| Game Theory |
| Summary: | Conversation in the game room brings out a big mix of pilots. |
| Date: | MD027 |
| Related Logs: | None |
| Players: |
 .. .. .. .. .. .. .. |
Game Room
Jason is killing some off-duty time in the game room, along with a handful of other officers and enlisted. For his part, he's playing a solitaire-like game with a deck of Triad cards. He's absorbed in it, brow furrowed as he places the cards.
Roubani has his hands in his pockets as he steps into the game room, with the distinct air of someone seeing a place for the first time. As two laughing crewmen come in behind him he steps to the side, far enough that they don't risk bumping into him.
Who knows how long she's been here, but Eddie's got a veritable nest of cigarette butts stamped into a little black ashtray, and there's a little cloud of smoke hovering around her head. She's doing nothing more than reading a book, such an odd place to do so, though a checker board sits idle in front of her as if she was playing a game not long ago. The book? Pure smut, complete with half naked people entwined on the cover.
Jason gives deep thought on where to place his next card, holding it up, idly toying with it between his fingertips. The laughter of the crewman makes him look up, and spot Roubani. A friendly nod of recognition is offered, though the recognition itself is vague. While he's looking up, his eyes drift over to Eddie. That cloud of smoke is eyed with some interest.
Roubani has to step yet further in to avoid another entourage exiting the place, which apparently spurrs him to pry himself away from the general hatch area. He coughs quietly as a bit of Eddie's smoke drifts his way, trying to hide the sound, and gives Jason a vague smile. "Hey. The astronomer, right?"
Eddie flicks a gaze up over the top of her book, dark eyes shifting from Jason to Roubani and back again. To that little cough? She merely exhales another lung full of smoke, which curls around the edges of the pages and drifts towards the ceiling as she goes back to reading.
Jason's reaction to the smoke is more welcoming. "Excuse me?" he says to Eddie. "Could I borrow one of those? I left my pack back in my bunk." Bumming taken care of, he looks up at Roubani. He half-smiles and shrugs. "Once and future astronomer, yes. It's just a side effect of my current day job. Want to sit down?"
Roubani looks at the available seats, assessing each one first before he sits. "An astronomer told me once that there's a formula to calculate your latitude using only a cigarette packet and the position of the noon sun," he says, as he watches the bumming take place. "I guess a lot of them smoke. And get lost."
Kai arrives from the Hallway - Deck 3, Fore.
Kai has arrived.
Eddie lowers her book, tossing it onto the table, with a flop of nicotine stained pages. Perhaps its her favorite, or perhaps everything Eddie owns is nicotine stained. For a moment she just stares at Jason, as if he's lost his frakking mind. Asking for one of /her/ cigarettes? Then with a sigh, she's dragging herself to her feet. Delivery service too? Eddie must be in a good mood.
Jason gets a laugh out of Roubani's words, his grin broadening. "Yeah, they teach us that trick in undergrad. I guess you don't technically need the cigarette packet, but they make handy scratch paper. And I'll have you know I've got an excellent sense of direction. I can't really deny the smoking, though." He stands, so Eddie won't have to travel completely to his table, and takes the cigarette. "Thanks. I'll owe you one for the trip. I've got a couple cigars in a box somewhere."
Roubani shakes his head and smiles a little at Jason. "No writing implements. Just you and the equinox." He looks back at Eddie, Jason's smoke source, then up at the cloud drifting overhead as she moves.
Kai's an old school kind of guy. So his path through the game room steers him well clear of the video games and fancy lcd television, and over instead to one of the couches. Where, get this, he can tug a rubik's cube out of a pocket of his fatigue jacket, and settle in with. There's a polite nod to the trio of Ensign, Ensign and jig somwhere beneath that cloud of smoke, on his way by.
Eddie hitches her chin up a bit at Jason at the mention of 'owing her one', "Just see it makes it attention Eddie Morales over in the viper berthings. If it ain't got a name on it, it'll be sucked up faster than scuttlebutt 'bout the Commander's new gi…" She trails off as Kai walks by, like she's afraid of his keen hearing sense and his seemingly strong belief that if you spare the rod, you'll spoil the pilot.
