At some indeterminate time on some indeterminate day in the indeterminate future, you, Rear Admiral (lower half) Ryan Settle find yourself at your desk with *nothing to do.*
For a single long minute, the sheer delicious novelty steals over you in a tide of euphoria. The creak of your chair as you recline luxuriously is a sweet song of victory, the brilliant, clean white expanse of an empty inbox contributing an apropos sense of Zen. When you were still struggling for rank your one luxury was waking up in the middle of the night so you could roll over and go back to sleep - and even that meager surcease packed up and hiked to Gilead when you gained your own command. Going into this assignment you knew full well that the world has been thrust into a new and terrifying age; where the legends and terrors that have lurked in mariner's hearts for countless ages have manifested full and terrible to haunt every corner of the globe. An era where all man's pretensions of grandeur and scientific sophistication had been stripped away, leaving him to fight bare, with only his wits and inviolate will to see him through. An age of nightmares that walk and fish that talk.
But an admiral with a free minute at 1400 hours? That, you did not see coming.
And just like that, the spell is gone, evaporating like a midsummer dream as the cold, clammy certainty of the Navy man born and raised swirls in your gut. As with all nice things you have ever had, it's too good to be true. Something always happens. Assassination attempts, arguments, abyssal attacks, another pencil-pusher paperwork crisis, or Naka backsliding *again.* Always Naka, motoring along like the stupid little cruiser that couldn't. Her belt armor's thin, but her head could stop 16/50'' super-heavies. But every time you finally snap and try to cram some sense into the little bollio bint she just whips out a mirror and thrusts it at you shouting something about rubber and glue. The fact that it actually works is what pisses you off the most - probably more of her newfound spoopy siren powers at work.
That's got to be it, yeah.
You take a few seconds to let your heart slow down, rigidly putting your mental house in order. You've got so many fucking Damocles swords overhead that the bastards probably have their own ATC squawk reserved. At the end of the day, there's only one way to deal with such things - face-down, head-on, pushing through.
It's time to find out why the Inbox of Sisyphus has ceased its torrent of woe.
It is finally time to meet your staff.
[X] THIS IS A SNEAKING MISSION, SNAKE
[ ] Walk right through the front doors. In the words of a great man, you don't need no appointment. This is an *emergency.*
[ ] Donuts. Enough donuts will paper over any first meet and greet.
*later*
You give the Official Map a brief glance before proceeding to the more reliable method. You locate the closest break room, and loiter in the approaches, trying to go unnoticed. Arizona helps greatly with this - despite the prominently-displayed rank on your shoulders, every man - and a few of the women - only have eyes for her. At least until they notice The Smile, still shining brilliant and terrible - and then they move on, focused on their donuts or debbie cakes. Soon you find your mark. There's nothing outwardly remarkable about the man - no obvious pocket protector, no sagging gut, not even the squinty-eyed expression of men prone to policing moustaches - but there it is nonetheless, the involuntary tightening of your muscles, bone-deep instinct battening down the hatches in expectation of the Two Minutes Hate. (Usually; his best zero-to-savage time was clocked at one-point-seven seconds.)
Yes. It's the stench of those the Other Forces deem "Staff Sergeants." The Navy, as usual, is more accurate with their appellations - they are known as Petty Officers, and none are pettier than the First-Class ones. You fall in behind him as he leaves with a box cram-packed with donuts, shadowing at a safe distance, but close enough to sprint in and strike when the time is right.
You follow him for what seems like ages; winding through dingier and older halls - and downward. You resist the urge to steal a donut and place it on the floor to see if it rolls - your descent is marked by ever-dingier emergency staircases at regular intervals, so you know the floor isn't on a subtle, descending slope. You rub your shoulder epaulets nervously - you were your Holy Nation's most beloved star, but you doubt you'll be shining much light down here. You let your quarry gain some distance as you reach a place on sub-basement level C, where the lights flicker and struggle, their loud, mournful buzz insufficient to cover the sound of your footsteps as they echo off bare concrete floors.
