NOTE: This is derived from the "Swept Away" RP continuity which started in 2007 and has continued in various forms and spinoffs ever since, first on the old Hillbilly Hell forum and presently in Wingnut City. I'm sure it's not the first or only "Humans in the Carsverse" thing that ever came up. So what?
Disclaimer: I don't own nuttin' here with the exception of my own OC's. All things canon in the Cars/Planes 'verse are the property of Disney/Pixar.
When the pitty set the blueberry shake before her, Juno happily pounced on it. Bree smiled decorously to the waitress as she received her frozen mocha. Right now, she just wanted anything with a bit of caffiene in it. She was also pondering who might be in on the selection process for this conference, along with their spouses and underlings and immediate family members that they knew of. NOT that Bree was really panting to go there, but it would be a bit of a change from the usual routine, if they could swing it. But at present, it was just an interesting social/professional networking problem to be hacked and worked through.
If her general theory held out, a good show of pleasantries to Rear Admiral Breakwater's wife, who was here while her spouse was on an Arctic tour, might prove fruitful, as the yacht woman was in good with Admiral Haynes, a high-ranking woman who did not have any direct input into selection, but one of the committee was in her chain of command. Bree's close and constant awareness of who was who and who was incoming or outgoing was of a much more subtle bent than was Brightwire's gladhanding, and, as far as she was concerned, it WAS relevant to doing her job.
After a while, Juno picked up her head. "Bree, you're pondering again. Better ease up on that before your shake turns into slush."
"You have a point. As always." Bree chuckled, then took a long sip from her mocha freeze. At last she folllowed the line of Juno's nose to see where her duty partner's attention was going. Juno flicked a blade for additional emphasis, though not too overtly. "That guy is gonna come over in a few." She indicated a Bell 222, perhaps a bit too loud in his color scheme, who was already stealing the odd glance in the womens' direction. "He's gonna try his "game" on us."
"Not another one of those "pickup artists", Bree took in her breath, almost hissing before she checked herself. "Those guys have no clue how they're really coming across." She inhaled once again and steeled herself when she saw the 222 start making his way over at what he considered a casual sauntering pace. Don't strain yourself, Hon.
"Hey," he said at last, smiling to both, though it was readily apparent that he was focused a little more on Juno. "I'm kinda new here. What would be the best thing to order?"
"Good question." Bree shrugged, running a bit of interference. "You might try the caramel latte shake. People around here rave about it."
"Oh yeah.." the Bell helo recollected himself, his eyes flitting between the two. Bree could already guess what cogs were turning in his head, separating the both of them into categories of "desired object" and "designated c***blocker". Not that Bree was unattractive, but against Juno's lithe form, delicate features and two-toned green eyes, she would appear the slightly coarser of the two.
"So what do you like?" He finally zeroed in on Juno, advancing as if about to answer that himself with "Me, I hope."
Juno paused a couple of beats. She toyed with the straw on her shake and then yawned. "Right now, I'd like to finish my drink. And then I'm going to catch twenty, because I could have another busy night. And you?"
The bright-yellow 222 backed up on his gear a bit, unsure. "Ah-uh... " In pulling back, he almost collided with the server, who was coming back to check on the HH-65 women. "Sorry." he muttered, blushing before he went into a rapid retreat.
Juno suppressed a snicker as she watched him leave. "That guy's "outergame" wasn't as slick as he thought it was."
Bree concurred. "That shade of yellow... it was eye-hurting. And it made his eyes look strange."
"He was way too young for me anyway." Juno sniffed. "So, you scheming yet?"
Bree blinked. "Me, scheming?"
"I'm onto your wicked ways, girl." Juno added with a nudge. "You're consulting that giant administrative flow chart inside your head, aren't you? Like, who's the right person to say exactly the right thing to at exactly the right time?"
"OK, I admit I was thinking about it." Bree took another sip. "Be all smiley to So-and-so's wife, she knows Whatsername who has in her chain of command one person who might be making the final decision, hope it percolates to that level, can't get too much more obvious about it."
"That's what I still find amazing about you, Bree." Juno finally let out a laugh, "You get a few names, and you get this big picture view, all neatly sorted out in your head, and you always know what to say. If I`d had that talent, it woulda saved me quite a few embarrassments over the years."
"It didn't come that easy, as you already well know." Bree drained her shake. "Mom pretty much had to pound that into me - "Take care, or you'll wind up like your father."
"Last I saw, your father wasn't complaining that much."
"Papa was never a whiner. He always told it like it was, but he never whined. And I think he likes it better over here anyway." Shaking out her blades, Bree moved out of the slot. The noon rush was now in full swing. Juno took one last draft and followed.