"I'll embroider your name into the wrapping," Jason says with a light chuckle to Eddie, taking the cigarette. His eyes also look over at Kai's interest but, if he's afraid of the captain's keen ears, he shows no sign of it. A polite "Sir" is offered in his direction. With that, Jason offers Eddie another quick "Thanks" and returns to his seat at the table. Where a solitaire-like arrangement of Triad cards await him. Roubani gets a sideways look, and another chuckle. "Gods, I miss the equinox. And seasons in general. It's interesting to get to see a new starfield outside your window most days, but I miss my roof and my telescope."
"You could suit up in EVA and take a telescope out onto the hull," Roubani comments helpfully, with no sense that the idea's anything out of the ordinary. His attention returns to Eddie as she says her name. His eyes seem to take note of her tattoo, then his head turns as Kai's entrance causes ripples. "Sir." He nods to the Rubik's cube. "Setting up your students' next assignment?"
Rod, psh. Captain Marek probably prefers to roll up his sleeves and do the job right. There's a flash of his eyes as they settle on Eddie and her interrupted sentence, then back to his game. Click click click, he's quite methodical about it. "No.." he muses beneath his breath, picking out Roubani's question from amongst the murmur of voices nearby. "Just trying to frustrate myself. It's a hobby, Ensign."
Eddie scratches absently at the marks on her arms as she retreats the few steps to her table, sitting down heavily in the seat. "Sir." She greets too. Sure. Why not. That way she can't say that she's odd one out, even though she typically is. With a little sigh, she kicks up her feet into the opposing chair, retaking her smutty book, and her nub of a cigarette. "You're talkin' like we haven't seen dirt in years. Tour just started five days ago." She mutters around the cylinder between her lips.
Jason gets a thoughtful look at him at Roubani's telescope suggestion, letting out a serious, pondering, "Hmm." Though there's a glint in his eyes that suggests he's mostly joking around. "I might have to suggest that to our squad leader. She might buy it if I claimed it'd aid with plotting." He also gives Eddie's tattoo, and her arms, a passing look while he's lighting up. But, if he thinks anything of either the scars or the tattoo, he doesn't comment to it. Kai's work with the cube is observed with some interest. As if waiting to see how long it takes him to line up a side. To Eddie, he shrugs. "Point. I guess it's just going to take some getting used to."
Roubani is also watching Kai's unfortunate cube, with the same look as Jason. Kai's frustration has an audience. "Right," he replies, politely. "We're glad you've chosen a non-messy way, sir."
Kai looks quite intent upon his puzzle. Lower lip jutted out a little, thick brows furrowed to create a profile that could come across as mean if it weren't simply.. determined. He's almost got one side lined up. "That can change, Ensign," he quips back, sotto voce, as his fingers work the coloured blocks.
Eddie flips a page, if only to seem more intent on her book than what Kai is doing, but like the rest, she has to give the colored cube a glance or three to keep up with the Captain's progress. She's also not really keen on finding out what the 'messy' way is. Consider her a survivalist.
Jason's eyebrows arch at the 'messy' bit. He does not poke at that subject. Perhaps afraid of what a Viper pilot considers messy. He sorts out another card, taking a drag on his cigarette, though half his attention is still on Roubani. "So, how're you settling in? You said your post was a research ship before this?"
Roubani smiles a bit at Kai. "And how are Captain Lakuna's eggs doing, sir? Are you keeping them nice and warm?" Leaving those around to ponder that comment, he looks back at Jason. "The Demeter, yeah. Flight propulsion research…the "reactionless drive" project. Very odd people. There was a Ph.D. Captain there who actually thought that if you achieved that, then if the vehicle is placed within a singularity, the singularity might travel faster than light without passing through a condition where the vehicle mass approaches infinite mass. He broke quite a few testers and it got shut down. Now I have to shoot things." He shrugs. "What about you, where were you?"