Down here, where the light does not shine and joy is unknown, is where the staff really live. This is the cubicle farm, the sausage factory, where lavishly detailed reports fashioned with love and care are sent to be violated and torn apart. You can almost hear their final screams as they are gutted, violated, raped to provide the raw ingredients for that nightmare of blood and bone, one long disembodied scream hidden behind a mask of spinning animations and fucking clip-art.
This is where the PowerPoints are made.
The last door looms large before you, the man on the donuts run accelerating with relief as his goal hoves near.
Now is your time to strike.
You cruise up behind him quietly, handling your cane expertly to keep the ambient noise down. Limping into position, you wait till he's too busy juggling the box in one hand to reach for the door to notice the quick scurrying sounds of your last-mile dash. He's just turning the knob when you close for the kill.
"Hey."
He pauses, and glances over his shoulder - and sees the star, shining bright and gold and terrible in the darkness. You see his face remain the same pale color as the horror of his fate settles heavy upon his shoulders.
"Hello, Admiral," he says, flicking his eyes around as he seeks an escape route - clearly willing to sacrifice himself to lead you away from the pack. He knows that if he's taken alive, you know everything. Office schedules, the coffee fund balance - Earth. "How can I help you?"
"Actually, I came to help you guys!" you say cheerfully. "Since you guys make me all those really good PowerPoints, I thought I'd do one for you all."
He blinks, trying to comprehend the sight of what boils down to a barking cat.
With a flourish you produce a USB drive from your front pocket, like a conjurer producing a dove. "Yep, time for our annual motivational toolbox talk, you know? And I thought, hey, I should pay it forward." You oscillate your palm up and down as if weighing the little pen drive. "Over six thousand slides on this little thing. Isn't technology amazing?" You grin. "And they say you can't teach an old sea dog new tricks. It took me hours to go through that box of old floppies."
He blinks again. "Floppies."
"With all my clipart on them, of course." You nod. "Kids these days just go Cuck-Cuck-Floogle it or something, but in the day, we had to work with what we had on hand. We'd trade them around, passing floppies under the table. We amassed personal libraries, like wizards with spellbooks, and guarded them jealously. You know how I made command rank?" You smile, cutting your eyes both ways before leaning in. "Snuck an electromagnet into my main rival's apartment. Shut him the fuck down. The still call it 'Settling scores' at Annapolis."
A single bead of sweat runs down - no, wait. Tear. That's a tear.
"Anyway we're gonna be at this all night, so if you could run and get us another box of donuts to tide us over, that'd be swell."
You see the mad, panicked fear in his eyes as his better nature impels him to seize the USB drive and swallow it, like a solider diving on a grenade for his squad....
... but in the end, there are some things not even the greatest of men can withstand. He nods, almost wailing with relief as he runs down the hallway, fleeing the nightmare faster than a PL Proteus fleet. You wave him mocking goodbye, then nod at Arizona.
The Smile is gone. She's staring you, lips parted as a shiver of dread runs through her petite frame.
You smirk at her and flip a little salute at the brim of your hat. Picking up the discarded donut box, you open the door and step into the staff - your staff's - office space.
You find a sea of cubicles stretching across a largish room, dimly lit and reeking of stale coffee and smelling faintly like an Office Max. There's the obligatory motivational poster with a cat by the door, and in the back you can see a large laser printer in the middle of a pentagram, a small candle smoldering at each star-point. In other words, it's perfectly normal...
... until the smell of donuts wafts through the room, and heads start to emerge from the cubicles like prairie dogs popping out of their holes. Bleary eyes focus on you and widen in horror and recognition. The first one tries to sound an alarm, but in his horror he chokes on the words - and soon there's four or five people shivering like rabbits in the shadow of a hawk.
And that's when you find the throne.
At the back of the room, near the supply closet, you see a raised dais built with disassembled cubicle sides. Atop it sits a throne made of stacked paper reams, the seat papered with never-filled IT ticket printouts. And upon it, reclining under a decorative arch made of old CRT monitors expertly wedged together, sits the Queen, long, lovely legs crossed just-so to draw attention to taught thighs and shapely calves. She surveys her domain with cool disinterest, her eyes mysteriously hidden behind shutter shades-
- which are removed with slow, deliberate horror a moment later to reveal the rapidly-clouding face of Naka.
"... Avalon has fallen," she whispers.
