Old Soldier, New Commander
Posted on Thu Dec 11th, 2025 @ 9:29am by Gunnery Sergeant Nathaniel Hale & 1st Lieutenant Chaol Westfall
2,032 words; about a 10 minute read
Mission:
Long Night
Location: MACO deck
Timeline: Mission Day 0 at
The MACO deck smelled of new plating and fresh paint. Hale hated it already.
Gunnery Sergeant Nathaniel Hale stepped through the sliding doors and let the room settle around him. Too quiet. Too polished. Too… untested. A ship shouldn’t look like a showroom floor—not if it expected to survive its first real fight.
He took a slow breath through his nose, arms folding behind his back in a stance he’d held on more worlds than most officers had ever heard of. Everything here felt soft. Clean. Peaceful in a way that made his skin itch.
He preferred scars. Scars meant truth.
Footsteps sounded from the corridor outside the briefing room.
Officer.
Fit.
Fine.
Hale finally looked up as the figure closed into speaking distance. 1st Lieutenant Chaol Westfall—purple hair and all—exactly as the personnel file (and the rumours) suggested.
Hale’s expression didn’t shift, but something in his jaw tightened by a fraction.
He snapped to parade rest, shoulders squared, voice gravelled from decades of service.
“Gunnery Sergeant Nathaniel Hale,” he said. “Reporting as ordered, sir.”
No warmth.
No embellishment.
Just the bare minimum—and not an ounce more.
He held Westfall’s gaze, assessing silently, waiting to see what kind of officer he’d just been assigned to follow into the black.
"At ease," Chaol's tone was lite but firm as he too assumed an at ease position.
Hale shifted into “at ease” with the stiff precision of a man who had spent twenty-five years perfecting the art of looking unimpressed. He took Westfall’s offered hand, giving a firm, regulation-perfect shake.
"1st Lieutenant Chaol Westfall. It is good to meet you, Gunnery Sergeant," the younger man offered a hand to his elder with a slight lift at the corner of his lips.
“Lieutenant,” Hale said, neutral as a winter horizon.
Then he saw the purple hair up close.
There was the slightest pause—microscopic, but real—as Hale’s eyes flicked upward, then snapped back down like he regretted letting them wander.
“…Right,” he muttered under his breath. “Course it is.”
He cleared his throat, posture tightening by instinct.
“Good t’meet you as well, sir,” he continued, tone professional but strained at the edges. “You’ll forgive me if I’m still adjustin’ to the... aesthetics aboard this ship.”
A beat.
Another glance—quick, involuntary—at the hair.
“Some of them more than others.”
He didn’t smile.
He didn’t have to.
The humour sat there anyway, dry as sand.
Westfall commented as he did a quick observation of the Meeting Room, "a little too fancy, or unnecessary, you could say." The situation table at its centre for all MACO deployment needs and anything else they required, Westfall hoped.
He noted the both times Hale had glanced up, Westfall failed to care about anyone's opinion about his style. His life, his choice, he was particularly proud of his shuriken* tattoo on the left side of his neck. A memento of his Martial Arts journey, perhaps one day he might even be able to put some of those old world weapons to use, no matter which world.
"Did you arrive today?" Chaol inquired gently.
Hale nodded once. “Been aboard a few hours, sir.”
He didn’t elaborate on the shared quarters incident, but the way his mouth flattened suggested that someone in Logistics was probably still recovering from it.
“Got my own space sorted. More or less. Still feels like I’m livin’ inside a showroom. Afraid to touch half the drawers in case they fall off.”
The room’s polished surfaces earned a slow, disapproving sweep of his eyes.
“Ship’s a bit… clean,” he said diplomatically, which for Hale meant far too clean.
His gaze flicked — again — to Westfall’s purple hair. A quick, automatic twitch upward, then back down like he regretted the impulse every time.
“Medical’s not done yet,” he continued. “Reported to you first. Figured that was proper before some doctor starts askin’ about sleep cycles and old injuries.”
A faint, weary exhale. “Started the onboarding paperwork. Systems don’t like my handwriting. Think they’re judgin’ me.”
Another brief, involuntary glance at the hair.
He straightened his shoulders, “I’m ready for whatever comes next, Lieutenant. Sickbay, inspections, introductions. Your call.” Then, with the driest flicker of humour:
“Long as the lights on F Deck don’t blind me first.”
Westfall raised an eyebrow, "the system can't judge you," Chaol replied while made his way around the situation table to its other side. He tapped at the various control panels and everything seemed good. "Works okay for me," he grinned for a moment at Hale before he turned to the lockers lined along the wall behind him.
"Consider your boarding medical top priority, then we can do introductions followed by inspections." He spoke with firmness, not hostility. "If you see any of our teams members, relay that to them, please. I'm going to report to the Chief Armoury Officer as you said it does feel proper and then head to Sickbay," he glanced around. "Computer dim lights, by twenty percent," Chaol instructed.
The lighting did indeed reduce in brightness. "Look at that, voice commands, I read about it being one of the Challenger's experimental systems." Chaol's tone was a little higher as his excitement grew.
He turned back to Hale. "You can just offer your medical file and say all is in that, no need for questions." Westfall nodded as if that's what he was going to do. That's when he walked back over to Hale. "You want the Challenger to be dirty, Sergeant?" Chaol leaned forward, but he wasn't in the First Sergeant's personal space.
"And what's this about, more or less, Sergeant?" Chaol inquired and folded his arms. "I better not find out there's someone I have to apologize to on your behalf?" He didn't want a serious situation on his hands, they'd just boarded the latest NX-class, Westfall narrowed one eye at Hale.