Jason's probably wise not to touch that remark with a twelve foot pole. Marek, meanwhile, continues his quest for dominance over the recalcitrant rubik's cube puzzle, shifting into a more comfortable slouch into the cushions, with his booted feet kicked out in front and crossed at the ankles. "I hear the mess hall's serving omelettes for breakfast tomorrow, Roubani." And his watch goes off, in record time, with two sharp beeps. "Catch." The Ensign has roughly one point five seconds before the rubik's cube is pitched toward him, and Karim pushes to his feet and bustles off to his next meeting.
Eddie probably couldn't rubiks cube her way out of a wet paper sack, and as the conversation around her turns into techno-babble, her eyes just about glaze over. At least she's got her dime store novel to keep her company, no doubt whatever raven haired beau is flexing his muscle of love in her book doesn't bore his mistress with talks of flight propulsion research. All she vaguely registers is someone is leaving, so she raises a hand and twitters her fingers without so much as glancing up from the page.
"A classroom on Caprica, before this. I'm a reservist," Jason explains to Roubani. He, at least, seems interested in the talk of flight propulsion. "I did my first stint in space aboard a research ship, though. Star mapping was its primary mission. Research does collect some funny people, but I enjoyed it. It seemed like time to put in for something different this time around, though." He keeps the reasons on why to himself. Another drag on his cigarette, and a glance at a nearby chronometer. He grunts. "I have to be back on duty, soon. Later, Ensign. I wouldn't mind hearing more about your flight propulsion research sometime. Sounds interesting." Another nod is offered to Eddie, a thank-you for the cigarette. His gaze does go to the cover of her dime-store novel, eyeing the various flexing things on the cover, but it doesn't linger there long.
Roubani' left hand shoots up with reflex speed, catching the Rubik's cube. He eyes it carefully, looking over the twists and turns Kai did. "Glad you're not a chiropractor, sir. Goodnight." A row is turned carefully and he looks back at Jason. "Oh, okay." He sounds a little disappointed. "I'll see you later, Lieutenant."
Kai heads through the exit labeled <H> Hallway.
Kai has left.
Eddie finally tears her eyes away from her book long enough to see that Jason is vacating too. "See yah." She offers, which could almost be mistaken for friendly. Almost, if she didn't add. "Don't forget you owe me." Yeah, she'll probably run that reminder into the ground until it's been made good on. Eyes shift to Roubani, who's now been abandoned, then down to the Rubik's cube.
"I never forget, Ensign," Jason says with another of those half-smiles. He nods to Roubani. "See you, Ensign." And he's off.
Roubani keeps his eyes down on the Rubik's cube, jostling it gently back and forth between his hands. Colours roll. He checks each side, some of them twice, and then resuming twisting the rows. Click. Click.
Eddie leans back in her chair, tilting it onto the rear two legs. Bracing a knee onto the edge of the table, she slides her book into her lap, bending the spine at a sharp angle. "How fast you think you can solve that?" She asks, a dark eyebrow raised with the question. She's bored, and he's her new idle fascination. Ready? Set. Go!
Roubani looks over at Eddie for a moment, then back at the cube, his hands stopping. He considers it for a while before he answers, "About eleven point eight seconds."
Poppy arrives from the Hallway - Deck 3, Fore.
Poppy has arrived.
Matto arrives from the Hallway - Deck 3, Fore.
Matto has arrived.
Legacy arrives from the Hallway - Deck 3, Fore.
Legacy has arrived.
Eddie is sitting at a side table, a long forgotten checker board on its surface. Currently her attention is on Roubani who is lingering nearby, a roubik's cube in his hands. She's got a book in her lap, and an almost palpable cloud of smoke above her head from her chainsmoking. "Really? You're shitting me. Here..here…give it here.." She tucks her cigarette back in her lips, motioning for the toy. "I'm gonna scramble it, then you're going to prove that shit. If you get it, I'm buying you a frakking drink. Shit, I'm buying you a frakkin' bottle. Gimme."
