FFOF-08.5 Commander, Air Group/CAG

  "Attention to orders!" The Secretary of Defense Maëlle Comma delivering your orders was not usually a good sign.   "Zim-Zim-Zim!"   "FFOF-07 Falcon Meritant Flora Rolli, with me. Rest of you, dismissed."   "Ready room?"   "I'll take your commander's, I believe I'm entitled."   "Zim-Zim, as the fleet's matriarch..."   "I'm not! I'm Fleet Matriarch of Meihomei's Own, and I can't 'mother' two units."   "You did, the regs may not recognize it, but you put this unit on the map."   "No, I prepared this unit to be on the map, then you and Amarat happened, and the unit was the shiny jewel of flyforce. It's nice to see you again, by the way, I miss having tcha with you."   "It is always nice, we just don't have the free time."   "I blame your Grib, all that sex and you don't have time for me anymore."   "I blame you, Meihomei won't let you stay in town long enough for us to have tcha, besides, she calls dibs when you do."   "There's something to what you say, I certainly have had tcha with Meihomei, and I know you do too."   "How do you know?"   "You think you can meet Meihomei without a bodyguard unit making a note of it?"   "Oh, so they're your spies."   "Not my spies, everyone's spies, it's mostly public record."   "Not the guest list."   "For low... What, you have low tcha with Meihomei?"   "As do you."   "And high tcha, more high than low."   "I guess now, I rate low because I'm family..."   Maelle facepalmed. "I keep tripping over how ridiculously close you are to being actual imperial royalty now."   "Not as much as I do."   "Here are your orders, Nameita." The last was in a sarcastic tone.  

Mei Domine Palace of Megamisama,
By order of Meihomei, and at her express direction,
  To: Flora Rolli, Meritant of Honour, FFOF-07 Raptor, serial 1238588385-7712-18-21,
Distant Cousin Flora,
Mei Greetings,
  Sixth Fleet flourishes under your and FFOF-09 Eagle Ria Baker's patient instruction. However, I have need of her, I am recalling her to run FlyForce's Aerie as FFOF-09* Aerie Guardian. You shall need to continue in her absence. In sight of this, I have made an edict, declaring you to be the Commander, Air Group, of First Kagomine Air Group. This Edict brevets you to FFOF-08 Goshawk, should you do poorly, and should you do well, as I fully expect you to do, in six months, the rank tabs of an Eagle are yours to claim.