Hale didn’t flinch when the lights dimmed.
But he did stare at the ceiling like he expected it to fall in.
“Aye. Brilliant,” he muttered. “Ship listens better than half the lieutenants I’ve served under.”
He gave Westfall a look that wasn’t quite suspicious, wasn’t quite impressed — a miserable little middle ground that Hale seemed to live in naturally.
To the question about Sickbay, he gave a crisp nod.
“Understood, sir. I’ll get myself cleared.”
Then came the real minefield:
Westfall leaning forward, questioning the quarters.
Hale’s jaw ticked once.
“No apologies needed, sir,” he said, tone flat as steel plating. “Logistics offered me a bunkmate. I declined.”
A beat.
“Firmly.”
Another beat.
“They’ll live.”
His expression didn’t change, but the twitch at the corner of his eye suggested the full story was… longer.
“And no,” Hale added, dry as the Sahara, “I don’t want the Challenger dirty. Just lived-in. Ships aren’t meant to look like they’re afraid of getting scratched.”
Another involuntary flick of the eyes toward the purple hair.
“A bit o’ wear gives a place character.”
He cleared his throat, shifting back to parade-rest posture.
“I’ll head to Sickbay now, Lieutenant. Meet you and the detachment after.”
A final, low grumble:
“Assumin’ the doctor doesn’t try to clean me to match the ship.”
"It will be a little difficult to have the Challenger be lived in and show character, Sergeant, she'd just been completed and about to be launched," Chaol chuckled, though his narrowed eye remained clearly not disregarding the bunkmate issue.
"Now Sergeant, for the launch and a few days after, I don't need to order you to relax, do I?" Westfall returned to an at ease stance as he waited, his expression switching to a smile after a moment of that one narrowed eye stare. "You are capable of relaxing? It seems you are a bit tense."
Hale blinked once.
Slowly.
Relax?
He gave Westfall a look that sat somewhere between confusion, offence, and the weary acceptance of a man who has heard something profoundly daft.
“With respect, sir… I am relaxed.”
He said it flatly — the way other men might announce a death.
His stance didn’t shift an inch. But the faintest twitch at one eyebrow suggested he understood how ridiculous the statement must have sounded coming from him.
“Tense is just how my face is built.”
A dry grunt.
“Ask my wife. She’s been sayin’ it for years.”
His eyes flicked up — again — to the purple hair. The twitch was sharper this time, a barely-contained wince that he buried under a straight face.
“And I’m fine with the ship, sir. Just… adjustin’. Takes a bit t’get used to a place that looks like it’s afraid of bein’ scratched.”
He rolled his shoulders once, a slow settling of weight — not loosening up, exactly, but acknowledging the suggestion.
“You won’t need to order me to relax. Or work. Or breathe.”
Another deadpan beat.
“Those three are muscle memory.”
A pause — long enough to feel real, short enough not to derail the scene.
“For what it’s worth…” Hale added, gaze steadying on Westfall rather than the hair this time. “You seem the sort that’ll keep your head when things go loud.”
A grudging nod — respectful, but still Hale.
“That counts.”
Then the dryness returned, subtle but unmistakable:
“Even if the hair doesn’t.”
Westfall gave Hale a wide grin. "Something you will just have to get used to, Sergeant, and thank you for the compliment. Do remind me to keep my head should things seem to be getting out of hand." Chaol had that tone of a man, who had fears of the unknown but had the courage to face it when it came time, underlying his words.
He gestured to the door. "We should get going, much to do. That is after boarding medicals, of course." He had forgotten that part from earlier, but it came back to him.
Hale’s brow ticked upward — the closest he came to returning a grin.
“Aye, sir. If things get out of hand, I’ll be sure to remind you to keep your head.”
A beat.
“Preferably with both arms still attached.”
He shifted slightly toward the indicated door, boots planted with the practiced certainty of a man who had followed more lieutenants than he cared to count.
“And don’t mention it,” he added, deadpan. “Compliments come easy when they’re true. Even if they’re… unconventional.”
Another fleeting look at the purple hair — not nearly as pained as before — then back to Westfall’s eyes.
“Sickbay it is. Let’s get it over with before Doctor decides to chase me down with a scanner.”
There was a gravelled, almost-amused exhale.
“And Lieutenant?” Hale’s tone dropped just a shade — respectful, steady.
“I’ll get used to the hair.”
A beat.
“Eventually.”
He nodded once, ready to move.
“After you, sir.”
"If I must," he smiled at the older man's agreement to keep him on his toes and eventual get-used-to attitude, Westfall nodded at Hale, then left the situation room, hopefully with Hale in tow.
Hale fell into step behind Westfall, his gait steady, unhurried, and unmistakably resigned to the lieutenant’s enthusiasm and the ship’s blinding cleanliness. The MACO deck slid closed behind them with a soft hiss, sealing in new paint, new systems, and all the things he’d just have to get used to.
He exhaled once through his nose — not quite a sigh, not quite acceptance — and followed the lieutenant down the corridor toward Sickbay, the purple hair bobbing ahead of him like a warning beacon he would slowly, begrudgingly learning to ignore.
Whatever waited next, he’d face it the same way he faced everything else:
Head on.
Boots firm.
Tense — even when he insisted he wasn’t.
And so the two MACOs walked on, the old soldier and the young officer, beginning their first march together aboard the pristine, infuriatingly shiny NX-03 Challenger.
off
1st Lieutenant Chaol Westfall
MACO Commander
Challenger
Gunnery Sergeant Nate Hale
MACO First Sergeant
Challenger
RSS Feed