2022-11-18: Evaluation Day
- Log: 2022-11-18: Evaluation Day
- Cast: Anita Rosetta
- Where: Ra Mari, Australia
- Date: U.C. 0096 11 18
- Summary: A peek into the life of Anita Rosetta and her daily routine as she faces her least favorite day of all - evaluation day.
Today is one of Anita's least favorite days - Evaluation Day, full of tests and judgment of her abilities. Anyone else might be nervous or excited. After all, there's the possibility of a promotion up for grabs, recognition for all of one's training and hard work. Anita isn't very into it, though - has never been. It doesn't help that the timing is poor, with everything that's been going on. Life for Anita is pretty busy right now, but not so busy that she has a good excuse for getting out of it. So, it has to be done or people might start asking questions. She'll take a single inconvenient day now over many potential ones later.
It starts like any other day. Anita, sprawled out over her bed, has yet again pressed the snooze button to catch a few extra, precious minutes of sleep. Unfortunately for her, her alarm clock is also her friend and companion robot with an artifical intelligence programmed to monitor and protect her wellbeing and make sure she doesn't miss vital appointments, like today's. When Anita requests another snooze, the round object on her desk opens its eyes.
"Anita, wake up! Anita, wake up!" Anita's Haro chirps from her desk, wings flapping. It waits for a couple of minutes before bouncing off of the desk, sailing through low gravity before landing on Anita's stomach and repeating its call. Anita groans in response, indicating a successful mission. She reaches up, giving the Haro a pat.
"Alright, pal, alright. I'm gettin' up..." Anita mutters. Satisfied, her Haro bounces off of her once more, resuming its perch on the side of the desk. Anita lays there for a moment longer before yawning, stretching, and then finally sitting up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.
An important part of Evaluation Day is making the right preparations. This is why Anita currently stands in front of her room's cabinet, 'hm'ing to herself with a hand cupped under her chin as she looks through her collection of prosthetics. The rules are pretty strict - she's only allowed the most standard of standard. No adornments, and nothing that augments her performance. For those reasons they're her least favorite, but she has to have them for situations like this so they'll have to do.
With today's selection picked out, Anita carries them over to the rig in the corner of her room. It's something she designed to help her change out her arm and leg when no one's around to give her a hand(figuratively or literally), a construction of metal supports and straps that can be freely adjusted and a seat. After one too many late nights staying up working on her projects, she needed /something/ to make life easier on her. She lowers herself onto the seat, slotting today's arm into place on the rig and tightening the straps to make sure it doesn't move. She'd go out with what she has now if she could get away with it but she wanted to show off a little, so yesterday's limbs are of a flashier, fancier design that for sure wouldn't fly during evaluations.
Once the arm is secure, she goes through the process of removing yesterday's. Disengaging the arm is, by design, a complex task, but still doable with one hand. After a moment, it releases. She removes the arm and tosses it gently on to her bed, where it lands with a faint 'flumph', disturbing the blankets. Responding to the movement, her Haro rolls off the desk once more to regard it curiously. Anita chuckles at that, but soon turns her attention back to the task at hand. With her right hand, she carefully guides the left arm into the now-vacated cybernetic socket. It's easy enough, at least. The rig keeps it at the right height and stops it from shaking, so it's just a matter of finding the socket. It slides in... and the faint jolt to her nerves that gets a hiss out of her every time is proof that the connection was successful. She performs the usual exercises - rolling her arm in the socket and flexing her fingers to make sure everything's moving properly.
With the arm connected, next comes her leg. In a way, the process is both more and less complicated. It takes some careful balance, but the rig helps with that, too, and she has both arms to work with. Like before, the old limb is removed and set aside and the new one is eased in. It connects just as well as the arm did and she kicks her leg up a few times before standing up, testing the balance, and nodding in approval.
With that done she can move onto the rest of her preparations. Each task is accomplished in short order, and before long she's ready to go. With her Haro held under one arm Anita emerges from her room, pushing off the walls to allow her to drift lazily through the hallways of the Ra Mari. Using the lift grips would be faster, but she has time she needs to kill. On the way, she stops by the vending machines to grab herself a cheap, mass-produced chicken sandwich. The quality is about what you'd expect, but she wouldn't give them up for anything. She continues her drifting, now with said chicken sandwich occupying her free hand. Naturally, this is further reason not to use the lift grips.
She leaves the ship via shuttle, ferrying her over the orbital elevator and down to the planet's surface to where today's evaluation takes place - a OCU training facility in Australia. ...It's familiar. She's been here before - one the many she was shuffled between for training before the incident that lead to her transfer to Londo Bell. The ride is uneventful, as it usually is, and she manages to catch another quick nap before her Haro alerts her of their arrival. She reaches into her uniform pocket, retrieving the note that contains everything she needs to know. Meeting time, location, the process of events... She commits these to memory and sets out.
