February 24th, 2011
Galveston Texas
USS Texas and San Jacinto monument
0600 hours
Standing in the officer's kitchen of the Texas was a woman around 5'11 with a tanned complexion that would not be out of place on a ranch. She wore a pair of heavy snakeskin shoes with canvas leggings covering them, a pair of navy-blue trousers and a white t-shirt mostly covered by a camouflage frogskin pattern over shirt with an eagle globe and anchor faded on the pocket. Her eyes glinted silver like a pair of searchlights, upon her head was a mop of shoulder length black hair with a cowboy hat. In front of her was 5 coffee mugs of the vessel she was an apparition of, or whatever the hell she was. As she grabbed the pot and the creamer and such, a ghostly shimmer would be observed as shades of the objects in question continued with her hand.
"Alright first up is Samuel, if I remember correctly, he likes his with hazelnut."
Samuel the ships electrician was the one to fix up the coffee maker and many of the fuses and wiring issues that made potential drydock work a hassle. He also installed some solar panels and ran the energy through the grid, so the coffee maker works. The transparent coffee in Texas's hand was poured into the first mug and as it did so the physical pot just behind her was being drained and the mug was being filled. Continuing with the other ingredients the same effect could be observed.
"James likes his extra strong, with a little kick maybe another round through the filter."
James was a former marine 2111 and worked as the ship's security and armorer. Back in 2003 the state governor had ordered all Texas navy ships be minimally armed and static crew be trained to repel boarders. This was partially in response to the Wolfbrigade 44, or the Sturmbrigade 44 as it is more commonly called, and their attempt to capture the Texas and use her for piracy against the lucrative oil shipping coming out of Galveston. She chuckled as she mentally counted the ammunition stored in her small arms lockers.
"Sarah likes hers sweeter than sweet tea and blacker than Texas tea." She chuckled as she poured the cup.
Sarah the mechanic, if welding steel plates onto leaks and scraping what concrete she could get away with counted as being a mechanic. Hailing from Des Moines Texas she was used to working rough jobs seeing as she was raised by a farm hand. She was an interesting character on the ship as she was the first to drink, first to fight (most of the time), and the first to give comfort when needed. It didn't hurt that a few years back when the SB44 tried again she shot the first boarder with a 12gauge.
"Henry, still haven't figured out what you like, let's try iced, French vanilla, and 2 sugars."
Henry was the greenhorn, at least on the Texas. He has only had the job for a week seeing as how he was recently out of a job thanks to leviathan sinking his crabbing vessel in Alaska. His job was pretty much guided tours and be a helper for either Sam or Sarah with general maintenance. He tends to carry around a camel bag due to Texas weather even in February still getting up to the 90's.
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"Mr. Thomas enjoys his with cream and sugar, with a dash of cinnamon."
Thomas is the current curator and/or captain depending on how serious the situation is. He was a fine example of the old adage Youth and Exuberance is no match for Old age and Treachery a phrase that he had engraved on his gun, and seeing as how at 63 years old and still manages to keep up with everyone else and PHO and still write reports to the State and Military. One can easily come to respect the man, but it helps when he has the ears of one of the Admirals whom he served under as an LT.
As the spirit of the Texas finished the last cup of coffee for her crew the wardroom door opened allowing the staff to come in, Henry bringing a couple boxes of doughnuts as Thomas brought in the staff laptop. James and Sarah coming in both worried about the attack on Canberra, and Sam was carrying the electrical plans for the ship muttering about what he needs to fix.
"Thanks, T, for the coffee, its going to be needed if I am going to be fixing the wiring in junction 36."
James rolled his eyes, "I'm pretty sure you're the one making the coffee seeing as how your mug is always the first in line,"
"Naw if T is really making coffee, then Sparky is first because he got that old thing to work."
Thomas opened up the laptop to watch the PRT feed of the Simurgh attack on Australia. "Dreadnaught England hero KIA. 5-minute alert."
"Well damn that much destruction and we are only getting to the second wave." Henry sighed
"Texas can really bring the hurt to that bitch if we can get her guns working. Then show Dreadnaught a real DREADNAUGHT."
"Sam stop there is no way Texas can survive an endbringer fight, that's how we lost 4 carriers including the Lincoln and their task groups."
"The old girl if she were functioning would last a hell'ova lot longer than they would. Even rusted she's still got 12 inches of Pittsburg steel so I'm sure she would last a good bit Henry."
"Second wave deploying." Spoke Dragon on the stream.
"Holy shit who the fuck was that who tackled ziz through that building." Exclaims James
"Are those SBDs, and bearcats, who is summoning them?"
"I don't know old man, but I think the cape who is going to town with simmi is BB70 so probably a ship spirit given form."
"Sam go practice your mumbo jumbo elsewhere. I swear you mutter things about murphy every 5 minutes. And ships don't have spirits, it's probably a parahuman mucking about with probability."
"Feed shut off, and James, electricians are a superstitious bunch so don't bother arguing."
"PRT probably didn't want to show a rogue who all but gave the finger to the rules winning against an Endbringer. They didn't even like it when T made doughnuts."
"I thought that was you, Sarah?"
"No, they were fresh when I got there."
"Well, that explains why you asked for a doughnut card."
Texas was smiling unseen by her current crew, small as they are.