Roubani is sitting on one of the deep chairs, in his off-duties. He looks at Eddie and then at the cube, handing it over. "Oh, you meant from scratch? About eighteen, then. You'd buy someone a drink just for solving a rubik's cube?" The bet seems to have him bewildered.
Matto keeps his eyes closed and one hand on Poppy's shoulder, arm outstretched in front of him as he lets his ECO and best friend (conveniently all the same person) lead him blindly about the ship. "… and then I'll see if I can find my way home again. Where are we going?" he wonders.
"The 'be-less-bored-out-of-your-mind room'," Poppy answers, leading Matto inside and taking a look about this way and that, "Although I'm pretty sure they're calling it a Games Room these days."
Into the game room walks the Raptor Lead, stripped out of her flight suit down to tanks and sweats. She's moving slowly, consideringly, which isn't a surprise given that her nose is glued to a PDA and whatever's on the screen. She pauses, though, at Matto's question - Poppy's answer, and looks up, a brow arched ever so slightly.
Eddie gives a glance to the door, lips quirked just slightly to betray at least /some/ amusement. "For solving it that frakking /fast/, yes. Shit. It'd take me the rest of my tour…" She eyes Roubani just as curiously as he eyes her, two creatures from different worlds.
Roubani is sitting near Eddie, having just handed her an unsolved Rubik's cube. One foot pulled up onto his chair, his hands are folded neatly on his knee as he waits for her to mess the cube up again. "At least you'd have something to do when you got bored," he offers. His attention drifts to those coming in.
It's really not all that dissimilar to what goes on inside the Raptor. Poppyflower is the eyes and ears, Kissybear just tries his best not to bump into anything along the way. In any event it seems natural enough, 'til the pilot's eyelids squint open, then open fully, adjusting to the light after being locked in the dark for a while. "Hey, great, game— Ohh. Hello, beautiful, what's your name?" Yes, Kissybear has spotted the widescreen LCD.
"You're a technophiliac," Poppy says, understanding finally dawning on her as she plants her hands on her hips, "Well, I suppose that makes sense." She grins, glancing over towards the table with the triad decks, "Hey look, they've got that card game they use to steal my money."
Eddie starts twisting the portions, trying to muddle it up enough so there are no two squares of the same color touching. At least that's her goal. She seems to concentrate on that task as much as anyone one would trying to solve the damn thing. "I usually resort to some random toss in the hay if I'm /that/ frakkin' bored…" Eddie comments, distracted for the moment by her task. Finally satisfied, she holds it back out to Roubani with a limp wrist, as if she can't be bothered to put any more effort into it.
Legacy dips her head to Roubani and Eddie, though her attention is on Matto and Poppy, expression…well, it's amused.
"Well I hope they last longer than eighteen seconds," Roubani tells Eddie, quite seriously. "Or we both need new hobbies." He takes the cube with his fingertips, settling his back into the comfort of the chair. The cube's turned over in his hands, and he looks over each side one by one before he starts to work on it. It's like someone hit the 'Go' button in the Ensign's head. Rows get flipped, twisted, and turned with impressive speed, the black tattoo on his forearm appearing and disappearing as his arms and hands keep turning. The pattern on the cube emerges steadily until he sets it on the arm of the chair nearest Eddie with a soft thump. Exactly timed.
Matto casts a grin back to Poppyflower, "I somehow don't think it'd work out," he remarks, "Oh, hey," he adds, in reference to the triad deck, meadering closer and reaching across the table to scoot them across toward him, picking them up and shuffling them a few times before fanning them out to face Poppyflower, "Pick a card."
Poppy catches Legacy's look as she moves towards the triad table, offering a smile and a slight wave because - hey, they're all friends here, right? Yep. Right. Anyway, turning back to Matto she looks at the fanned out cards and snatches one from somewhere in the middle. Holding it to her chest, she peels it up only enough to see what it is before she goes back to concealing it, "Card picked."
