Random silly. Scene would -not- get out of my head until I'd written it down. Unlikely to fit canon as we've established it; feel free to use, abandon, or fold-spindle-and-mutilate to fit.
---------- Duelling Poems ----------
Admiral Elza Newman paused briefly to look away from the viewscreen at the commotion that had suddenly erupted in the rear of her flagship's bridge.
On the screen, the Clan Star Admiral waited impatiently.
"No! You hear me, no! They're pathetic! I won't have it! I could ownzor that ship with my -toenails-!" was heard from the squirming form held back from the bridge entry by at least two - no, it was three now - GSS security troopers.
"Please try to calm down, Ms. Dolittle," the Admiral offered, getting up from her seat and pacing over towards the scrum. "We are in the middle of some rather tense - "
"FUCK NO! I CHALLENGE!" The tomboyish delinquent pushed one of the guards aside and burst onto the bridge, in full view of the screen and the Clanner waiting for the Admiral's reply.
"You wish to challenge me, young one?" The Clansman was clearly an experienced warrior, used to the work of killing.
"Nononono. Not -you-. Your fecking piece-of-shite EW officer. They're clearly incompetant and unworthy of that ship you're flying."
* * *
The Star Admiral shrugged. He had force enough to make an interesting fight of it, but if someone wanted to call for an initial duel, who was he to intervene? He turned to the nearest officer. "Bring me the technician responsible for the electronic warfare systems."
"So," he said, turning back to the screen. "You are a soldier, quiaff?"
"What? Me? No. Not hardly. I mean, ok, I can fly a pretty mean Valkyrie, but that was just because Jenny wanted to do it. No, I'm an engineer."
"Then what sort of challenge do you wish to undertake, hm?"
By this time the security goons had caught up with Lynn again, but she shook them off and kept glaring at the screen until the Clan security goons had brought in their own man. "Technician Owen, as requested, Star Admiral."
"Ahhh, good. Technician Owen. You operate the ship's electronic warfare systems during combat, yes?"
Belatedly, the man snapped to attention. "Y - yes, Star Admiral."
"Good." He turned to gesture at the screen. "It seems one of our esteemed guests wishes to challenge a Trial of Grievance. Against -you-."
"M - me, sir?"
"That's right," came the ridiculously young voice from the viewer. The girl was small, perhaps a teenager, with short, somewhat wild brown hair and wide brown eyes. Her clothing was quite casual, although parts of it might once have been parts of a uniform.
* * *
The terms of the challenge were worked out quickly enough between the two EW experts (Lynn refused to allow the term for the Clansman), and the two admirals. A fighter would be dispatched to an equal distance beyond the two capital ships, such that no direct line of sight would be possible between them. Each ship would then attempt to transmit a signal, encrypted, to their allied fighter-craft, without the other ship being able to interpret it.
A tense half-hour later, the Admirals proclaimed the time-limit expired. Lynn had been sitting back and chuckling to herself for some time by this point, while Owen was sweating and still poking at controls.
"So, just how much of our transmission were you able to read, engineer?" asked the Star Admiral.
"Oh, that part was easy." Lynn looked down at the iPad in her hand and recited, in something of a monotone, the complete (if rather obscure) passage from the Remembrance that Owen had selected.
"So, Technician Owen. Can you match her?"
"Ah, Star Admiral... I fear I was only able to decrypt the first few lines."
"I see. Let us confirm that you got at least -that- much correct, then? Read it for us."
Owen nodded, looked down at his console, then read, "When Deadeye Dick and Mexican Pete went out in search of fun..."
--end
For those tempted to google for the rest of Lynn's poem, be warned.
Highly NSFW.
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make
anything explode.
![[Image: Mk7E6pn.png]](http://i.imgur.com/Mk7E6pn.png)
