ALL NOVEL Chapter 75 Bis: Steven
The Headquarters building was impressive to say the least, even the courtyard where we were having a post-meeting talk with our friends was pretty immense. A space of green leisure surrounded by the towering glass construct around it. With a couple of fountains as well to provide an air of calm in the concrete jungle that lay around the HQ.
Definitely one of the most imposing human structures I’d seen on Earth, fitting neatly in the row next to the domed cemetery Lauren’s parents were laid to rest in.
“Everyone is staying here rather than going back home first?” Lauren asked the group. They all nodded in return.
“Of course. It would be a waste of time to go home just to pretty much turn back the day after.” Gunny replied, crossing his arms. He had stopped vaping for the time being as he had spent quite a while bickering with Eva.
Lauren chuckled. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. Luna and I are staying here as well.”
“I think I’m staying too.” Yuki replied. “For pretty much the same reason.”
“And me too.” Eva answered. “I just got here anyway. Might as well just stay.”
“Alright then. At least Luna and I won’t have to be bored by ourselves.”
“Don’t we have any work to do?” I asked.
Lauren shrugged. “Not really. Paperwork was already done for the last mission, like you heard we also won’t get the new crew names soon. They are restocking our supplies by themselves and as long as we are not up at the ship I can’t exactly go over anything either. So we are just stuck here for the time being with not much to do. Unless you really want to be working out for the entire time.”
“I… I think I’ll pass on that…”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought as well.” Lauren laughed. “And those new specs we need to read up on are not going to take much time either…”
“Surely there’s something to do in this building, right? Wasn’t there an entertainment zone down below.” Eva asked, shifting her weight from one leg to the other.
“There was.” Lauren nodded. “But I would prefer not being down there for the entire time we have left on Earth. I do want to see the sky for just a bit longer.”
“Well, you are making it rather hard for us to entertain you.” Eva smiled and rolled her eyes.
“I think I know of something.” Yuki took out her holo stick and set up the small holo projector so that we could all follow what she was doing. “I read something yesterday about team spirit improving activity initiatives.”
“Where did you read that?” Lauren leaned in to see the projector a bit better.
“On the HQ’s intranet site.” Yuki replied as she swiftly browsed over. “I tend to read random pages when I don’t find anything better to do.”
Lauren squinted her eyes just a little before she shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t hurt I suppose. So, what exactly is this initiative?”
“Apparently at the front desk they have some ‘outdoor games’ we could borrow. Including some rather ancient classics.”
“That sounds… interesting? I think?” Eva leaned in as well. “And what are these ‘ancient classics’?”
Yuki also shrugged. “It didn’t mention that part, I suppose we’ll only be able to find out by going to ask for them…”
Gunny got up from his seat and nodded. “Let’s get going then. It’s not like we have anything better to do. Better to go and find out rather than sit here and think about what to do next.”
“That’s our Gunnery Sergeant for you. A man of action indeed.” Lauren grinned.
“You have 30 minutes to shower and get to class. Let’s go! Move it! Move it! Move it!” Gunny grinned back.
“Wait… isn’t that like a super old movie reference?” Yuki stood still while the rest of us followed Gunny.
Gunny looked back and winked at her. “You betcha it is, Ensign.”
The five of us arrived in the main income hall of the building, standing around somewhat awkwardly. Gunny, who was just called the man of action, was also standing around rather sheepishly now that it was time to ask the people for the thing we had found in a rather obscure page of the Navy’s intranet.
Luckily one of the NCO’s who was manning the desk spoke to us first or we might have just turned around out of awkwardness again. “Commander Davis? How might I help you today.” Although I was really happy that she named Lauren by name and didn’t look at me for the subject at hand.
“Ah, right.” Lauren stepped forward towards the desk. “This might be somewhat awkward but we read somewhere about a team spirit activity initiative…? Is that possible?”
The moment Lauren said that the visage of the NCO almost literally lit up with happiness. “Wow, I’m so happy you asked.” She ducked behind the corner and after some rummaging she pulled out a rather big cardboard box. “I can’t believe the first person to ask is our own hero Commander Lauren Davis herself.”
I could see Lauren was getting quite embarrassed, scratching the back of her head which moved the beret on top of her head around a bit. “Heh, am I really the first one?”
“Yes! And you will be the first to use it, apart from the front desk team that is.”
“Hasn’t it been on the site for quite a while?” Yuki asked.
“It has.” The NCO nodded. “But people generally don’t read the intranet page. We’ve tried to flyer as well but we didn’t get the permission to hang it up in the spaces we wanted to.”
“Good old bureaucracy…” Gunny commented.
“Hmm.” Lauren looked in the box. “Are there any you’d recommend for us to begin with?”
“I’d personally recommend this one.” She pulled out a smaller cardboard box and handed it to Lauren. “It’s a game called Nubb. It’s pretty self explanatory, you basically need to throw over the other team’s pins with throwing sticks and then knock down the king pin at the center.”
“Sounds fun, guess we’ll start with that then.” Lauren wanted to take the box but she got stopped by the NCO who put her hand on top of the box and forced it down to the desk. Lauren looked a bit befuddled at this.
“Before you go ahead and take this… Could I ask something of you and your group?”
“Sure thing.” Lauren nodded but I think she said that mostly to let the NCO lift her hand so she could hold the box herself.
“Would you mind if we took a couple of pictures while you played the game? For the website?”
Lauren looked back at us. As for me, I just shrugged. I didn’t really mind either way. The others nodded, not minding it at all either. “Looks like we don’t particularly mind.” She replied.
“Okay.” The NCO smiled and then turned around. “Steven, could you go with the Commander and her party to take a couple of pictures while they play.”
A young lad appeared from around the corner and gave the NCO a quick salute. “Yes ma’am.” And then continued to take the holo stick from beneath the desk.
“Steven here is our intern. He’ll try to stay out of your way as much as possible. Just act like you normally would.”
“Understood.” Lauren chuckled and looked at the boy, he probably wasn’t older than 16 years. “Nice to meet you, Steven.”
“Nice to meet you too, ma’am.” Steven smiled back friendly.
With the box in hand and Steven trailing behind us we made our way back to the courtyard where we followed the instructions that were provided to us in the box. Setting off a playing field in the grass.
For such an analog game which just involved throwing sticks at other sticks, it was surprisingly fun and challenging. As for Steven, it did end up being a way more fun activity too. He was only meant to really take pictures of what we were doing, but as we were unevenly balanced due to our uneven number, Lauren and Eva invited him to join the game as well so we could split the teams in half and play a 3 vs 3. He still made sure to take plenty of pictures of what we were doing though.
The winner of the first game wasn’t much of a surprise. We’d let fate decide what the makeup of the teams was and as both Lauren and Gunny got into the same team together with Steven, it wasn’t much of a competition. That said, it was still quite close if I had to say so myself. Yuki apparently was pretty good at throwing sticks, to her own surprise. Sadly for her, Eva and I really weren’t. But we had an amazing time nonetheless.
We returned the box to the front desk a couple of hours later together with a very happy Steven on top of that. We’d had our happy times on the surface and prepared to head back down to the basement once more.