Eddie gives a hitch of her head towards Legacy. "Sir." Though her attention doesn't linger otherwise she might miss the show. "Oooho!" She says to his little quip. "Harsh." She comments, then falls silent, watching his fingers fly and the sides quickly start to match up. As it's clunked in its completed state back down next to her, she plucks it form his fingers almost bewildered. "Well, I'll be damned."
"You could give it to Marek and tell him you solved it. See if he believes you." Roubani finally offers Eddie a half-smile. He glances at the triad game kicking up with idle curiosity, then looks back at Eddie. "Morales is your name?"
Legacy settles into a seat not too far from Roubani and Eddie, lips twitching ever so slightly. "And so it begins," the Raptor lead comments, tone dry. "Morales," she says, nodding to Eddie. "Roubani. Quiet evening, I hope?" Finally she looks away from the insulin shock in the making, just in time to see Roubani thump the cube down. "Impressive," she comments, sliding the PDA into a pocket before she settles back.
Matto is sure to look discreetly away while Poppy puts the card back in the deck, giving Legacy a broad grin as he spots her, himself. "Captain," he greets, voice reaching its usual rich, jovial timbre. Then, "One, two, three, four, five, six," he counts out cards onto the table, before flicking the seventh one up betwen two fingers, "Seven! Is this your card?"
"Nope," Poppy answers Matto with a laugh, shaking her head and still keeping the card out of sight, "You're a regular master of illusion, Kissy."
Kissy's brow furrows, his lips twist to one side in a look of consternation that almost manages to take the mischievous twinkle from his eyes. "One, two, three, four, five, six," flick! "Is -this- your card?" he asks, brows rising in a comical sort of lopsided quirk.
Eddie tries to cheat, and subtly peel a sticker off on one square and stick it on another. Its a bitch, when your nail gets stuck, proving Eddie a sore looser. She tries to play it off, and tosses it slightly in her hand. "Yeah. Morales. Say, you think he'd buy it?" She looks up, seeming hopeful. "Huh? Yeah, quiet." She flashes a full on grin to Legacy, before she can stop herself.
"No," Poppy doesn't seem quite so full of glee in telling Kissy that his magic trick isn't working, an apologetic smile on her face. She takes a look at the card, deciding to try and make things better by telling him: "Close, though."
Solved cube safely (or unsafely) in Eddie's grasp, Roubani folds his long fingers on his leg again. Legacy receives a small, polite smile. "Captain." Her comment of impressive sparks an almost embarassed flicker onto his face, and he looks back at Eddie. "Depends how good your acting is. All those rolls in the hay and you must have learned how to fake it, somewhere."
Legacy has settled herself in a seat not too far from Eddie and Roubani, the pair of whom are happily ensconced with a newly completed Rubik's Cube. Kissy and Poppy seem happily involved in a game involving Triad cards, counting, and all too innocent expressions. She's quiet, merely listening to the conversation swirling around - though Roubani's comment gets a low, quiet laugh from the Captain. "Brave man," she comments, bemusedly.
Business tended to, or at least beat into submission with a stick, Captain Marek returns roughly an hour or two later wearing his duty uniform, jacket unbuttoned. Either the jingling of dogtags or the very slightly uneven cadence of his footfalls might be indicative of his arrival, and subsequent lurking near the congregating group of pilots. He's looking for someone, and his eyes settle on Althea after a few skips and hops.
"Well, what the frak, this trick always—-" Kissy begins, turning the deck upside down and starts fanning them as if to look for the cards he seeks one by one. Then, cutting himself off, he lifts his chin and flares his nostrils a bit as he peers at Poppy, "Wait a sec, wait a sec," he reaches out with a hand and deftly enough 'draws' one of the cards that matches the one Poppy's holding out from behind her ear. "No wonder I couldn't find the damned thing, you little cheater," he rebukes her with a grin.
