Besides, it allowed people to look out at what was around them, rather than hopping over it.
That was what Misato was doing at the moment, as she was getting driven to her new command. Such a courtesy wasn't something that she'd asked for, but she was glad that someone had thought of it. This allowed her to look out the window, and not worry about public transportation, or driving herself. She could look out at how the morning sunlight shimmered out over the water as the ground car passed the bay, letting her feel a sort of peace at the moment.
After all, this was what was taking her away from her cramped place back in the city. She knew that she was leaving behind those she cared about to take this posting, but she was certainly not abandoning them. In doing this, she was taking the responsibility of caring for them, and everyone else that her forces would protect. Her job would be to work as part of the defense forces of this planet, and she could feel that weight as surely as she could the uniform that was on her body.
As her car came up to the base, she could see the rise of utilitarian buildings. They weren't terribly tall structures, and were obviously of the sort that were built more for use than beauty. Still, they managed to have a stocky sort of grace, standing behind the high fences like some pretty girls next door peeking over a property wall.
The driver slowed the car when they came up to the front gate, and she saw the guard there start with a bored attitude, like he was being bothered out of a lazy day. But when he saw the identification papers, and realized that his new commander was in that vehicle, he suddenly went to attention, and started doing his job in a textbook sort of way. That actually amused her, and she had memories of being in NERV, and having new recruits not know that she was in charge until they'd already had a chance to mess themselves up. She pushed that out of her head though, as that brought up times that she would rather forget.
After the stop at the gate, the car drove on for a little bit more, and came to a stop in front of what had to be the base command center, as it had the look of importance that such a place usually had. When the driver came out of the car and opened her door, she slid out as gracefully as she could, wanting to make a good first impression. By the appreciative looks that some of the men who had seen her, she had done very well in that, not that she was planning on letting them have more than a glance. They weren't important though, as she wasn't there to simply show off her figure.
But the redhead coming towards her was clearly someone who she was going to need to see.
"Lieutenant Commander Rabby Astoria, ma'am," the redhead said, snapping off a salute. "I am your assistant."
Misato smiled, and saluted right back. "Major Misato Katsuragi, nice to meet you."
"It's good to meet you, ma'am."
"Oh, is it now?"
"Ma'am?"
"Astoria? Relax. I'm not one to stand on a whole lot of protocol."
"I'm glad to hear that," the other officer replied. "It's just been a reflex, you know. After the generations that my people had with contacting only one other race, it's been.... different to have so many different sorts of people around."
"Oh?"
"To me, Terra was just the world that lived on its own...."
"Ah, you're a Solnoid, aren't you?" Misato murmured.
"How did you figure that out?"
"What you said. And the fact that your people do have a reputation. A race of only women locked in a struggle so old that you didn't know how it started?"
"Yeah.... That's true."
"Plus, you don't seem like you're used to guys."
"I'd only met one before all this, and he was created by a super secret project between Central Command and the Paranoids."
"Interesting.... But there aren't any secret things going on around here?"
"Nothing other than the idiocy of some of those who are assigning equipment."
"Please don't tell me that I'm going to have to sleep on the floor."
Rabby gave a wry grin at that. "No, but you're going to have to be aggravated over the units. We're supposed to have a couple of mech squads, and some fighter squadrons to start off with. Except that they're arguing over what to give us. Some of the brass want to assign us Valkyries and others want us to have X-Wings. Then they turn around and want to give us GM units, or something like that. Personally, I'd like a nice Bronz unit, but they don't ask people like me."
"They don't ask anyone," Misato admitted, mentally reviewing the various GM types that she could remember before shrugging. "Ah, bureaucratic bull. There's something fairly comforting in knowing that somewhere out there, there is an idiot who I can place the blame for all my hassles on."
"Hopefully, now that you are here, they'll take us more seriously."
"I hope so, commander. Now, what's on the schedule?"
"Actually, the first thing that we thought that you might like would be to:
(Posted Thu, 30 Mar 2006 07:05)
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