Ultimately, her dallying means she arrives at the appointed place /just/ behind schedule. A minute, at most. But her uniform is slightly askew and, notably, is her custom uniform rather than the Londo Bell standard - this is allowed, but taken note of. Anita sits through the rant she's heard before, before being sent off.
Today's evaluations have been separated into four parts - a written exam followed by three practicals covering close-quarter combat, shooting, and finally a mock battle in mobile suits. By all accounts, it appears to be difficult - a true test of what she knows. She makes a few mistakes on the written exam. In the close-quarters combat test, while she is able to sway out of her opponents range and keep them at bay, she ultimately does not land a strike of her own and is eventually pinned. While shooting is known to be a strength of hers, many of her shots end up missing the target. The mock battle, though...
...In a way, that might be the part of the test that's the most fun for her. She gets to fly, for this one. She's always loved flying. She finds herself seated in an old Variable Fighter with her Haro seated carefully in the copilot seat behind her, facing off against two proctors in the same. There are, of course, no proper weapons - only laser markers to keep track of hits. Anita takes off first. She ascends, though mindful to keep to the boundaries of the designated mock combat zone. Even from here, though, it's beautiful. She can see the whole base from here but, more importantly, she can see the blue skies stretching out all around her. She soars lazily through the mock combat zone, enjoying the atmosphere, before - ah, they've arrived. She finds herself a little disappointed they've caught up quickly, but... she has a job to do. The pair of Variable Fighters approaches, and a barrage of lasers fires her way. A quick barrel roll ensures that none hit their mark. She ascends quickly, undergoing a quick transformation into Battroid mode and spinning in mid-air, pointing herself downward. A spray of lasers sees her racking up several hits, and before they can take advantage of the situation she's returned to Fighter Mode, speeding off to avoid the counter fire. She spirals around, going into a dive before flipping herself upside as she flies underneath them - but not for long, a quick change to GERWALK mode allowing her to open fire while maintaining her acceleration. The proctors split up from each other after this, each one going in separate directions.
...Ah, a flank - Anita sees it for what it is, and realises the danger she's in. She moves to try and cut them off before they can catch her in a pincer - but they're a little too swift. She reverts to Fighter mode as they accelerate to outpace them, but they're taking aim. Anita frowns in her cockpit, considers her options... and, she spins. It appears to be a risky maneuver made in an attempt to avoid their attackers and if it worked out, it might have been incredible - but in response her Variable Fighter is lit up, peppered with lasers. It isn't long before the alarm rings out, signalling the end of the exercise. Anita brings her Variable Fighter to a landing, picks her Haro up out of the copilot seat and, after thanking the proctors heads off to the waiting while her results from today are deliberated on. She's a little tense, as she waits for the results. This is where everything could come crashing down. And the results are, ultimately...
"...Passable. Barely." The evaluations administrator for today grunts, tossing a set of papers on his desk. Anita, sitting across from him, reaches over to pick them up, paging through them as he continues. "You've got a real knack for mediocrity, Rosetta, I'll give you that. Shape up. With this kind of performance, you're never going to get promoted."
Anita looks up, studying the man's face for a moment before offering him a casual smile.
"Well. I'll just have to do better next time, I guess." Anita replies with a shrug, tidying up her papers. She can see the way her casual, unbothered tone makes the man in front of her bristle. "Thanks for your time."
He grunts in response, and nods.
"...See that you do. You're dismissed." He says. With a salute, Anita picks up her Haro and her papers together under one arm, salutes, and turns to head out the door. Today's results are... passable. No promotions. Maybe if she'd applied herself more, there could've been one in the cards!
...Yeah, like THAT'S ever gonna happen.
Her actual results might be considered passable, but to Anita, today has been a rousing success. It wasn't /easy/, it never is - the hardest part is always figuring out just how much she can slack and still squeak along, without doing so badly she gets sent back to training or drawing any suspicion to her mediocre results. She likes where she is now - no one expects anything of her, or even pays her that much attention beyond even a cursory glance. No one, that is, except the people she actually cares about... and given everything the Ra Mari crew has embroiled themselves in lately, that might be a good thing. Keeping her array of responsibilities, in her book, is the best thing she can do for herself. Needless to say she's proud of herself, and relieved to get this out of the way for a while.
"Come on, pal, let's go give everyone the good news." Anita says, looking down at the Haro under her arm. In response, the little robot flaps its wings excitedly.
"Well done! Well done!" Her Haro chirps. And it was, she'll admit, pretty well done. She'll have to think about ways she can make it more believable in the future, but... that can wait for another day.