Well, there's nothing like pouring a bucket of water on the tiny ember of Eddie's good mood. Roubani manages to douse it good, in short order. The cube? Well, at least it's not throw through that pretty LCD. And the arrival of the cube's rightful owner means it doesn't get smashed in something else pretty, like Roubani himself. It merely gets tossed with a bit of venom onto her table, enough to send it clattering and clanking. "I'm sure I could get in some extra practice with you." She snorts, scooping up her belongings and making for the door.
"Think I touched a nerve," Roubani comments mildly, as Eddie leaves like that. He looks unruffled by the display, glancing at the Rubik's cube and then at Legacy with an apologetic smile. "Sorry for the scene, sir."
Poppy cannot help but laugh like a little kid being entertained by a birthday party magician. She shakes her head, gently punching Matto in the shoulder and giving him a mock reproachful glare, "What've I told you about hiding things behind my ears?" She glances over towards the rest of the group, watching Eddie make her way out - maybe looking a little sympathetic. She actually leans slightly to listen to the comments of those still sitting, glancing towards Roubani before she turns back to Matto and muttering, "Viper jocks," in the same tone one might reserve for 'idiots'.
Kai watches the freight train that is Eddie roll by, and is just daring enough not to move aside when she does. She'll either step around him, or she won't. And'll wish she had. "It doesn't take much," he murmurs drily, reaching across for the abandoned rubik's cube, and turning it over in his hand. "Good evening, Captain," is added, with a warm smile as he settles into a chair next to Althea.
Eddie heads through the exit labeled <H> Hallway.
Eddie has left.
Legacy dips her head to Eddie as the pilot takes off, then shakes her head to Roubani. "No apologies necessary," she tells him. "It's one of those nights, I think." And speaking of one of those nights, Thea's eyes are caught by the incoming Kai. She watches the approach and then the landing, a smile on her lips. "Good evening, Captain," she replies, eyes twinkling just a bit at the formalities. "Just enjoying a quiet evening here at Breakfast Dinner Theater. Reminds me of an all-night grease joint."
Roubani blinks towards Poppy and Matto, catching her look. His expression becomes one of mixed embarassment and awkwardness, and his fingers fold a bit more tightly as he falls silent. Kai just receives a formal nod.
Matto shuffles up the deck again, clearing up the piles of cards from the table and failing miserably to get out of the way of the punch, though he laughs as he rubs his arm, "Oww…!" He sets the cards down and then follows Eddie's path out with a turn of his head. "Is she alright?" he asks the room at large. "She had that same expression on the other night in the mess. I'd assumed it was the grub getting her glums up, but…" he trails off with a helpless sort of gesture as he strolls on over toward the rest of them, dawdling as though to let Poppy keep up, even though she could outpace him by miles with any sort of effort on her part.
"I figure she's one of those solo types," Poppy explains, drawing on what little Eddie-experience she has from her brief conversation with the viper pilot a few days earlier, "I mean … she seemed nice enough. Bit rough 'round the edges but once she figured out I wasn't getting scared off she seemed pretty hospitable." She shrugs her shoulders a little, standing up as though it is a great effort and following Matto towards the rest, "You gonna pull cards out of their ears too?"
There's a prickle of familiarity between the two squadron leaders, a touch more warmth tendered toward the woman than Kai normally favours. His eyes crinkle at the corners in a fine web of crow's feet, when she mentions all night grease joints, and he continues to turn the puzzle over in his hand. Like he's entranced by the simple aesthetic of its completeness. "The Major wanted me to have a word with you. It can wait until you're back on duty." He neither vouches for Eddie, nor has anything poor to say of her. She's on her own for this one, it seems.
"I'm available now," Thea tells Kai quietly, perhaps a little too quickly. But then she covers it with, "Do we have time to sit and talk for a bit, or is this something that you'd like to take care of immediately?"
Roubani remains silent, hands folded and eyes firmly down as the other pilots join them. The edges of the tattooed formula on his arm barely show. When his attention does come up it's to the solved Rubik's cube in Kai's hands rather than anyone's faces.