  "Purple silks again?"   "Ugh, I dreamed of this moment, but not like this..."   "What's wrong?"   "Distant cousin Flora?"   "Oh, bit on the nose, huh?"   "Stinks of favouritism."   "You're wrong."   "What?"   "It's actually following the letter of the regs, no shade of impropriety there. There's just not enough senior officers in flyforce to have any benched, and promoting an officer's second to take that officer's place, and offering them the rank? Basic math, if there was favouritism, it was when you got named Ria's second, when I transferred off. Except, you were the next one on the promotion board, just on half-stripe counts alone, already, before you got that ridiculous amount of them for that Merit. Since then, people have been holding you down! Going by half-stripes, you should have made Eagle with your merit!"   "But I'd have jumped..."   "I know, you can't jump four ranks like that, it's ridiculous. But you had the counts to make Eagle, as of last year. Every promotion board looking at the list and getting told 'look at her next year, she's already been promoted' keeps giving me dirty looks."   "Why do they care?"   "Because they're arndan, like everyone else, they'd like an easy one for a change. And someone with a merit of honour and a strictly increasing count of half-stripes who happens to be Meihomei's in-law and Jima Rolli's daughter is the definition of an easy promotion board. Picking fleas from your file? Good luck. I know, I've stood on adversarial boards, trying to justify slowing down your promotions, most of them gave up, saying: 'it's bad for the service if anyone gets promoted too fast, but she's got the stripes.'"   "So what do I do?"   "Do? You accept the job, you do a good job, and by this time next year, your mom isn't the fastest rise to OF-09 in history anymore."   "Your..."   "She was faster, by about 3 days."   "And you're the youngest OF-10 by how much?"   "A decade, until you make it."   "Pfft! Ria's a better choice."   "Actually, Ria's political skills leave a bit to be desired, that's why she's being made Aerie Guardian, leaves her to concentrate on servicemembers, not politicians."   "Hunter?"   "Walter gets along like a house on fire with anyone slightly crooked, less with honest folk, if you mean FFOF-10 Meihomei's vision Ross Hunter, he's already talking about retirement."   "Dad?"   "NFOF-09 Nessun Andei Dandelion's cute as a button, but he's got Dandelion prejudice all over him."   "And I don't? He's my father!"   "If you bore the name, maybe, but you bear your mother's, you have no idea how many people that trips up."   "It shouldn't, I mean, I've got the nose."   "And the aquamarine blue eyes, anyone doubting you're a Dandelion is no researcher, but that's not stopped anyone at the College, or the Aerie before."   "Anyone I should watch out for? It's not like I have even my OF-09 rank tabs yet, and it's a slick patch from there to where you think I'm going..."   "No, Flyforce doesn't have anyone 'used' to their jobs yet, you make them look bad just by concentrating hard, and wriggling your nose under those glasses."   "The Merit can't do all that."   "The Merit is part of it, but so are the fitness evals. Units under Amarat or you were denied five quarter's worth of bronze stars of readiness because of the rule that says if the xo or commander gets a better medal in the last year, pick someone else."   "How much of that was the 51st and Piersa?"   "Ridiculous amounts of that was the 51st and Piersa, who picked her, I wonder? Oh, it was Amarat, recommending to his superiours that this candidate's superiour spatial awareness skills would be wasted anywhere else... Who countersigned? This Flora Rolli, saying: anyone with spatial awareness in excess of 8.0 USAM needs to be fast-tracked to Cormorant commands and xo positions. Said Flora Rolli being promoted out of such a command only by the force of a Merit of Honour and saving over 2000 lives!"   "It was just a whitepaper."   "No one else had written one at the time! No one else knew what was needed for cormorant command, you wrote the book on the type, not just the book on the unit, it was a pathfinder for something we had never had before. Except when Lai Dang treaty happened, Lai Dang Treaty Authority read your paper and said: we'll need all of those you can spare, here's five times a normal unit's budget, make it happen. If we can get 24/7 coverage, worldwide, with no gaps, we'll perform intepretive dance manifesting your greatness."   "Did we?"   "There's a motion on the floor of the Eurani parliament to name a building in Eurani City Aerospace Academy in honour of Flora Rolli, and another to do the same in Al-Samsang Jade University, for information processing!"   "I'm not even completely 'legal' as a priestess, yet!"   "I know, but they would probably wet themselves if you blow them a kiss, try not to encourage them."   "I won't, I mean, Amarat gets first dibs on all things kissing."   "Oh, he's finally useful for something."   Flora blew her a raspberry. "Nothing wrong with Amarat."   "No? He's just underperforming, compared to you."   "You do realize I didn't help sign Lai Dang, but he did? And he was involved in the Third Treat of Sook Zenith, as well as the Treaty of Rannick?"   "Oh, so you're purely military, but he's also a diplomat?"   "And a businessperson."   "Apparently, he gave you a bunch of shares?"   "Yeah, Sirius?"   "Those fuckers!"   "What?"   "I almost got killed in a simulation, my last day in the academy. They had no idea how to simulate a priestess in the high hundred, so they just assumed I wouldn't use my powers in the simulation. When I did, I almost killed EMS Analecta Kagome, Founder-class battlecruiser, Kagomine Flagship and EMS Ambulon almost got lost on the aftereffects."   "I know, that's what caused the old owners to lose their ownership, and why I'm their part owner today. Has to be a priest or priestess, has to be serving, or be a knight of Kagomei."   "A Knight?"   "Just to allow Meihomei and Mikhala in, me and Amarat fit in just fine."   "They own the rest?"   "Most of the rest, there's 5% that's publicly traded."   "What's that worth?"   "A few Flycarrier group's worth. Billions."   "And you own?"   "Thirty-four percent, I try not to think of the numbers, I get lightheaded."   "Amarat gave that to you?"   "Said he couldn't discharge his responsabilities independantly when he became Bameimeito."   "Oh, too close to Meihomei?"   "Precisely. Well, and Nameihomei, It made him the apprentice of both, and literally, the trainee emperor."   "Just how independant of him are you?"   "I won't say I'd cut off my face to spite my eye, but I don't feel beholden to his mother or his aunt, precisely."   "You are though, she's giving you all these cool military hardware to play with."   "It's not play, it's work, and if I mess up, people die. It's not a favour, it's a duty I have to stay worthy of."   "Now you know why she keeps giving them to you. You're already her top performer, and you keep saying things like that..."   "You're her top performer. I'm a distant second."   "I don't rate on the same scale you do, not anymore."   "No, but you were here first, and your fingerprints are all over the place. Even third fleet, you had prepared with Ria."   "I won't say I had nothing to do with them, but my influence, like yours, is at a specific point in time, their current prowess isn't tied to us."   "Says the Nessun with six boxes of honour, the first ever."   "Seven now, when you got Coalition Star Ship: CSS-01 Revenge and Coalition Star Ship: CSS-04 Retribution in there, it takes up room."   "They gave you Retri?"   "They said, and I quote. Because Retribution surrendered to the Lai Dang Alliance Forces under the command of Nessuna Comma, Eagle Baker, Goshawk de Byzance, Falcon Rolli and FFOR-09 Ornate Dagger Bandolier Veneer, to their boxes of honour shall be added a miniature of the ship in 1:12th scale, 1:18th scale, 1:24th scale, 1:30th scale, 1:36th scale and 1:48th scale."   "Even my XO got in on the action?"   "He fought on the surface of the ship! There's a lawsuit to get him and Sothlee a 1:12th scale mini because of that."   "Great, is he close to seven boxes now too?"   "Closer than I'd thought possible, you do realize no one even had three until I did. War time exigencies."   "I'll have to keep him humble."   "But not too humble, Emperors can't do humble too much, and he's on a timer for that."   "Timer?"   "Well, he could stay heir for a while, but he is unlikely not to inherit, Meihomei and Mikhala both have served a long time."   Knock, knock.   "Enter."   "Maelle."   "Ria, come in, I was just leveling with Flora about your promotion."   "Damn, I just saw that myself. Going to miss this ship."   "They should make you the matriarch, not me, you certainly stayed longer, and earned more boxes of honour with them that I did."   "I'm trying not to think about that."   "Leaving, that's the hard part. You can't be matriarch if you stay, Ria. But it's a high price huh?"   "Higher than I thought possible. No offense to the Aerie."   "Why does the 4P become the president, anyways?"   "I'm literally, Fly Force chief of staff, as soon as I put on that thistle on my rank tab. Someone thought that while the Navy in Kagomei might have the numbers to have two nessun+ ranks under the supreme rank, Flyforce doesn't really have the numbers, so combining them makes more sense for now. Besides, 4P is the most important thing Flyforce is doing at the moment, we can't do anything with planes without flyers or techs. No offense, Maelle."   "None taken, we agree on the necessity of recruitment, Navy just has been doing it for far longer, but when Henrik went from Nessun-OPM to NFOF-09* Nessun-President, and Jima replaced him at OPM, no one was fooled, Jima's running the tighest ship there, and anyone who thinks Henrik can protect them will find themselves in hot water."   "Mom's not that bad..."   "Your mother has been raising efficiency ratings everywhere except where she invented new ones! The Navy's not been this bright eyed and bushy tailed in a century. Good thing too, we've needed every bit of it against the invaders."   "And your dad?"   "What?"   "Your dad, I hear he's running things as SFOF-10 Meihomei's beacon, is he doing the same?"   "Kinda, he's recruiting too, but it's harder with almost no one having even been in orbit before, except for a few pilders hitching a ride on Revenge, like he did."   "Do they have measures for that, like they have for USAM?"   "Yeah, well they corrected USAM for zero-G, basically, anyone who can keep their head while floating around and track a coordinated strike across five vectors would do good."   "I hear the diplomats beat us to it though. Wasn't the secretary of state the first department in orbit?"   "Grr, no, they weren't. Dad went in orbit a year before, they are the first ones to leave the Arndan system though."   "How's the health of those two going?"   "I should ask you, they're your beau's cousins, and his co-owners in a few ventures."   "I've not seen them since they came back. I should call them."  

