Boredom is a vital consideration for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
- Bertrand RussellA yawn is a silent shout.
- G. K. Chesterton
Five women sat around the Banshee common room in a funk, while the sixth stood sulking beside the large bay window, arms folded across her chest, looking moodily out. The burnt orange and yellowish-umber wisps of the Briar Patch Nebula obscured half her view of the night sky, but the other half was filled with a myriad of stars and dozens of starships coming and going around the starbase. A wistful sigh escaped her lips as a wing of Peregrines zoomed past, bound for action in distant parts. The war with the Mulluran Empire had been raging now for some time, but the Banshee Squadron had yet to be deployed, for undisclosed reasons.
"Jeez this is boring!" exclaimed Alex suddenly from her position on the large couch. "I'd almost rather fly a garbage scow than sit here grounded for another minute!"
"You are a garbage scow," grumbled Max, looking pointedly at the potato chip crumbs all over Alex's uniform and around her on the couch, and the crumpled, empty bag on the floor at her feet.
"Yeah," complained in Sam, looking hurt. "How could you do that to us?"
"Sorry! I'll clean it up if y'all are suddenly so fussy," said Alex, making a halfhearted attempt to rise from her seat.
"Oh who cares about that. I mean how could you not leave us any chips!"
Not interested in the great potato chip debate, Jo looked up from her PADD where she'd been reading about the dilithium mines of Rostella IV, site of recent heavy fighting, and revoiced Alex's original complaint. "The Iwo Jima's gone, the Sutherland, the McCoy, the Flanders... even the Hammerhead Squadron. When is the Commodore going to give us our assignment?" She turned her head towards Commander Carter seeking an answer.
Sensing she was suddenly the focus of everyone's attention, Carter looked up from her own PADD, although hers contained a romance novel and not technical schematics like Jo's. Sure enough, not only was Jo staring at her, but so were Alex, Sam and Max. "I'll tell you the same thing I told you last time," she said patiently, shrugging a helpless apology. "Commodore Mallory will let us know."
It wasn't the response the others wanted to hear, and their disappointed faces made that abundantly clear. Carter didn't blame them; sitting here while almost every other unit in the sector was being mobilized was very frustrating. Normally, Banshee Squadron was on the front lines in any conflict, and she wondered what had changed. She had a strong suspicion she knew what the problem was -- the recent addition of a sixth member to their wing hadn't gone quite as smoothly as everyone had hoped. Jazz Phoenix was a headstrong woman, and immediately personality conflicts had set in, severely hampering their effectiveness during their last mission to scout the Mulluran borders. Starfleet was probably a little leery of sending them out into a critical situation after that fiasco. She kept these thoughts to herself though; voicing them certainly wouldn't help their morale any.
The women returned to their sulking, or in Jo's case, studying, but it only took a few minutes for their eyes to be inexorably drawn back to the view outside the large bay windows. A group of Nausicaan warships could be seen receding from the station, then disappear in a starburst of warp speed. Moments later, the USS Ronin loomed into view from above and set off on the same course as the Nausicaans.
From her vantage point beside the window, Jazz Phoenix unfolded her arms and turned her head to face Carter and the others. Her long brown hair cast a shadow across her face, but her dark eyes were alight with a smoldering inner fire that bespoke of an intense need to find some action-- Now! Locking eyes with Carter and seeing a kindred need there, she said simply and calmly, "We have to go."
It took Carter only a split nanosecond to make up her mind. Yes, they'd all be disobeying orders -- again -- but there really was no choice as far as she was concerned, and she knew the others felt the same. Lives were at stake and they were in a position to do something about it.
"Right," she said firmly rising from the couch and tossing down her PADD. "Let's go!"
The six Banshees sprang instantly into motion, all thoughts of garbage scows forgotten and all vestiges of lethargy, not to mention potato chips, brushed aside. They dropped down the bat-poles into the fighter hangar one deck below, and were suited up and tucked securely into their starfighters' cockpits only minutes later. Amid curious stares from the hangar crews, six Banshee combat craft blasted off.
Once outside and clear of the starbase, Jo set their course to follow the Ronin and the Nausicaans, and all six planes stretched away towards infinity and vanished in a warp speed flash.
Ten minutes later, the Banshees overtook the Ronin, which was traveling at a leisurely warp 5 to keep pace with the Nausicaans.
Carter clicked on the general comm circuit and hailed the Ronin. "Going my way, sailor?" she said cheerfully into the voice pickup. Away in her own fighter and unseen by Carter, Jazz scowled at Carter's unprofessionalism. No one would have been able to get away with something like that under her command back during the Dominion War, but she kept her mouth shut.
Captain McConaughey's handsome visage appeared in the lower left corner of Carter's HUD. "Well... I don't usually pick up hitchhikers," he pretended to deliberate, "but if I deprived the crew of the company of six such beautiful women they'd hang me from the highest yardarm."
"Why Captain, I do believe I'm blushing," replied Carter with a coyish smile. "Standing by for tractoring," she finished in a slightly more businesslike manner, then clicked off the comm.
One by one, the Banshee fighters were pulled by the Ronin's tractor beams into its shuttle bay 2, there to wait out the remainder of the long flight to Ferengi space and the Rostella system.
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