"Oh, Poppyflower, that was so five minutes ago," Kissy jokes around with her after a familiar fashion. The awkward look painted all over Roubani draws his interest, though: "You alright?" he asks.
Poppy cannot help but quirk an eyebrow at certain reactions that come in tandem with her and Matto's arrival. She opts to hang back a little, pretending to be suddenly interested by a board game that has been left out and unattended on one of the tables.
"There's no rush," Karim answers, smile still tinting the corners of his lips. "It can wait, it isn't urgent at all, Thea." The rubik's cube is set back down on the table when he notices Roubani watching it, and slid closer to the bookish viper jock. Isn't that some kind of contradiction in terms? "Keep it," he offers. To the arriving pair, "You look like you've just drowned a kitten. Are you terrorising my pilots?"
Roubani straightens at Kissy's question. "Yes, sir," he replies quickly, as though he were under the impression that Matto might hit him if he said anything else. As Kai slides the Rubik's cube over, his hand draws back until he's certain the Captain is letting go of it, then he picks it up. "Thank you. I'll…try not to play with it on CAP," he promises, earnestly. His smile comes back, a little bit.
Legacy considers Kai for a long moment, then dips her head, once. Apparently looks can say much more than words can. Her attention turns back to Roubani, Poppy and Matto after a moment, lips quirking a little. "We'll need to devise one of those you -can't- solve in thirty seconds," she teases Roubani. "Either that, or put you to devising algorithms to be used with our nav system."
Matto tries to tame the side of his mouth from jerking upward in an 'are you serious?' sort of grin as he shifts his head to the side, looking into Kai's eyes, engaging but certainly not threatening, "Terrorism's not really my strong suit," he replies, "And my kitten-drowning skills are -seriously- rusty. Hi. Name's Kissy," he introduces himself, "Lieutenant J.G. Matto," a little more professionally.
With Matto off making friends, or the military equivalent of it, Poppy decides to keep her distance - standing a few feet away. She moves some of the colorful, plastic pieces around the board of the game she's examining before she realizes she might be disturbing a game in progress and puts them back where she found them. The greetings being made, however, aren't really something she can pretend she doesn't hear. She turns about, "Tusculani, I'm a Jig as well."
Kai settles back in his chair and folds his arms while Legacy has words with the other pilots. He's half watching her, half studying the grain of the table's wood, beneath the grime and bisecting rings of coffee stains. Right up until Matto starts introducing himself. Dark eyes are met with pale, and he smothers a brief twinge of disapproval in the downturn of his mouth. "Captain Karim Marek." The name's spoken with a distinctly Sagittaron flair. "Tusculani, I hope you haven't suffered any more wardrobe malfunctions lately."
Roubani half-smiles at Legacy. Oh boy, she flipped his switch back on. "The IDA algorithm used to solve these was once proposed as a basis for building a targeting system, Captain. It's a depth-first search that looks for increasingly longer solutions in a series of iterations, using a lower-bound heuristic to prune branches once a lower bound on their length exceeds the current iterations bound. But it can't account for worst-case anaylsis, so it can't do what we do." He shrugs, as if the thought disappointed him terribly. "Nav systems, though. /That/ would be a hell of a thesis. Excuse my language, sir." No really, he looks like he's working this in his head now, turning the cube over in his hand. It takes him a while to realise Matto's talking again, and he looks back up, answering formally. "Lieutenant, sir. Ensign Nadiv Roubani." His accent has some similar tinges to Kai's, definitely Sagittaron though from a different region of the colony.
"Tusculani and Matto are mine," Thea tells Kai briefly, eyes on Poppy for a long moment. There's something akin to sympathy there. But then Roubani is off and running and it's all the Raptor Captain can do to keep up. "Do you plan on working on it, Ensign," she asks quietly, in all seriousness. "We could likely use something like that, so it won't go to waste."