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  "Hey Luci."   "Hey Flora, how's it going?"   "Fine, and you? Recovered from your trip in space?"   "Mostly, Lunqui hasn't though, I worry about him. He's just listless lately."   "Oh, we should try to cheer him up, bring him over next friday, and your brother and his miptun too? Play trivia, see a movie, just anything not too stressful?"   "Hmm, you got that chef handy?"   "He's going back next week, is why I wanted to mention it."   "Hmm, yum, I'll mention it to my layabout of a Grib."   "Be nice to him, it's probably harder on him than on you..."   "I thought the other way... biologically..."   "Yeah, but you're the one who loves new experiences, he just got looped in because you were not going without some booty call on hand..."   "Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way, he feels used?"   "I doubt it, I just think it's more in your comfort zone than his, so your mind was more receptive to the experience."   "That's pretty insightful, thanks. I'll try to make it up to him."  

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  "Hey, what's that?"   "Just got home early, decided to ask Frangel to cook something nice, than make himself scarce. You ok sweetness?"   "Yeah, just, you know, feeling all out of sorts, counting numbers isn't the same since I've seen the numbers in space, you know..."   "You can talk to me about that, right?"   "What do you mean?"   "Someone just reminded me you weren't exactly mister explorer, before, so going into space was a big change for you."   "I guess it was, not for you?"   "Not as much, I love meeting new people and seeing new places, always have." She put her hands on his hips and pulled him close.   "Well, it was a nice trip, and no one shot at us, always a bonus."   "Agreed, but it was good for another reason..."   "Oh, what's that?" He locked eyes with her."   "I had you with me..."   "Aww, I'm going to get all mushy now..."   "No need, well, you remember what you said?"   "What did I say?"   "When you got drunk, some truths came out, I think..."   "What truths?"   "Something about wanting to get married..."   "Hmm,, I said that, to you?"   "Yeah, you were pretty drunk."   "No, not drunk enough, I shouldn't.."   "Why?"   "I'd rather have mentioned it sober, I don't need to be drunk to think of a future with you..."   "Oh, look who put on his big smooth talking pants just now."   "My pants, wouldn't they be getting in the way of being smooth?"   "Hmm, oh, yes they would."