Bree had a few "chill" hours to herself in her quarters before she went back on standby. While Juno had her "nap" - doctor's, or rather, flight mechanic's orders - Bree was texting with her younger sister, Robin. Robin was already mated, with a Dauphin/Blackhawk cross daughter who was already approaching preschool age. Her mate, Brett Seligman, was a master sergeant in the army, and currently deployed overseas. Robin was an aerial surveyor based in Colorado; her job took her all over the state but her family home was based in Cortez, not far from Ash Mountain, and she had a unique place in history as one of the first of her world's natives to encounter the humans who had been "transported" into this timeline in the wake of a supervolcano eruption in their own. Bree herself had met them some time after.
This afternoon, the conversation was centered around Melissa's upcoming fourth birthday and the choice of a gift. Bree had found a large, stuffed Falcon Hawk plush online, and was having it shipped to Robin, as Melissa adored the famous aerobatic team. She also received some pictures of Melissa playing and cuddling with the dogs at the settlement, which she also adored.
Robin also relayed the news that Maeve Tomlinson, one of the resident musicians, had just delivered her third child, a baby girl weighing in at six pounds, four ounces. Tess Richter, the matriarch of the Ash Mountain refuge, was managing her type two diabetes despite the scarcity of insulin, which they had to extract from beef pancreases whenever they could afford to slaughter a few head of cattle from their herd. Along with the humans had come animals, mostly breeding stock, and despite building up the numbers over the past few years, meat of any quantity was still a luxury for them. Even the offal had to be conserved for the dogs and cats that couldn't live without animal protein. However, they had managed to increase the yield of tilapia in the fish tanks by 10%, and poultry by 5%, so that was more good news. With the population increased by the NORAD survivors and the Austrians and Nomads brought in by the enigmatic "Amberites", they needed all they could get for the present population of approximately 1,200 souls, or 1,500 if accounting for the Nomad group who had settled in another section of the Raven tribelands and lived off what their own herds provided, though their children attended morning classes with the Ash Mountain kids.
Bree almost always managed a visit when she had leave, not only because of her sister and her fiancé who also lived there, but also to immerse herself in the Ash Mountain on-site archives. Compiling a reading and viewing list of the best of human-world literature and media was one of her side projects, and one that her mentors in military academia tacitly encouraged. But, it didn't seem to be in the cards this month. However, there was another email from Jordan, her twin brother, and his wife Rosemary. Jordan had finally landed a position with a SAR team in the heart of Colorado's ski country; Rosemary was doing charter work and VIP transport from Denver to the resort areas. Bree, of course, congratulated them on their good luck in finding those jobs. Somehow, all of the LeVasseur brood but herself had wound up in the same state, and their parents had been making noises about moving there to be closer to their children. Guy and Sharon LeVasseur had been living in Texas and working for Eurocopter's American division, but with retirement looming, Colorado might look like a refreshing change from the Texas heat.
As Bree shut off her computer screen, she heard noises from the next bay. Juno was up and around again. Maybe she'd be up for a game or two before the evening duty shift began.
"Damn, this got complicated real fast." Juno shook her head as she looked over the Go board. "It's worse than chess!"
"If you mean "worse" in the sense of "requires higher order thinking", I'd agree." Bree smirked on the opposite side as her friend ground the using-end of her mouth stick in frustration. "But if you want to keep those "older men of quality" hanging around, you need more to offer than just your good looks and the possibility of a hookup. After all, they can PAY for that." She dipped the business end of her stick into an indentation on a white stone on the board`s margins, and pushed it onto an available intersection of squares, taking up another of the "liberties" of one of Juno's black stones and hemming it in on three sides, making it vulnerable to capture. The other helicopter let out a yelp of dismay, but to her credit, marshalled her concentration as she pondered her next move.
The game had started out deceptively simple, but Bree's small encirclements had, step by step, dominated increasing areas of the board. Juno, loathe to lose another stone, quickly took the opportunity to block the reach of Bree's pieces, wracking her brain to work out a holding action to keep the white stones at bay. She had no illusions of matching her friend's prowess - Bree had a reputation for being every board game's dominatrix - but by Chrysler, Juno wasn't going down without a fight. She scooted another stone to the last open liberty point, hoping to guard at least her right corner from the assault of Bree's snowy little minions. Bree took maybe five seconds to consider, then initiated the first step of a consolidating strategy to isolate Juno's remaining blacks and claim another few intersections.
"Damn you, woman." Juno growled. "I should be onto you by now."
"It's not that hard when you have a plan in mind." Bree pointed out. "But you have to break it down into one move at a time and not give too much away up front." She moved another white stone into a group she had, reckoning that in another two or three moves, she might be able to cut one of Juno's black groups into two, creating "eyes" on the board. Stones became lines and squares and groups of black and white, waging a cold war of patterns on the wooden grid. Juno eyed the increasingly complex array, and finally succeeded in capturing a couple of stones from Bree.
Then, their concentration was broken by an alarm over the station's PA system. Somewhere south of Catalina island, there was a yacht and a few wealthy clients who had got themselves into some engine troubles in choppy seas. Fortunately, only one of them was required, along with a flight mechanic to resolve whatever issues these unfortunate wayfarers were having.
Juno pulled back. "Oh, slag! just when I was starting to get somewhere."