A Marines Life Aboard The Odysseus by Tamir Klien
|
A Marines Life Chapter 0
Date: 29 October 2005, 4:25 am
I sat in the leather chair in the captains meeting room holding my portfolio. The leather was a reddish brown. As I looked around there where many paintings in the room. There was one painting in particular. It was Ship Lost at Sea. Jose Lopez painted it in 2025 A.D. It had a ship in the center and there was the raging water around it. I found it to be a very beautiful painting. As I looked around the room more it seemed as though the captain loved ships a lot and seemed to love Jose Lopez's paintings a lot to. There was a ship in a bottle next to the captain's desk nameplate, which read Captain J. Williams. I observed the room a little bit more. I then started tapping my right pointer finger on the arm of the chair. Usually I did this when bored. Then I heard the sliding doors open.
" I am so sorry Mr.…?" Said Captain Williams, he must have forgotten my name already. I straitened out my jumper to look good.
The jumper had its collar sticking up the edges of the collar where yellow and the jumper was a dark mint green. The buttons where a yellow bronze matching the edge of the collar. My pair of penny loafers where a black leather.
My brown hair was slicked back.
" It's Markus T. Johnson." I said to him. I said it quickly so he didn't feel embarrassed with himself for to long. He sat down in his oak wooden chair. The seating of the chair was brown leather.
" You mind?" Said the captain as he took out a cigar.
" Not at all." I said to him. He then took out a lighter, which was chrome. He lit his cigar and the aroma filled the room.
" So can I see your portfolio there?" The Captain said in a jokingly manner as he tapped his cigar and the ashes of it fell into and ashtray on his desk.
I slid the folder over the desk to him. He picked the folder up and opened it. He started to make muttering noises which where very faint. I could make out what he was saying a little. Then he closed the folder and slid it back to me.
" Well Mr. Johnson…welcome aboard." Said the captain and then he shook my hand in congratulations. His shake was hard and firm. Then he excused my and last said, " Oh I almost forgot your baggage is in your quarters, there is a marine waiting outside to escort you." The door opened. As I walked down the hall with the marine I thought that this was going to be a start of a second life on the Odysseus.
***
The meeting was full of tension. I was sitting in the boardroom with a few of the Odysseus's officials we where all glaring at the screen and talking to the other ships commanders and officials. I hardly felt the need to stay at the meeting since it didn't really concern anybody. Another thing I hated about this was the room I was in. I always hated this room everything was very dark. From the walls to the chairs to the boardroom table was very dark. I started to rub my temple with right thumb and the two other fingers next to it.
" Captain Williams are you listening?" Said Captain Richard over the screen. I grunted and went back to what I was doing.
" Man I really need a cigar." I muttered to myself. I peered over to a fellow officer named James. He was doodling on a notepad. What he and I where doing you would think might sound childish but this meeting was going nowhere. But each and every one of us had to stay in this goddamn boardroom until the meeting was over. This ticked me off a lot. I started to grind my teeth a little. Then as the minutes went on and on I kept grinding a little bit harder. Soon I was afraid I was going to grind my teeth down to nothing.
" Captain Williams what do you think?" Said Captain Greenberg. I wasn't paying attention to what they where saying so I was speechless. I had a meeting with a man who was planning to be apart of my ship, i had fogotten the mans name. I started to stall. I knew that I had another meeting with someone named e. I was hoping for my secretary to open the door and tell me I was ready to see the man.
Like out of a movie my secretary came walking in and asked me to leave.
" Well boys it looks like I have to go." I said to everyone as I left the room.
A Marines Life Chapter 1
Date: 17 November 2005, 3:06 am
Chapter 1 October 18, 2549
The marine escorted me to my quarters.
" Oh the Captain forgot to tell you whether you wanted a tour of the ship or not. He's been forgetting a lot of things as you can see lately because he has been in a meeting all day and he doesn't like meetings very much." The marine said. I nodded.
" I'll take a tour of the ship since well you've already showed my where my quarters are.
First we took an elevator down the Mess Hall. It was empty. There where very long steel tables. And the counters to serve food were at the left part of the room as we entered.
" It's steak and mash potatoes and gravy tonight." Said the marine. The thought of food made my stomach churn. I had forgotten that I haven't eaten anything since I got aboard the Odysseus. I held my stomach for a few seconds. He showed me through the whole room even though there was not much to see here.
Next we our way to the Training Room where marines trained for battle. We stepped into an observation room. There were four observation rooms, one on each side of the room. There looked through glass window and saw marines shooting, and dodging obstacles. We couldn't here much since the windows where soundproof. Even though this was true of the windows it was so loud in the room that you could here faint sounds. I peered over to a man in a white jumper. The man had shaggy black hair and he had a five o clock shadow. His glasses where thin and wiry. The man turned a dial on a board that was full of flips and switches. As he turned the dial I saw the environment change in the room. It went from a warm jungle to a mountain in the middle of a blizzard. It seemed like from the rapid change in the environment the men in the room where " dieing" a lot faster. Soon the man shut down the whole system and the men sat down to take a break. We left the room and made our way to the Armory.
The room was full of every weapon imaginable to the military. There was also a separate room within the Armory that contained grenades and combat knives.
" Hey want to test out one of these puppies?" Asked the marine referring to the guns. I hesitated for a moment but then took a MA5B Assault Rifle from its rack. In another room within the armory there was a Weapons Testing Room as it read on the doors of the room. The doors opened and I went into the fifth booth of the room. I loaded my gun and started to shoot. The kick on the gun wasn't too bad, the gun handled nicely. After I was done the marine racked up my score. From a scale from one to five hundred I got a four hundred twenty. Anything above a four hundred was very good. The marine saved my score in the records file in a computer in the Weapons Testing Room. Our next stop was the Meeting Room.
We went to the Meeting Room. We opened the door. There was a meeting going on so I couldn't take a tour inside there. The meeting must have been the one that Captain Williams was in. We still had to go to the Engine room, the Bridge and the Med Bay.
We went into the Engine Room. The place was loud and smelled of smoke. There were Engineers fixing a problem. The room was big so it took us about ten minutes to see it all. We then made our way to the Med Bay.
The Med Bay was very light. The walls where white and so were the floors. There were six nurses and thirteen doctors, five people were being treated. A man in a bed looked at me oddly.
" Hey is this the fresh meat that the Captain brought aboard?" Asked one of the patients. He was referring to me. I walked over to him.
" The name is Markus T. Johnson." I said to the man.
" Yah I thought I heard from someone there was a Markus something or other that was coming aboard." The man said.
" May I mind ask what your name is?" I asked the man.
" The names Steel…well that's what everyone calls me anyway so you call me that." The man said. I shook his hand and we left the Med Bay within a few minutes. Our last part of the tour was a Bridge.
The Bridge was full of commotion. There where people screaming over each other and the sounds of beeping switches and keypads. The room was huge the front was a gigantic window that you could see all of space from. I wanted to observe every inch of the room but it was to late. It was time for dinner.
"Oh I almost forgot about the Docking Bay." The marine said.
" We can look at it some other time, it's ok." I said to him. He nodded. I took my last glance of the Bridge then made my way down to the Mess Hall.
|