Kissy's own accent is firmly indeterminate. Some of the turns of phrase ring of the slang tossed around in the slums of the huge twin cities of Thalattra and Columella on Leonis. But the underlying accent runs faintly… Tauronese? Or possibly Caprican. Hard to tell. But soon enough the other side of his mouth lets that struggling grin free, as if to tell Marek that, well, he likes him, anyhow. "Good to know you, Captain Marek," he replies, "Ensign Roubani." They seem to be of the formal sort, so… why not? "That's right, we belong to the Captain here," he tips his head toward Legacy. "We're kept in style, though, so we don't mind too much."
Poppy cannot help but look like she wants to facepalm in an epic fashion after the wardrobe malfunction comment. She doesn't, though, instead shaking her head and looking off into space like something very interesting just happened on the ceiling. As she looks away, she mumbles, "Nossir."
Here we go again. Roubani's techspeak draws a sliver of a smile from the viper Captain, and a pappa bear sort of pride. "From what I understand, it's the heuristic itself that's the bottleneck. Unless I'm mistaken, Ensign. Since the intersection operation is too costly" He begins ticking these off on his fingers, "and the branching factor too high even in the average case, the admissable heuristic estimate skews the path-cost function?" He doesn't seem fully certain. Mathematics isn't his strong suit. But at least it's distracted him from talk about wardrobe malfunctions.
"No, sir. I'm not too good at computer science," Roubani answers Legacy with a slight grimace. He rolls the Rubik's cube between his hands, glancing at Poppy at the mention of wardrobe malfunctions. If he knows where that comment's coming from, he says nothing about it. Kai suddenly has his attention, woe is the room. "Exactly, sir. And when translated into a program, the neural computer starts to compute all possible paths through the cost function field and ends up shutting down after the optimal solution emerges at the target node. Works for simplistic circumstances, but certainly not at the complexity needed for targetting. Or most anything else, really. Except solving a Rubik's cube." He lifts said cube with a wry expression.
Wardrobe Malfunction? Legacy finally catches that and her brow goes up. She looks toward Poppy and simply watches her, waiting, apparently.
Matto looks intent on latching his brain onto some point of this discussion for a moment, before grabbing a chair and spinning it around to settle nearby, straddling the seat and leaning forward to lean over the chair back. "Not that sort of malfunction, Captain," he assures Legacy with a smile.
"I was out of uniform," Poppy explains swiftly, shaking her head, "Not, you know, OUT of it." Still looking more than a little mortified, she reaches down to give Matto's shoulder an inconspicuous 'thank you' squeeze.
"Of course," Kai replies evenly, arms still folded as he regards the viper pilot across from him, with his hand-me-down rubik's cube. "As the function field becomes more complex, and the length of the priority queue approaches infinity.." Well, duh. He slants Legacy a small smile. As if apologising for his fumbling attempts at nerdishness. "On that note, I think it's time for some rack. Lunch tomorrow, Thea?" Poppy, meanwhile, is going to have to fend for herself.
Roubani opens his mouth to add onto what Kai pointed out, and then realises the man's leaving. Lucky him, perhaps. He glances at Poppy, catching the tail end of her talking about being OUT of her uniform, and blinks slowly. He clears his throat with a polite sound and stands. "Excuse me as well, sirs. Have a good evening."
Legacy dips her head to Kai and Roubani, though doesn't take her eyes off of Poppy - not even when Matto steps up for her. "Evening Captain. I'll see you at o'dark thirty. Ensign, have a good evening. I'd like to hear more about your theories when you have time." She straightens in her seat, head tilting to the side slightly. "I'm listening," she tells Poppy, simply watching her for now.
"I was on the hangar deck in my off-duties," Poppy says flatly, meeting Legacy's look but not wilting underneath it. She takes a step away from Matto so her hand isn't on his shoulder anymore, clasping them instead at the small of her back.
"Yes, sir," Roubani replies to Legacy, unobtrusively. Taking the solved colour cube with him, he heads for the hatch a couple seconds after Kai, heading for one of the stairwells.
