I joined the Marines only six months ago and this is my first assignment since I finished my basic training in the Headquarters.”

There was nothing secret about that, so Alexander felt no reason to hide it. On the other hand, mentioning his previous career or the fact, that he was offered the rank of captain seemed to be completely unnecessary, so he simply left it out. The words that followed made the warrior think for a moment, before he nodded in agreement.

“In that case, I should report myself to Lieutenant Barclay.”
There were hardly any emotions in this statement as despite what this girl implied, Alexander didn´t feel about himself differently from regular recruits and definitely didn´t want a different treatment from them. So if the protocol demanded from him to report to this Lieutenant, he would simply do that.

Unfortunately, the fate has different plans for him as at the moment some new officer appeared, claiming that a captain ordered them to follow him. Now this definitely wasn´t according to the protocol, but order was order and so the large recruit stood to attention and swiftly saluted.

“Yes sir.”
Before looking own on his temporary guide.

“You heard that officer Seaman First Class. Let´s go.”

He followed the officer through the base back to a large room that looked like cafeteria, where the captain waited for them.

To say, that his look was underwhelming would give him too much credit. Pretty boy with rugged appearance of trust fund kid that never had to work for his money and status. Was this how marine captain was supposed to look? Just the idea of it was filling Alexander with a feeling of intense anger and disgust, nothing from it however showed in his face, when he stood to attention, saluting to the uniform this guy was undeserving wearing.

“Seaman Recruit Dorn reporting to duty. I am just a recruit freshly graduated from the academy.”

He said as he followed the captain. Saying only what he had to as more than that could reveal how he really felt.

[Mai Kobayashi]

"... Right. This should be good."

A soft smirk played around the corners of her lips as she looked between the tour guide and Alexander with a smug expression on her face. The kind that seemed to say 'I told you so' with a mere challenging raise of an eyebrow. it had barely been what 5 maybe 10 minutes and she had gotten two new assignments from 2 visiting captains without any regard of what she was doing before. Pretty much exactly the point she had been trying to make, not a moment before played out in full dynamic visual detail right now.

As they were led into the mess they were unceremoniously dumped near the table of honestly the scruffiest looking captain she had ever laid eyes on. The higher ranks had more freedom of uniform but... wow. She threw a single glance at Alex. What did he say again? Respect the uniform, not the man? What if the man didn't respect any part of his outfit himself though? A very soft clicking sound escaped from her mouth as she rolled her tongue. Let the eager recruit go first, she figured. He is probably better at being polite anyway.

Since the captain insisted they walk with him she raised her hand in salute before they left his table, back of her hand facing towards the Captain properly and all before following the two men with a lot longer legs, causing her to have to walk at a slightly brisker pace. She couldn't hide her surprise at what she was hearing tough...

"Melina Drake, Seaman First Class, B-4 logistics division 3rd unit. did you just say... Patrol assignment? With all due respect Captain, I'm with the Logistics division and he literally just got here. He still has to report in that he arrived on the base, period."

The red-haired seaman took a deep breath, skills? Useful ones for a parol mission. The heck was even up with that...

"I can write an inventory report in 15 minutes and inspect a ship in 30. I was supposed to be overseeing the inspection and resupply on the ship this guy came in on before HIS captain ordered me to get him to the base commander. I have no combat skills. I am barely allowed to shoot a pistol... sir. "

It took a moment for her to remember to add the sir to her... well, list of complaints and she pinched the bridge of her nose as she pushed her glasses up higher, taking another deep breath of resignation. Honestly, this job was nothing like what she had envisioned when she sighed up. Her hand rested momentarily on the pocket of her shirt, contemplating the letter it contained and if maybe she should just take that step right now and get it over with. but the thought of her father's face of disappointment caused her to lower her shoulders in dejected resignation.

"... sigh You don't care at all do you? Fine. I'll go get my equipment from my room."

[cowboyjotaro]

The patrol commenced. After the initial shock of their meeting had subsided, François’ two new subordinates introduced themselves, and their words, albeit relatively brief, spoke a lot to their own individual personalities.

