Post by OLIVER PHILLIPS on Mar 7, 2015 8:51:32 GMT
Oliver had had a navigator once before, but they had failed the tests and been separated a week later. His next navigator was injured before they even met. So he was about to be assigned his third. But, not surprisingly, he was not the priority. The fighters who hadn't already had partners got first dibs on the new navigators that had landed on Praxis that morning.
Standing back he swung the broom handle carelessly around his head before putting it out in front of him, leaning on it as the double doors swing open and all of the other fighters got to their feet. It was traditional that fighters greeted their navigators in their uniform. So all the fighters, except one, were dressed from head to toe in their black uniform. The navigators were walking through in their green. While Oliver had stuck to the 'all black' rule, he had traded his shirt for a vest top and his boots had been discarded to one side and he was walking around bare footed.
He wasn't expecting a navigator to pick him, they wanted one of the untarnished fighters so they could be the new 'ultimate team'. No re-assignments, no deaths, just kills. Oli had covered two of the three. But his re-assignments put a bad taste in people's mouths. Though he had heard a rumour that one of the navigators had also been re-assigned. So maybe he was in with a chance with that one?
Not that it was really the end of the world. He still had three years left to find a navigator. Not exactly a rush to get hitched. He would worry more if the time got closer. Twenty-five was the edge of your prime in the eyes of the government and if you hadn't found a partner by then it was too late.
Clenching his jaw he watched the navigators walk in and line up opposite the fighters. Oliver stood at one end of the row next to a man he had been sparring with only moments before and looked at the new recruits. They looked the same as every set of navigators he had seen - fresh faced, ready for anything. Except they had no clue what 'anything' might be. But there was one that caught his eye, right down the opposite end of the hall. Oli smiled slightly and licked his lower lip, trying to catch the man's gaze.
Oli had never really had a preference of men or women or other species - but he had found he worked a lot better in a space ship with another man than anything else. His friend had been paired with a woman and found it far easier than with another man. Everyone had their own preference. It wasn't frowned upon for two men, two women or inter-species pairs to be formed. What was taboo was two fighters or two navigators together.
Oliver nudged the fighter next to him as a young woman made her way over. The fighter grinned at him and stepped forward, taking the woman's paperwork and handing over his own.
The paperwork was their training portfolio, their home life, where they had come from. Anything the other person needed to know. Oliver had heard that back on Earth people had gone on hundreds of dates to learn things about their partner. But here, now, it was all written down for him in a neat little folder. His own was by his feet, a little ripped and folded in places. It looked like it had been passed around a lot of people, not like the man next to him, who's papers were as pristine as they would have been coming out of the computer.
He grinned as the two returned their paperwork and headed off to be assigned a ship. Rolling his eyes he began absentmindedly rolling the broom handle between his hands, looking intently at the floor as he heard the people around him scurrying off to get their ships and their dormitories.
@open, oli is looking for his navigator