Melina Drake, the Seaman First Class’ voice was all too familiar. He had heard her long-winded explanations outside, and inside, right next to his ear, they were only all the worse. There was something oddly frustrating about her introductions, besides their unholy length - there was something François appreciated about a concise yet clear report - but François struggled to put his finger on it. Perhaps it was the striking clarity of every word’s enunciation which made his skin crawl. She was clearly used to hearing her own voice. She struck him as reliable, punctual, and, most importantly, a know-it-all.

While François appreciated a quick response, Seaman Recruit Dorn perhaps gave too little details. Amazingly, he had managed to list none of his skills and give no other information than his name and rank, despite the Captain’s first impressions of him being a strict rule follower. Much too old to be graduating from the academy his age, François guessed he must have had a storied past in some distant country unrelated to the World Government. To be here now, at such a low rank and under his command must be an unpleasant experience for him - because although one gave an unflinching stare, and the other a deep sigh, there was one thing the red haired and gray haired Marines had in common: neither looked pleased to be on patrol with François.

Melina’s equipment fetched, and everyone ready, they left on patrol.

There was an awkward silence as they departed, which François decided to fill with imparted wisdom. The two at his side might have believed that he was speaking absolute nonsense, while in reality, everything he knew he learned from his father and uncle - two Rear Admirals.

“Logistics doesn’t exclude you from patrols, Seaman, do you know why that is?” François asked, taking no heed of Melina and continuing with his own answer. “The purpose of your division is to service the brave men and women on the front lines. To walk on patrol is to experience their fate, to properly motivate you and show you the importance of keeping our ships stocked, our bases running smoothly, and our weapons – “ François grunted slightly as he reached into his suit pocket, removing a lighter and throwing it at Melina. “Cleaned and ready for action. That’s mine.”

The Captain’s rummaging around in his pockets wasn’t over. He brought out a cigarette, and before either Alex or Melina could see what happened, it was lit and burning, despite the lighter being firmly in the latter’s possession. “By seeing how fighters operate, you can understand how better to service them, to make sure that their efficiency remains at one hundred percent.”

“Seaman Drake, you may come from the Logistics Division, but you have full permission to fire your pistol, it should hardly come to that. With any luck, nothing will happen at all. Speaking of which, what is your weapon of choice, Seaman Recruit Dorn?”

[Mr. Moon]

Alexander #5

The Seaman Recruit was looking down on the captain, not because he would be trying to disrespect him, but simply because of the sheer physical difference in their height, silently waiting for Melina's equipment to be fetched, as he had his own weapons with him.
As they waited, Dorn was trying to judge Francois and his nature more thoroughly, but he could reach any real conclusion. For someone as young as him to reach the rank of captain, despite the obvious lack of discipline could mean one of two possibilities. First, improbable, he was a genius, who made it through the ranks thanks to his own skills and abilities. Second, much more likely, he was yet another product of extensive nepotism, a rich kid with influential parents or friends, that put him into a position of power despite his lack of necessary skills and experiences. The first option would earn his respect, the second one was a great reason for some unexpected combat losses. Fortunately for the young captain, this assignment was only temporal one, because Alexander was more inclined to believe the second one.
Eventually, someone fetched Melina her equipment, so their mission could really start.
As they were leaving the base, captain Francois lectured Seaman Drake about the reasons why she should take a part in this mission. And while the elderly veteran agreed with him, the cynic inside was pointing out, that the wisdom hidden in them was probably someone else's and that Seaman Drake won't accept it anyway.
Either way, as the captain finished his speech, he turned to Dorn with a question, that seemed to be rather meaningless. He already told him, that he went through the basic training and he had all his weapons with him, so what was the point in asking? But then, the boy still was a captain, so Alexander felt obligated to answer.
"Sir, I went through the basic training, meaning, I was judged competent in using cutlass, pistol, and rifle, by the combat instructor."
More than that would be waste of breath.